Asser and the Writing of West Saxon Charters^*

Abstract

Few texts from early medieval Britain have garnered as much interest as the Life of King Alfred, the biography of the West Saxon king Alfred the Great (r. 871–899), written while its subject was still alive.¹ Its author was Asser, a Welsh clergyman whose learned reputation, as the Life tells us, had led the king to persuade him to join his royal household.² The Life itself provides us with unique insights not only into the reign and social world of Alfred, but also into politics and learning in ninth-century Wales—a time and place from which there is scant other contemporary written material.³ Without the Life we would know significantly less than we do about ninth-century Britain. This text is not, however, without its controversies. Scholars have debated who the primary intended audience for this biography was: some have argued that Asser was writing first and foremost for a Welsh audience, seeking to persuade Welsh communities to welcome the political overlordship of the West Saxon ruler; others have argued for a West Saxon or even a Frankish readership.⁴ Questions have also been raised concerning the extant form of the text, particularly given its somewhat abrupt ending: is what survives a draft? Or did Asser consider it to be a completed work?⁵ The most contentious debate, however, has centred on the very authenticity of the text. Was it really written by Asser—a known historical figure—in 893, as an internal reference suggests? Or is this work a ‘forgery’ by a later author? Doubts surrounding its authenticity were raised as early as the nineteenth century (if not before), and in more recent times they have been revived by Vivien Hunter Galbraith and Alfred Smyth, fuelled by the fact that no contemporary witness to the Life exists nor has any conclusive contemporary external evidence hitherto been identified for late ninth-century knowledge of the text. Robust defences, however, have met these arguments and the overwhelmingly dominant consensus now accepts the Life as a rare example of Insular Latin prose from the late ninth century.⁶

It is clear, furthermore, that several medieval readers knew some form of the work.⁷ The only attested medieval copy of the Life, entirely destroyed by fire in 1731, appears from an early eighteenth-century facsimile to have been produced in England around the year 1000. At about the same time, Byrhtferth, a monk at Ramsey Abbey in the east of England, quoted extensively from the text, while the anonymous author of the mid-eleventh-century Encomium Emmae reginae, who was originally from St-Bertin, also seems to have been familiar with it.⁸ In the twelfth century, both John of Worcester and an anonymous author at Bury St Edmunds quoted the Life, and Gerald of Wales, while probably based at Hereford, at least knew of the reputation of Asser as the biographer of Alfred. In addition, recent evidence for knowledge of the Life by the author of the Welsh poem Armes Prydein Vawr is the strongest hint yet that some form of the biography was known in Wales in the tenth century.⁹

As to Asser himself, most of what we know comes from the Life itself. Asser plays an unusually prominent role within his own narrative, in which he tells us that he grew up, was tonsured and was ordained in western Wales, and that he was a member of the community at St David’s.¹⁰ Annals and chronicles, meanwhile, varyingly record his death in 908 and 909.¹¹ It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that he was born sometime in the second quarter of the ninth century and that he was a native of Dyfed.¹² Furthermore, although it cannot be proven conclusively, there is a strong case for believing that Asser had been appointed as a bishop before he had met the West Saxon king—and indeed, his episcopal status may have alerted Alfred to his existence.¹³

It is, however, the period of Asser’s life during which he was a part of the West Saxon royal court that primarily concerns us here. As Asser tells us, he was one of several scholars named within the Life who were summoned to Alfred, who, as is well known, was seeking to reinvigorate the spiritual and intellectual life of his kingdom.¹⁴ The earliest wave of scholars came from neighbouring Mercia, probably in the early years of the 880s, at a time when Alfred had achieved several military victories over viking forces and was deepening the political ties between Mercia and Wessex. They were joined by two Frankish monks, Grimbald of St-Bertin and John the Old Saxon, probably in 886 or soon after, though the negotiations to bring these two individuals to Britain had probably begun a year or so earlier.¹⁵ The Life also provides considerable detail about Alfred’s attempts to woo Asser himself, the author of the text evidently wishing to stress that his decision to spend significant amounts of time away from his community at St David’s was a difficult one.¹⁶ In these passages, we learn that Asser eventually agreed at some point before late 887 to spend six (not necessarily consecutive) months of the year at the West Saxon court and six months in Wales,¹⁷ and soon after he was rewarded with minsters at Banwell and Congresbury in Somerset, a silk cloak and incense, and, some time later, the minster of Exeter and all of its estates in Devon and Cornwall.¹⁸

