Along with Asser’s biography of King Alfred (and an incredibly extensive amount of footnotes) there are also translations of religious and philosophical books. The subtitle “Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources” is a great description of this book. I am happy that my search caused me to find this book. I’ve recently read a couple of fiction books (as well as binge-watched “The Last Kingdom” on Netflix), so I reasoned it was time to find out the actual story concerning the English king that people kept writing about. In anycase what we have a crafted media presentation for which we can only be grateful, for the want of anymore, his son King Edward the Elder and daughter Aethelflaed Lady of the Mercians remain in the shadows, obscurer figures far. On the other hand if not what might have inspired Asser - a Welshman not a Wessexman - to write it? Was this kingdom building through imitation - as Charlemagne had his Einhard so Alfred must have his Asser? The fact of the existence of the Life is all we have, did Alfred commission it - and if so to what end? If he did then that might explain the abruptness of the ending and the sense in places that it was a draft. It's packed full of source material - enough to get the curious going, not just Asser's life of Alfred which fascinatingly stops well before Alfred's death (did Asser just die unbeknown to us before he could finish the work?), extracts from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and a Latin translation thereof, as well as some wills and laws.Īlternatively if you only know Alfred from secondary material then turn to this slim volume and see what historians have to work with.Īlfred as we know him is the gift of Asser to posterity. To email * Your name * Your email * Comment Please tick the box below *Ī draft.This is a great book to get hold of if you are interested in the Anglo-Saxons or early medieval history. Some of what Asser says, and the way in which he says it, falls oddly on the ears of historians more accustomed to The loose construction has suggested, though it does not prove, that our text isĪ draft. The book is sometimes ramblingĪnd disjointed, with inconsequential and apparently contradictory elements, even at crucial points, and is written in a style Its introductory account of Alfred’s birth and descent, it can be divided into six sections: three are annalistic, describingĮvents, most military, and largely derived from an early version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, these alternate with three sections describing aspects of the king’s life and character. Unusual in being written during the lifetime of its subject for Alfred did not die until 899. Seven years later he wrote a life of his lord, most Asser, a Welsh cleric, entered the service of King Alfred in about 886.

Asser king alfred