History
Asser Unseated
By JOHN GOWER
WHO wrote Asset's Life of Alfred?' It was daunting, as one settled down for the final session of the Anglo-American Conference of Historians, to consider how little time one had given to asking oneself this question.
The speaker was Professor V. H. Galbraith; and the title of the lecture would alone have served as a warning to any members who, not knowing their Galbraith, might have come to the occasion in too reverent a frame of mind. The former Regius Professor, now almost venerab!e, stood before his large audience at the Institute of Historical Research like some celebrated but mischievous conductor at the height of his fame, his narrow frame seemingly stooped beneath the weight of the massive head with its heap of snow-white hair, ready to pounce. Not all would understand the music, but all would enjoy the performance.
Who, first, was Asser? He was a bishop, a contemporary of King Alfred, and the supposed author of a Life from which much of our infor- mation is derived. Alfred died in 899 ('Don't get it wrong,' warned Galbraith, 'as Sir Frank Stenton once said to me, "it's one of the things that dates the man"'), but the Life breaks off in 892. The original manuscript was destroyed by fire in the eighteenth century; but a copy made two centuries earlier had been preserved, and from this W. H. Stevenson produced his edition of 1904. To Stevenson Galbraith paid tribute; he had learned much of what he knew from him; but he broke with Stevenson on the authenticity of the dating and authorship.
The Life struck Professor Galbraith as frankly, despite his reluctance at using such an expression before such an audience—phoney. It could not have been written by one man about another man who was still alive. It was a mixture of folk-lore and hagiography. Alfred appeared as a saint (for which he was never a candidate in
his life-time) and also as a morbid sufferer from self-induced diseases which could only be cured by prayer, which in turn produced more diseases. The dedication called Alfred the ruler of all the Christians of the Island of Britain, though Alfred was never the ruler of them all. The author stated that he had taught the King to read and write; his pupil had proved slow, until one day by divine inspiration, he suddenly learnt to read, write and translate into Latin at one stroke. There were numerous anachronisms, one being the mention of two monasteries which were always coupled together ('like McVitie and Price') but unfortu- nately were unknown in the ninth century. He also went wrong over Exeter, the bishopric of which Asser claims to have received from Alfred, although the see was then in Crediton. The bishopric of Exeter was founded only in 1050.
After about twenty minutes of demolition (pep- pered with asides such as, 'The next chronicle we come to is by Ethelwird, and a pretty weird chronicle it is, too') we had been aroused to a keen and enjoyable scepticism and waited to see how the great virtuoso would avoid falling victim to the mood he had so skilfully evoked. Patiently, and more gently, he began to indicate reasons for attributing the document to the eleventh cen- tury. It was by the later eleventh century that places mentioned in the Life had come into existence; there was a fashion for antiquities and a popular interest in Alfred. These and other items prepared our minds for the moment of revelation. For of course somebody had written Asset's Life, and those of us who were willing to sispend disbelief appreciated the fact that our speaker was the man who knew. It was like wait- ing for the murderer in one of those detective movies when none of the evidence points to any- one. And then it was out—Leofric! Of course. Leofric, Bishop of Exeter in the later eleventh century. (Or someone in his court.) And why not? Was he not trying to glorify the see of Exeter when he honoured it by claiming it for Asser as the gift of Alfred? Was he not a Welshman— and educated abroad? For we knew (he had already told us) that Asser's Life was indubitably written by a Welshman who had been educated abroad.
An unmistakable Welsh accent momentarily dominated the former Regius Professor's voice as he hinted that, in extolling Asser the teacher of Alfred and the recipient of all the diocese of Cornwall—everything west of Winchester, in fact—Leofric was an early exponent of Welsh nationalism (or words to that effect). The speaker marched several paces backwards, hands uplifted in dismay at the credulity of those mediaevalists who had been able to believe in Asser. As he advanced again there was obviously no need for the momentary fear that so practised a player might tumble over the edge of the stage. A final point: as Stevenson admitted, there was an odd inconsistency of tenses in Asser's Life. It had been begun as a narrative, and then rewritten in the form of a contemporary account. Passages had been inserted; the tenses didn't match.
As he sat down amid loud and grateful applause, one reflected on the mountains of evidence that must be sifted to satisfy students of recent history and how often these siftings pro- duce disagreement. One could envy those who
could spend ten or twenty years p--ndering ques- tions of equal importance on •;,.hich the evidence in either direction remained so charmingly unsure. But it was over. Leofric was our man, and we all knew our eleventh century. But did we? The Director of the Institute rose to thank the speaker for his 'stimulating putting of a point of view.' But as to the thesis, he hinted a doubt. And Professor Galbraith, rising again to acknow- ledge the chairman's thanks, replied with a flourishing attack on the hinted criticism. 'Any- way, if you doubt it, ladies and gentlemen.' he concluded, 'go and look at the damn thing in Stevenson yourselves!'
It had certainly been a grand performance. The modernist could go away with a deep sense of gratification that one may enjoy the music without necessarily being able to read the score.
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