In Asser’s narrative, the activities of these scholars are directed at the personal education of the king himself, who, according to the Life, was unable to read in Latin until Asser joined his household.¹⁹ Asser boasts that because of the teaching of these scholars, ‘the king’s outlook was very considerably broadened, and he enriched and honoured them with great authority’.²⁰ Indeed, one of his Mercian helpers, Plegmund, was to be made archbishop of Canterbury in 890; John the Old Saxon was appointed abbot of the newly founded abbey at Athelney before Asser wrote his Life;²¹ and at some point between 892 and 900 Asser himself became bishop of Sherborne, one of the two historic sees of the West Saxons.²² The Life does not, however, provide much detail as to the routines and responsibilities of these scholars while at the West Saxon court. What we do learn is that the king had books read aloud to him,²³ and that Asser himself had ‘daily discussions’ with Alfred that included reciting, writing and, on at least one occasion, preparing a quire on behalf of the king.²⁴

Two contemporary bodies of evidence beyond the Life shed some more light. The extraordinary prose preface to the Old English version of Gregory the Great’s Cura pastoralis, speaking with the voice of Alfred himself, states that the West Saxon king personally translated it ‘as I learnt it from Plegmund my archbishop, and from Asser my bishop, and from Grimbald my mass-priest and John my mass-priest’.²⁵ Several of these individuals, furthermore, can be found in the witness-lists of royal diplomas issued in the name of Alfred.²⁶ William of Malmesbury in the twelfth century also claimed that Asser had helped Alfred in translating Boethius’s De consolatione Philosophiae into Old English.²⁷ And crucially, the title of priest bestowed on those scholars who were not bishops (i.e. Æthelstan, Grimbald, John and Wærwulf) suggests that they had significant liturgical duties as well.²⁸ Identifying their roles at the court is not straightforward,²⁹ but given the lament of Alfred in the preface to the Old English Pastoral Care over the state of learning in his realm, seemingly confirmed, at least for Canterbury, by the quality of charter production there,³⁰ we can imagine that these scholars would also have been called upon for administrative duties, not least the writing of Latin letters for international correspondence, and they may well have played a role in the running of the schola described by Asser, at which children of noble and less noble families read books in both Old English and Latin.³¹

Finally, in introducing Asser and his contemporaries, it needs to be stressed that the involvement of these scholars at the West Saxon court did not abruptly end with the death of Alfred in 899, despite the subsequent succession crisis. Several, including Asser, can be found in the witness-lists of the charters of Alfred’s son and successor, Edward the Elder (r. 899–924),³² and Asser was even the recipient of an Edwardian royal diploma at some point before his death.³³ An Alfredian cultural and intellectual legacy was, in other words, carried on into the tenth century.

It is with this in mind that we may turn to charters and to the primary aim of the present study. Issued by various rulers and churchmen, Anglo-Saxon charters record a variety of agreements, most of which relate in some way to land tenure.³⁴ The corpus of Anglo-Saxon charters comprises over 1,500 extant documents of varying degrees of authenticity; some sixty or so charters survive specifically from the reigns of Alfred and Edward that are likely to have an authentic basis.³⁵ While some were written entirely in Old English, many were written either wholly in Latin or in a mixture of Latin and Old English.³⁶ Significantly, furthermore, they represent the largest quantity of Latin prose other than Asser’s Life to survive from late ninth- and early tenth-century Britain. They therefore provide invaluable evidence for contemporary engagement with both the written word and Latin, and so provide an important context in which to consider the composition and reception of Asser’s Life—particularly given that Asser was evidently engaged with contemporary documentary culture.³⁷ To date, the interface between Asser’s text and charter prose has received relatively little attention, and this has been largely limited to editorial comments. It is with this matter that the present discussion is concerned, though the focus here is restricted to one specific aspect, namely the lexical and phrasal links between Asser’s Life and the charter corpus. As will be seen, an examination of the vocabulary of the Life and Anglo-Saxon charters reveals some striking, hitherto unidentified connections, which help ground Asser’s text in the late ninth-century context from which it purports to originate. Moreover, these links suggest that Asser and his Latin learning played an even greater role in the literary life of the West Saxon royal court than has been supposed, contributing to the production of both royal documentation and royal biography. The case of Asser thus stands as an important witness to the episcopal and international dimension to the writing of Anglo-Saxon charters.

