TRANSLATED FROM THE TEXT OFSTEVENSON’S EDITION
BY
ALBERT S. COOK
Professor of the English Language and Literature inYale University
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The issue of Stevenson’s long and eagerly expectededition of Asser’s Life of King Alfred has provided anopportunity to supply the ever increasing number of thegreat king’s admirers with a more satisfactory renderinginto English of this, perhaps the most precious document,notwithstanding all its faults, for the comprehension of hislife and character.
The authenticity of the Life was impugned by ThomasWright in 1841, by Sir Henry Howorth in 1876–77, andby an unknown writer in 1898, and it had become somewhatthe fashion to regard it as a production of a later period,and therefore entitled to but little credence. The doubtsas to its authenticity have been satisfactorily dispelled bythe two eminent scholars who have most recently discussedthe difficulties, Plummer and Stevenson.
The former, in his Life and Times of Alfred the Great,Oxford, 1902, says (p. 52): ‘The work which bearsAsser’s name cannot be later than 974, and the attempt totreat it as a forgery of the eleventh or twelfth centurymust be regarded as having broken down. I may add thatI started with a strong prejudice against the authenticityof Asser, so that my conclusions have at any rate beenimpartially arrived at.’ The latter, in his noble edition(Oxford, 1904), remarks (p. vii): ‘In discussing the workI have attempted to approach it without any bias for oragainst it, and throughout my endeavor has been to subjectevery portion of it to as searching an examination asvimy knowledge and critical powers would permit. The netresult has been to convince me that, although there may beno very definite proof that the work was written by BishopAsser in the lifetime of King Alfred, there is no anachronismor other proof that it is a spurious compilationof later date. The serious charges brought against itsauthenticity break down altogether under examination,while there remain several features that point with varyingstrength to the conclusion that it is, despite its difficultiesand corruptions, really a work of the time it purportsto be. This result is confirmed by the important corroborationof some of its statements by contemporary Frankishchroniclers. Thus the profession of belief in its authenticityby such eminent historians as Kemble, Pauli, Stubbs,and Freeman agrees with my own conclusion.’
Notwithstanding their general rehabilitation of the work,however, neither critic is prepared to trust it implicitly.Plummer says (p. 52): ‘On the whole, then, Asser is anauthority to be used with criticism and caution; partlybecause we have always to be alive to the possibility ofinterpolation, partly because the writer’s Celtic imaginationis apt to run away w