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see of Worcester was honoured by the rule of Warfrid, with his deep devotion and his power of mind. He it was who, by the command and urgent wish of the King, turned Gregory's Book of Dialogues into the Saxon tongue; oftentimes most elegantly giving sense for sense. And the King also bade the famous priests, Athelstan and Werwulf, to come to him from Mercia, seeing they were more soothly and fully skilled in the knowledge of Divine Law. Such as these did he specially love and worship, and by their teaching and learning was this Pacific King glorified above all the Kings of the earth.

§ 51. In the year 886 (the thirty-fifth [38th] of the age of Alfred the Glorious) the unspeakable Danish host . . . came to the city of Paris, and wintered thereby, and cut down the bridge, that the townsfolk might not pass thereon. Nevertheless, God granting His very present help, and the townsfolk themselves withstanding them bravely, they could not break through the walls of the city.1

§ 52. And at that same time the King of the English right royally restored the great city of London, that men might once more dwell therein, after the many burnings of the town and the many massacres of the townsfolk; and he gave it over to the ward of Ethelred, the Chief of the Mercians. And all, both Angles and Saxons, who erstwhile had been everywhere scattered amongst the Heathen, so many as were freed from bondage, bent to him as their Lord. And he, of his own gracious mood, gave unto all his fatherly good will. . . .

[Here follow the foreign events of Asser, § 103.]

$53. Many were his tribulations and afflictions in this world; but firm stood his kingly power. . . . How he widened the bounds of his kingdom, how he built up the walls of cities, how he made strong the ramparts of fortresses broken down, how he set them up where of old were none,—who is of wit to declare it all? What lips can praise it, what tongue tell it out? Yea, moreover, and how he enriched holy places with royal gifts and adornments? Full oft was he vexed at the heart with the princes, and the captains [pentecontarchos] and the whole perverse generation, because they would not follow after him in the purposes on which he was bent. Yet, all alone, strove he, by the help of God Almighty, like a skilful steersman, so to sway the helm, as to bring his ship his own glorious and living soul-into the harbour and the calm and the peace of Paradise. Often and often was he wont to repeat to himself by heart these lines:

and what followeth."

'Whoso would ever

In quiet sit fast,

Bent by no buffet
Of blustering blast,'

It was at this siege that Paris was saved by the devoted courage of the peasant maiden, St. Geneviève.

Et infra. As the first quotation does not complete a sentence, these words probably are equivalent to our, ' etc.'

'Though ruin on ruin

Be heaped through the world,
Though on by the wild wind
The billows be hurled,
Thou, stablished in quiet,
Thou, happy and strong,
Shalt smile at the tempest
Through all thy life long.'1

§ 54. The same King founded a very fair monastery in the place called Athelney; and hard by, on its western bound, a very strong fortress was set up by the command and means of the said King. In this community he gathered from all quarters monks of divers race, and set them down therein. Another monastery founded he hard by the east gate of the city called Shaftesbury, well suited for the abode of holy women [sanctimonialium], wherein he placed as Abbess his daughter Elgiva, a maiden dedicated to God. To both monasteries he granted such store of gifts and possessions as should suffice them for food and clothing all their life long.

§ 55. These things which we have told being firmly and wholly fulfilled, the far-famed King Alfred, after his wont, began to turn over in his secret heart [mentis thalamum] that which is written in the Divine Scriptures: If (saith he) thou rightly offerest, and unrightly dividest, thou hast sinned. Also thoroughly did he lay to heart and dwell upon that which Solomon, the wisest of kings, saith: 'Surely the heart of the King is in the hand of the Almighty' [Prov. xxi. 1].

§ 56. Turning over these things in himself with inward searching of heart, this heavenly minded monarch brought forth plenteously the fruit of good works, for a sweet-smelling savour. At the holy solemnities of the Festivals, what boons he bestowed on his bishops and chieftains and knights, none may declare. Then did the poor leap for gladness, then were widows and orphans full of joy; and heartfelt praises they gave him. Full well he knew that saying of the Teacher [Scolastici Then is money of true worth, when it has been handed over to others. Alms

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Alfred translates this poem in his Boethius, but so vaguely that it is difficult to say which of his lines correspond to these.

giving is the end of ownership." Finally he took upon him not only to admonish his bishops, bright as they were with heavenly radiance, that they should correct the faults of the people, and chide and check all vulgar foolishness. Not only, I say, did he admonish the pastors of his people; but his princes, eke, and his most beloved servants, did he teach that with all their wit should they ever set forward the common weal of the whole realm.