I

Before examining the phrasal links between Asser’s Life and charters, it is useful to consider briefly the Latinity of each body of material. Turning first to Asser, how best can we characterise his Latin learning and prose style? Asser wrote with a propensity for long sentences, adverbs, alliteration, rhyme and polysyllabic vocabulary. The syntax can be complex and sometimes obscure, accompanied on occasion by striking idioms, similes and metaphors, while in some passages we also find what we might call localised phrasal repetition, whereby certain words, phrases and suffixes are repeated in relatively close succession. Several of these features are contained in the following excerpt, which describes the scandalous life of Eadhurh, daughter of King Offa of Mercia, who had fled to the court of Charlemagne following the death of her husband, King Beorhtric of Wessex:

Dedit tamen illi unum magnum sanctimonialium monasterium; in quo, deposito seculari habitu et sanctimonialium indumento assumpto, perpaucis annis abbatissae fungebatur officio. Sicut enim irrationabiliter in propria vixisse refertur, ita multo irrationabilius in aliena gente vivere deprehenditur. Nam a quodam suae propriae gentis homine constuprata, demum palam deprehensa, de monasterio, imperio Karoli regis, deiecta, in paupertate et miseria leto tenus vituperabiliter vitam duxit; ita ut ad ultimum, uno servulo comitata, sicut a multis videntibus eam audivimus, cotidie mendicans, in Pavia miserabiliter moreretur.³⁸

Thus, the first clause ends with two polysyllabic words that, along with magnum, offer rhyme and alliteration; the placement of the genitive plural sanctimonialium, meanwhile, separates the adjective magnum from its corresponding monasterium (an effect known as hyperbaton). Repetition of sanctimonialium follows, but more striking is the phrasal parallel that comes after: ‘irrationabiliter in propria vixisse refertur’ and ‘irrationabilius in aliena gente vivere deprehenditur’. Repeated vocabulary and syntax here provide rhetorical power to the account of the escalating moral depravation of Eadburh; irrationabiliter becomes the comparative irrationabilius as Eadburh moves from the past (vixisse) to the historic present (vivere) and from her homeland (in propria) to foreign climes (in aliena gente). The notable emphasis here on ethnic identities continues with the comparable phrase suae propriae gentis in the next sentence, where we find a somewhat complex series of dependent clauses held together by a tricolon of past participles that offer an element of rhyme—construprata ... deprehensa ... deiecta—which then stretches beyond the finite duxit to comitata. Asser’s fondness for adverbs is again evident with vituperabiliter and miserabiliter, as is his striking use of alliterative, polysyllabic closing phrases (miserabiliter moreretur). The passage also includes several rare words (construpata, vituperabiliter), as well as the unusual phrase demum palam.³⁹

The cumulative effect of these authorial techniques has divided critics. While it is clear that Asser had aspirations to shape his prose in an artful manner, Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge have nevertheless characterised Asser as an author ‘with considerable stylistic pretensions but without any mastery of prose style’.⁴⁰ David Howlett, on the other hand, has argued that the Life is finely crafted, its sophisticated structure working within a distinctly Insular Latin tradition of prose composition.⁴¹ While many scholars would not accept the entirety of the structural reading proposed by Howlett, the difficulty with any and all such value judgements is the fact that the Life was produced in a context from which so few pieces of Latin literature survive. Beyond the Life and beyond the contemporary charter corpus, we only have a handful of hexameters, the revised version of the royal ordo, and a small body of other liturgical material, most of which derives from Frankish exemplars.⁴² Furthermore, no surviving Latin composition can with certainty be attributed to any of the other named scholars at Alfred’s court.⁴³ Thus, it is difficult to say how idiosyncratic Asser’s writing style was within a ninth-century Insular context and what the literary tastes of a contemporary audience may have been. To a less localised audience, however, the syntax and phrasing of the Life would probably have meant that the intended sense of certain passages was not clear.

