FOOTNOTES:
[238] Flor. Vigorn. sub. anno. 871. Brompton's Chron. in Alferi, p. 814.
[239] Asser de Alfredi Gestis., Edit. Camden i. p. 5. William Malmsbury, b. ii. c. iv.
[240] Preface to Pastoral.
[241] Much controversy has arisen as to the precise meaning of this word. Hearne renders this passage "with certain macussus or marks of gold the purest of his coin," which has led some to suppose gold coinage was known among the Saxons. William of Malmsbury calls it a golden style in which was a maucus of gold. "In Alfred's Preface it is called an Æstel of fifty macuses."—V. Asser a Wise, 86 to 175; but the meaning of that word is uncertain. The stylus properly speaking was a small instrument formerly used for writing on waxen tablets, and made of iron or bone, see Archæologia, vol. ii. p. 75. But waxen tablets were out of use in Alfred's time. The Æstel or style was most probably an instrument used by the scribes of the monasteries, if it was not actually a pen. I am more strongly disposed to consider it so by the evidence of an ancient MS. illumination of Eadwine, a monk of Canterbury, in Trinity Coll. Camb.; at the end of this MS. the scribe is represented with a metal pen in his hand.
[242] Vol. i. pp. 54, 55.
[243] Stowe's Annals, 4to. 1615, p. 105.
[244] Cronycle of Englonde with the Fruyte of Tymes, 4to. 1515.