§ 57. His revenue parted he into three shares, after this sort. The first share of his income gave he, year by year, to his warriors; the second to the workmen, whom he had gathered from many nations; the third to the strangers who from all parts came unto him; knowing full well that God loveth a cheerful giver? Truly, however, was he set among the thorns of many and manifold troubles; howbeit enthroned, under God, in royal power.

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[Here follow the events of the years 888 onwards, abbreviated from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.]

§ 58. In the year 899, Alfred, King of the West Saxons, son of the most pious King Ethelwulf, having completed 29 years and six months of his reign, died on the 5th of the Kalends of November [October 28] in the 4th Indiction; and at Winton [Winchester], in the New Monastery, was he buried.

And in his stead reigned his son Edward, surnamed the Elder; in letters and in culture below his father, but in honour, and in power, and in glory no less, above him.

$ 59. In the days of this King Alfred there came to England John Scot, a man clear of head and ready of speech. He had some time before left his own and land gone over to France, to Charles the Bald. . . . He was a man of no little humour and free-witted withal, of which examples are to this day on record. For instance, he was one day sitting at meat over against the King, on the other side of the table. The cups were going round, and the dishes removed. Then Charles, with a gay face, when, after some other talk, he spied John doing something offensive to French politeness, courteously chid him, saying, ‘Come, what is there now, between a sot and a Scot?' Gravely did he return the joke upon its author and answered, 'This table only.' What could be wittier?... § 60. At the request of Charles he turned the Hierarchia of Dionysius the Areopagite from Greek into Latin, word for word; whence it comes to pass that the Latin can scarce be understood, seeing that it is construed rather with Greek volubility than with our order. He also composed a book which he entitled 'Periphysion Merimnoi [repi pirewr μepoμoû], that is, Of the Division of Nature, useful enough for solving

Tunc est preciosa pecunia cum translata fuerit in alios. Largiendi usu desinit possideri.'

* ⚫ Volubilitate magis Græca quam positione construitur nostra.'

the difficulty of certain questions, if only he be pardoned in some points, wherein he has swerved from the Latin track, by too keen an eye for the Greek. Wherefore he was thought a heretic, and . . . Pope Nicholas is known to have shared this view. For in a letter to Charles he says: 'It has been reported to Our Apostleship, that one of your friends, John, a Scot by birth, has lately translated into Latin a work of the Blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, which he wrote in Greek, concerning the Divine Titles [Nomina] or Celestial Orders. Which work ought, according to custom, to be sent to Us, and to be approved by Our judgment; more especially as this same John, though declared to be a man of much learning, is said, by common report, to have at one time held unsound opinions on certain points.'

$61. Through this evil report he wearied of France, and came to King Alfred. And attracted by his munificence, and at his appointment, as is known by the King's writ, he settled at Meldun [Malmesbury]. There, after some years, he lost his life, pierced by the steel pens of the boys whom he taught: a most cruel death. . . . Long lay he in an unhonoured grave in the Church of St. Lawrence, which had witnessed his hideous murder. But the favour of God for many nights shed over him a light of fire, and the monks, at this warning, translated him into their larger church, and laid him on the left side of the altar.

NOTE A.

This tale of John Scotus is found in the second redaction of Simeon's History, under the year 884. I suspect it, however, to be an insertion by some later hand. The story of the murder is particularly suspicious, identical as it is with that of the martyrdom of the tutor of St. Pancras, in the Diocletian persecution. At that date steel pens were actually in use (for writing on wax tablets), but this method was unknown in Alfred's day.

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This was a fifteen-year Cycle, said to have been ordained by Constantine, be ginning probably with A.D. 313, the date of his establishment as Emperor. Calculations by this method are, however, very uncertain, as not only are the claims of both 312 and 314 to be the opening year advocated by sundry authorities, but further confusion is introduced by the Roman Indiction beginning December 25 or January 1, while that used in England and France began September 24.

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Τ

v.

WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY.

DEEDS OF THE ENGLISH KINGS.

HIS great historian, the librarian and precentor of the
Abbey of Malmesbury, wrote early in the twelfth

century. Many MSS. of his works exist, four at least being of his own day. The standard edition is that of Mr. Duffus Hardy (1840), and translations have been made by Mr. Sharpe (1815) and in The Church Historians of England' (1854).

The sections of his 'Deeds of the Kings' (which, for our period, is founded on Asser, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the Chronicle of St. Neot's) here translated are:

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