The lack of contemporary Insular Latin comparanda also contributes to the seemingly unusual nature of some of the vocabulary of the Life. This is demonstrated effectively by the fact that the Life is the earliest attestation for a significant number of words in the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (DMLBS),⁴⁴ though the distinctive nature of this vocabulary had been recognised long before this dictionary was published. In particular, W.H. Stevenson remarked upon the presence in the Life of several words that he considered to be of Frankish origin, including capellanus, fasellus and theotiscus, observations reiterated by several more recent scholars.⁴⁵ Certainly there are words within the Life that, as far as we can tell, were not employed by earlier authors in Britain, and while the question of possible earlier, now-lost Insular Latin literature persists, Asser does indeed appear to have known personally some Carolingian literature, not least Einhard’s Vita Karoli and the anonymous Vita Alcuini.⁴⁶

Additional literature known to Asser is suggested by other words and phrases employed within the Life. Such lexical evidence has been explored in some detail by Michael Lapidge, who has identified echoes of works by, among others, Lucan, Vergil, Eutropius, Athanasius, Orosius, Cassiodorus, Gregory the Great, Aldhelm and Bede.⁴⁷ While Asser did not necessarily know full texts by any of these authors, the lexical evidence does nevertheless suggest that Asser’s Latin reading was extensive, including classical, late antique and early medieval learning and encompassing verse epic, historical writing, hagiography, theological treatises and biblical commentaries. Equally interesting, however, is Asser’s apparent engagement with Old English literature. Although he was presumably a native Welsh speaker, it is well known that Asser drew on a version of the ‘common stock’ of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was compiled shortly before Asser composed his Life.⁴⁸ Not only did Asser draw content from the Chronicle, but it appears that the phrasing of this Old English source also influenced Asser’s composition. Perhaps most striking is the phrase loco funeris dominati sunt, which Asser employs on seven occasions to express a victory in battle.⁴⁹ This appears to be a direct rendering of ahton wælstowe geweald (‘they took power over the battlefield’), a phrase frequently employed in the Chronicle.⁵⁰

Characterising the Latinity of Anglo-Saxon charters is in some ways more challenging. We are dealing with a far more sprawling body of material, a diverse yet fragmentary corpus comprising examples dating from the seventh to eleventh centuries that were produced in a variety of places and contexts, almost all of which were anonymously written.⁵¹ In addition, as has already been noted, the corpus is a mix of Latin and Old English: some documents were written entirely in one of these two languages, but many contain both. Yet despite the heterogeneity of the corpus, many adhere to a similar structure and invoke familiar language. This is particularly true of royal diplomas, those charters issued on behalf of kings that record permanent donations of land or associated privileges. These charters customarily were written for the most part in Latin and almost all examples possess the same general structure. Furthermore, such is the repetition of themes and vocabulary among surviving charters that we could speak generally of a discourse of Anglo-Saxon diplomatic. This is not to say, however, that the corpus does not contain localised and chronologically specific diplomatic practices, developments and, indeed, discourses. On the contrary, this is evidently the case, though unpicking and identifying such features is a delicate procedure, made hazardous by issues of authenticity, survival and anonymity—and a task made more uncertain by the fact that the processes through which phrasing entered diplomatic discourse and circulated between charter draftsmen are unclear. It is well known, for example, that no formularies survive from early medieval England, while charter authors tended to acknowledge verbal borrowings only if they were purportedly from biblical sources.⁵² With some specimens, it is likely that the authors were using earlier charters as models,⁵³ but in other instances we need to be open to the possibility that authors were working with a body of phrasing that was either available to them in another textual form or that they had memorised; in the latter case, a productive comparison could be made with the ‘remembered readings’ of individuals composing Latin verse.⁵⁴

Despite the generic structure of many Anglo-Saxon charters, it must also be stressed that these texts could and did offer opportunities for creative expression. The extent to which any given author instilled a document with literary flair varied considerably—a fact which in itself reminds us of their diverse functions and contexts of production. Perhaps the most famous charters to exhibit literary ambition are those by the anonymous individual ‘Æthelstan A’, who appears to have had exclusive control over the production of royal diplomas for King Æthelstan between 928 and 935. His charters are an extraordinary show of bombastic Latin prose, undoubtedly reflecting the confidence and pretensions of the royal milieu in which he was writing. Much like Asser, ‘Æthelstan A’ had a propensity for alliteration, polysyllabic words, hyperbaton, and long sentences with complex syntax, and in this, ‘Æthelstan A’ seems to have been particularly influenced by the prose style of the seventh-century author Aldhelm, from whose works he borrowed multiple phrases.⁵⁵ In contrast, the surviving royal diplomas from Alfred’s reign are on the whole rather pithy, with only one example possessing comparable stylistic flair.⁵⁶ As to the diplomas of Alfred’s immediate successor, his son Edward, these are in general of greater literary interest than those of Alfred’s reign, with examples variously containing alliteration, hyperbaton, polysyllabic vocabulary, rhyme, and phrasing drawn from biblical, liturgical and earlier diplomatic sources.

Just from these descriptions, we can see hints of stylistic features that make charters well suited to comparison with Asser’s Life. For example, in both we can identify a propensity for complex syntax and polysyllabic vocabulary. In comparing a royal biography with this diplomatic corpus, however, we must bear in mind the established tradition within which the authors of contemporary charters were working. Although there was opportunity for some literary experimentation, draftsmen also needed to produce a text that looked like an Anglo-Saxon charter; it needed to adhere to a familiar structure and it needed to be navigable by individuals with limited Latin literacy. There were, in other words, constraints that needed to be respected. It is only with this in mind that we can go in search of connections between Anglo-Saxon charters and other forms of literature.⁵⁷

II

Let us turn, then, to the lexical evidence for links between Asser’s Life and Anglo-Saxon diplomatic material.⁵⁸ As I have already stated, Asser employed a variety of distinctive phrases and idioms throughout his Life. One phrase above all offers a compelling connection with Anglo-Saxon charters: via universitatis (‘the way of all’). This is one of the most distinctive expressions found within the Life and it merits detailed analysis. Asser uses it seven times, on each occasion as part of an idiom to denote death, as follows:

Vixit ergo Æthelwulfus rex duobus annis postquam a Roma pervenit; in quibus, inter alia multa praesentis vitae bona studia, cogitans de suo ad universitatis viam transitu, ne sui filii post patris obitum indebite inter se disceptarent, hereditariam, immo commendatoriam, scribi imperavit epistolam...⁵⁹

Æthelberht itaque, quinque annis regno pacifice et amabiliter atque honorabiliter gubernato, cum magno suorum dolore, universitatis viam adiit, et in Scireburnan iuxta fratrem suum honorabiliter sepultus requiescit.⁶⁰

Eodem anno Ealhstan, episcopus Scireburnensis ecclesiae, viam universitatis adiens, postquam episcopatum per quinquaginta annos honorabiliter rexerat, in pace in Scireburnan sepultus est.⁶¹

Eodem anno Ceolnoth, archiepiscopus Doroberniae, viam universitatis adiens, in eadem civitate in pace sepultus est.⁶²

Et eodem anno post Pascha Æthered rex praefatus, regno quinque annis per multas tribulationes strenue atque honorabiliter cum bona fama gubernato, viam universitatis adiens, in Winburnan monasterio sepultus, adventum Domini et primam cum iustis resurrectionem expectat.⁶³

Eodem anno beatae memoriae Marinus papa universitatis viam migravit.⁶⁴

Eodem anno Carolus, Francorum rex, viam universitatis adiit...⁶⁵

As we can see, Asser uses via universitatis in references to the deaths of seven people of authority who had died since the 850s: three West Saxon kings, one bishop, one archbishop, one pope and one Frankish king. On each occasion, it is the person who has died who embarks on the via universitatis. We should note here that there are many other deaths recorded in the Life, particularly in armed conflicts, and thus there is a sense that Asser employed this idiom with some restraint. The seven examples are relatively dispersed through the Life and it may well be that Asser reserved this phrase for the deaths of individuals that he held in particularly high esteem.⁶⁶ Furthermore, variation of expression is apparent even among the seven examples. Via universitatis is invoked on five occasions in conjunction with varying forms of the verb adire, two instances of which are in the perfect indicative and three instances of which are present participles. We also find via universitatis on one occasion with the perfect indicative of migrare and on one occasion without a direct verb, instead being employed alongside the ablative of transitus. It is apparent, therefore, that Asser sought variation in the ways in which he expressed this idiom—yet at the same time, the distinctiveness of the phrase is reinforced by the fact that, one exception aside, Asser does not use either of the two component words of the phrase in other contexts.⁶⁷

Each of these seven passages provides information about events that were also recorded in the common stock of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which in some form or another was known to Asser. Most of the details that Asser provides in these seven passages are also found in the common stock, though there are exceptions. For example, no surviving Old English version of the Chronicle tells us that Archbishop Ceolnoth was buried at Canterbury;⁶⁸ elsewhere, Asser’s striking reference to the second coming of Christ in his recording of the death of King Æthelred has no parallel in the Chronicle. In several cases, however, the syntax and information is close enough to believe that Asser was translating directly from this Old English textual source, as we see, for instance, with the death of Charles the Fat:

Eodem anno Carolus, Francorum rex, viam universitatis adiit…

þy ilcan geare forþferde Karl Francna cyning…⁶⁹

In doing so, Asser appears to have used the via universitatis formula as a translation for Old English forþfaran and gefaran, verbs that can express movement generally as well death more specifically.⁷⁰ Thus, Asser’s choice of idiom retains the sense of dying as a journey as is found in the source material.

The idiom itself, moreover, closely resembles two passages in the Vulgate Old Testament that invoke the theme of death-as-journey. These are as follows:

en ego hodie ingrediar viam universae terrae… (Josh. 23:14)

ego ingredior viam universae terrae… (1 Kings 2:2)

These extracts are taken from direct speeches delivered by two of the most prominent leaders of the Old Testament, Joshua and David, both spoken as their deaths were imminent. The Douay–Rheims translation of the Vulgate provides a literal translation of the former as ‘behold this day I am going into the way of all the earth’; it renders the latter, however, as ‘I am going the way of all flesh’, a looser interpretation seemingly influenced by the commonplace conflation of the idea of this passage with that of Genesis 6:13 (‘finis universae carnis venit coram me’).⁷¹ It seems beyond reasonable doubt that the comparable idiom employed by Asser ultimately derives from this biblical discourse. Thus, even without additional contextual information, an early medieval audience would most likely have been able to understand the meaning of Asser’s phrasing. Where Asser departs, however, is in the employment of the substantive noun universitas rather than an adjectival universus that agrees with an additional noun. This difference is slight, yet it is consistent and it is arresting: as far as I am aware, via universitatis is unattested in any version of the Latin Bible,⁷² and I know of no earlier Latin author who likewise employed these two words together in such a manner. Furthermore, many of the later instances of this idiom of which I am aware occur in texts with direct or indirect connections to the Life.⁷³ This idiom is, in other words, one closely associated with the Latin of Asser’s Life, possibly even being a phrase coined by Asser himself.

This is when we turn to the charter evidence. While via universitatis is absent from Anglo-Saxon diplomatic discourse of the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, this phrase appears in several charters from the early tenth century onwards. In all cases it is used to denote death and on most occasions it is paired with the verb adire.⁷⁴ The earliest five authentic examples are found in diplomas of King Æthelstan, two of which were drawn up by the aforementioned ‘Æthelstan A’.⁷⁵ None of the five is preserved as an original single sheet, though they represent the collections of three different archives.⁷⁶ The earliest instance in a charter surviving in its original form comes, along with three other examples, from the reign of Æthelstan’s successor, Edmund.⁷⁷ More examples follow from later years of the tenth century, all of which, as with earlier instances, were issued in the names of kings.⁷⁸ A phrase closely associated with Asser’s Life, therefore, had entered royal diplomatic discourse by the reign of Æthelstan, if not earlier, and was evidently employed by multiple charter draftsmen.

While via universitatis is the single most striking phrasal link between Asser and Anglo-Saxon charters, there are more. We should note, for example, the phrases clades bellorum,⁷⁹incendia urbium, and hominibus et pecoribus, all of which appear in both the Life and in a diploma issued by Edward the Elder in favour of Asser himself and his familia at Sherborne.⁸⁰ All three of these phrases are found in earlier Latin literature, though they are unprecedented in the earlier extant Anglo-Saxon charter corpus.⁸¹ We will return to this diploma a little later. Several other charters contain specific words for which Asser’s Life is potentially the earliest known attestation in Latin literature from Britain. For instance, the adverb discrete (‘discretely’) is used by Asser in describing King Alfred’s manner of admonishing his judges and it also appears in the proems of two spurious charters purporting to date to 909.⁸² Elsewhere, Asser uses the noun machinatio (‘devising, craft’) to refer to the king’s own creative agency in the production of aedificia by his craftsmen; this word can be found in several tenth- and eleventh-century charter sanctions.⁸³ More striking, however, is monialis,⁸⁴ which Asser uses on a single occasion, seemingly as a shorthand for the far more common sanctimonialis, noting that King Alfred’s daughter Æthelgifu, as abbess of Shaftesbury, lived among many other noble nuns.⁸⁵ In 932, we find the aforementioned royal draftsman ‘Æthelstan A’, when recording a donation of land from King Æthelstan to the very same community at Shaftesbury, describing the beneficiary as ‘fidelissime familie monialium’.⁸⁶ This word then appears in several diplomas of the 940s.⁸⁷ On all of these occasions—both within the Life and these Anglo-Saxon charters—monialis refers to women religious.

