THE JEWEL, FRONT AND BACK.
APPENDIX A
THE FIRST PUBLISHED NOTICE OF THE ALFRED JEWEL
(pp. 25 and 144)
The following is an Article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, vol. xx, No. 247, page 441:—
Part of a Letter from Dr. Musgrave, Fellow of the College of Physicians and R. S., to Dr. Sloane; concerning a Piece of Antiquity lately found in Somersetshire.
I enclose, to you, the Figure (see Fig. 4) of a curious piece of Antiquity, lately found near Ashelney in Somersetshire; the Place where King Alfred built, as Milton affirms, a Fortress: But according to William of Malmsbury, a Monastery; in Memory (as some have thought) of his Deliverance, obscure Retreat to that Place, and Concealment in it, from the Danes.
The Substance is in the Possession of Col. P. of Fairfield in the same County; by whose Permission, I had the Sight of it. ’Tis of the same Length and Breadth with the Figure: the Work very fine; so as to make some Men question its true Age: But in all probability, it did belong to that great King, it is so well represented in the Figure, that a short Description will suffice.
The Edge is thin, as far as the Letters. The Letters are on a Plane rising obliquely. All within the inner Pyramidal Line is on a Plane equi-distant from the Reverse. The Representation (in that upper Plane) seems to be of some Person in a Chair. It is in Enamel, cover’d over with a Crystal; which is secured in its place by the little Leaves coming over its Edges. In the Reverse are Flowers engraved. The whole piece may be of the Weight of Three Guineas. The Chrystal and Enamel excepted, it is all of pure Gold.
This, perhaps, was an Amulet of King Alfred’s.
Exon, Dec. 10, 1698.
APPENDIX B
ST. NEOT AND ST. CUTHBERT
(pp. 29 and 74)
Among the tentative interpretations of the enamelled Figure both of these saints have at different times been put forward, as was only natural, since they both hold a place in the current narratives of king Alfred’s life. But it is well to observe that their several relations to the stream of tradition are neither equal nor alike. The first is found united with that stream in the tenth century, that is to say, at the highest point which has been reached in the investigation of these episodes. As to what is told of St. Neot, however unlikely, it cannot be pronounced impossible that it may have had some original right to the place which it holds. The second is a transparent fraud, introduced in the twelfth century by wrong-headed zeal. A few details will make this clear.
The oldest source for the life of St. Neot is an Anglo-Saxon homily of that well-known type which sprang out of the monastic revival associated with the names of Odo and Æthelwold and Dunstan. Conspicuous examples of this type are the Lives of St. Edmund, King and Martyr, and of St. Swithun.