![]() 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. This is a great book to get hold of if you are interested in the Anglo-Saxons or early medieval history. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |