An Alfredian Reading Project

Chapter 2 compares the rhetorical tropes employed in the ‘Preface’ to The Anathemata (often overlooked in the scholarship) with those of the preface to King Alfred’s Old English translation of the Pastoral Care. This comparison establishes the idea of Jones’s artful construction of his ‘Preface’ as a manifesto for the cultural project of The Anathemata. Reflecting on the Alfredian rhetorical ideal of an English nation (and more specifically an English nation of Catholics) as both a medieval and a post-medieval construct, this chapter illuminates the direct challenge of Jones’s ‘Preface’ to Alfredian assertions of English hegemony. Key to this effort to disrupt the hegemony of British Christian history, this chapter argues, is Jones’s use of Latin and how this implicates the work of two other ninth-century writers—Asser and Nennius—in Jones’s dialogue with King Alfred.

Not King Alfred’s Brexit

A close reading of two The Last Kingdom (2015–) fan fics hashtagged #NotMyBrexit, "One England" by BigHeartBigFart and "Under One Kingdom" by Honiejar (both 2019), shows that both authors use the (mediated character of) real-world King Alfred of Wessex (849–899) to comment on the Brexit transitional era. The authors mix contemporary references with historical associations to advocate for unity.

Entre o real e a ficção: a história da Inglaterra do século IX pela ótica do medievo e do contemporâneo

O presente artigo faz uma reflexão a respeito da presença da História nos documentos medievais The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle e The Life of King Alfred e na literatura contemporânea de Bernard Cornwell, especificamente, em seu romance histórico The Last Kingdom (2004). Esses textos abordam a história da Inglaterra no século IX do período denominado Era Viking em diferentes perspectivas. Ficção e história entram em confronto, a fim de representar momentos significativos da época relatada. O artigo objetiva, dessa forma, observar como o real histórico é apresentado nos textos de diferentes épocas, com o fim de compreender as relações de poder entre anglo-saxões e escandinavos pelas óticas do medievo e de sua recepção no mundo contemporâneo. São discutidos neste artigo o contexto de produção dos textos e a contextualização histórica da época representada, para então, promover uma breve leitura de trechos com base em teóricos que procuram conceituar o gênero literário ficção-histórica.

After Alfred

This book traces the development of a group of anonymous, vernacular, annalistic chronicles—‘the Anglo-Saxon chronicles’—from their genesis at the court of King Alfred to their end at the Fenland monastery of Peterborough. It reconsiders them in the light of wider European scholarship on the politics of history-writing. It covers all surviving manuscript chronicles, with detailed attention being paid to palaeography, layout, and content, and identifies key lost texts. It is concerned with production, scribe-authors, patrons, and audiences. The centuries these chronicles cover were critical to the making of England and saw its conquest by Scandinavians and Normans. They have long been part of the English national story. The book considers the impact of this on their study and editing. It stresses their multiplicity, whilst identifying a tradition of writing vernacular history. It sees that tradition as an expression of the ideology of a southern elite engaged in the conquest and assimilation of old kingdoms north of the Thames, Trent, and Humber. The book connects many chronicles to bishops and especially to archbishops of York and Canterbury. Vernacular chronicling is seen, not as propaganda, but as engaged history-writing closely connected to the court, whose networks and personnel were central to the production of chronicles and their continuation. The disappearance of the English-speaking elite after the Norman Conquest had profound impacts on them, repositioning their authors in relation to the court and royal power, and ultimately resulting in the end of the tradition of vernacular chronicling.

Alfred’s Chronicle and the First Continuations

This chapter considers the vernacular chronicle produced at the court of King Alfred, its story, and its late-ninth-century evolution. It argues that this story was both dynastic history and a wider tale of English Christian history. It argues that seeing this chronicle as connected to the court rather than as deliberate royal propaganda solves some long-standing historical debates. Using the evidence of language and a comparative method involving Asser, surviving chronicles, and twelfth-century texts, it suggests that this chronicle was already an evolving text before 900. It questions the idea of deliberate circulation in the early 890s, suggesting an alternative model of copies made at different points. The early 890s were, nonetheless, a significant time of divergence and the beginning of the story of the separate development of vernacular chronicles.

Queering the Anglo-Saxons through their psalms

For fan fiction based on the TV serial drama The Last Kingdom (2014–), some fan fiction authors use fragments of the translations of the Psalms by King Alfred of Wessex (849–899) to firmly ground their stories in the historical reimagination of the Anglo-Saxons. In the short story "Æthelflaed and Lagertha," fan fiction writer Bandi Crawford uses an Alfredian psalm to connect The Last Kingdom to another major TV series, Vikings (2013–). By developing bisexual and biromantic story lines along the lines of Alfredian psalms, the author constructs a twenty-first-century neomedieval-based culture in which the Alfredian psalms are reinterpreted or critically reexamined through a queer lens, thereby negotiating more diversity within a favorite show's story world.

The Latin and the Old English Versions of St Augustine’s Prayer in his Soliloquia: A Study and a Rhetorical Synopsis

A special kind of a short text that is embedded in a larger text is the prayer near the beginning of St Augustine’s Soliloquia, which serves as a kind of introduction to the ensuing dialogue. The relatively independent nature of this prayer was recognized early on, and in addition to its transmission in the manuscripts of the Soliloquia it has also been transmitted as an independent prayer. Something similar happened to the Old English translation. There is a full translation of the entire text, traditionally ascribed to King Alfred (and his learned helpers), but preserved only in a much later manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv); however, a shortened version of the prayer was included in a collection of brief penitential texts in an earlier manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.iii). In the present article I look at the structure of the Latin prayer and at its Old English translation, especially the relation of the two manuscript versions and their value for textual criticism and the reconstruction of the original version, their relation to the Latin source, and the rhetoric of the Latin prayer and its Old English translation, including a brief discussion of the binomials used. The Appendix provides a synoptic version of the Latin text and the two manuscript versions of the Old English translation, highlighting their rhetorical structure, something that to my knowledge has never been done for the Old English translation.