[59] The liberal arts were seven, consisting of the trivium—grammar, logic, and rhetoric—and the quadrivium—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. This course of study was introduced in the sixth century. Asser here employs the singular, artem, which might be translated by ‘education.’
[60] See Alfred’s own statement in Appendix I, p. 69.
[61] Original.
[62] Alfred says (Preface to the Pastoral Care): ‘Thanks be to Almighty God that we have any teachers among us now.’ In this same Preface he mentions, among those who aided him in the translation, Archbishop Plegmund, Bishop Asser, our author, and the two priests Grimbold and John. Cf. chaps. 77, 78, 79, 81, 88, and Appendix I, p. 71.
[63] Stevenson brackets this clause.
[64] Mostly from the Chronicle.
[65] This clause must refer to the first line of the chapter, as there is no previous mention of the Northumbrians.
[66] From the Chronicle.
[67] Original.
[68] ‘Subarravit, formed from sub and arrha, represents literally the English verb wed, which refers to the giving of security upon the engagement of marriage.... [It] is glossed by beweddian in Napier’s Old English Glosses’ (Stevenson).