Texts
Vita Ælfredi regis
Incoming data
A Latin biography of King Alfred written in 893 by Asser, a Welsh scholar at the king’s court who had previously been a monk of St David’s and later became bishop of Sherborne. Asser wrote at a time when Alfred had established an overlordship in Wales. The intended audience of the work has been subject to debate, some suggesting that Asser wrote for a Welsh audience.
Manuscript witnesses
Text
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 100
c. 1550 x 1574. Transcript made for Matthew Parker, still free of his interpolations.
pp. 324c–364
MS
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 100
Transcribed from the now lost copy of Cotton Otho A xii.
p. 324c–
Text
Cotton library, MS Otho A xii/ff. 1-55
This copy was destroyed in the Ashburnham House fire of 23 October, 1731. It was originally found on ff. 1-55r and contained interpolations by Matthew Parker.
Text
Sources
Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.
[ed.] [tr.] Stevenson, W. H. [ed. and tr.], Asser’s Life of King Alfred: together with the Annals of Saint Neots erroneously ascribed to Asser, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904.
Internet Archive: <link>
[tr.] Keynes, Simon, and Michael Lapidge [trs.], Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources, Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983.
[ed.] Camden, William, Anglica, Normannica, Hibernica, Cambrica: a veteribus scripta: ex quibus Asser Meneuensis, anonymus De vita Gulielmi Conquestoris, Thomas Walsingham, Thomas de la More, Gulielmus Gemiticensis, Giraldus Cambrensis, Frankfurt: Claude de Marne & Jean Aubry, 1602.
[ed.] Parker, Matthew [presumed], Ælfredi regis res gestae, London: [John Day], 1574.
STC (2nd ed.) no. 863. First edition of Asser’s biography of King Alfred, interpolated with extracts from the Annals of St Neots, which Parker believed to have been written by Asser. The date of publication, 1574, is not indicated but has been established on the basis of a letter by Parker to William Cecil written in the same year (older references in the literature may have 1570).
Library of Congress: <link> Library of Congress: View in Mirador Internet Archive: <link> Parker on the Web – Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 176, part A (parts B and C are bound together): View in Mirador : <link>
Editio princeps, with interpolations from the Annals of St Neots.
Secondary sources (select)
Charles-Edwards, T. M., “The Britons and the English, 550–1064: 14. Two ninth-century writers”, in: T. M. Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 350–1064, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 437–466.
Howlett, David, Cambro-Latin compositions: their competence and craftsmanship, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998.