How should we understand such lexical echoes? It must be stressed that in very few cases can we draw definitive conclusions based on the shared occurrences of such small pieces of vocabulary. Within the corpus of Insular Latin literature such connections can at first seem significant, yet we must remember not only that the surviving corpus is fragmentary, but also that Latin literary production in early medieval Britain took place within a wider world of international exchange: texts, books and individuals travelled, and Insular authors were by no means isolated from the cultural world of their continental contemporaries. Moreover, individuals could learn Latin vocabulary beyond the contexts of substantial pieces of literature—through glosses, glossaries, marginalia and oral communication. This last point is particularly important for charter production, given the aforementioned current lack of clarity regarding the processes through which the vocabulary of Anglo-Saxon diplomatic discourse and formulation developed. Each case, therefore, needs to be assessed on its own terms, with attention to the specific context in which it occurs.

III

It is with this in mind that we may turn to one charter in particular, in which verbal connections with Asser’s Life are exceptionally striking: S 373. This document purports to be a royal diploma of Edward the Elder issued in 904 at a meeting at Bicanleag in favour of Denewulf, bishop of Winchester, and his community.⁸⁸ It records a seemingly straightforward exchange of lands and privileges, though complex negotiations no doubt sit behind this document. The charter tells us that in total Denewulf gave up sixty hides of land (ten hides respectively at Crowcombe and Compton Bishop, both in Somerset;⁸⁹ twenty hides respectively at Banwell, Somerset and Stoke by Shalbourne, Wiltshire) in exchange for the freeing of the minster at Taunton, Somerset from various obligations. The emphasis first and foremost is on these obligations, which are outlined in unusual detail, and indeed, it is unclear whether the bishopric of Winchester was already in possession of the minster at Taunton—which was situated in the diocese of Sherborne, not in the diocese of Winchester—or whether it was only as part of this agreement in 904 that Winchester gained possession of Taunton.⁹⁰ Three further contextual points need to be borne in mind. First, relations between Edward and Bishop Denewulf were undoubtedly frosty. Several signs indicate that the bishopric of Winchester had been out of favour with the West Saxon royal dynasty for several decades,⁹¹ and Edward’s investment in the newly founded New Minster at Winchester in particular appears to have been a source of considerable tension between Bishop Denewulf and the king in the earliest years of the tenth century.⁹² It seems likely, therefore, that the exchanges recorded in this charter were the result of delicate discussions, perhaps mediated by other members of the West Saxon court. Secondly, Robin Fleming has suggested that, for Edward, a driving force for the exchanges recorded in this and several other of his diplomas was the need to control land deemed to be important for defence. For example, Banwell was the site of an Iron Age hillfort.⁹³ Thirdly and finally, Banwell was one of the aforementioned minsters, as recorded by the Life, that Alfred had given to Asser as a gift.⁹⁴ Presuming, as is likely, that it is this same property that we see in S 373, it is unclear how it had fallen into the hands of Denewulf so that he was in a position to give it to Edward in 904. Perhaps Asser and Denewulf had previously exchanged lands in a now-lost charter, drawn up in consultation with—and perhaps under duress from—Edward.

The nature of this charter is further complicated by its relationship with several purportedly contemporary documents, as will be discussed shortly. For the time being, however, it suffices to say that of all extant Anglo-Saxon charters, S 373 contains by far the greatest concentration of lexical echoes of Asser’s Life—despite lacking the distinctive via universitatis idiom. At first glance, many of these phrasal links appear unremarkable; each, thus, needs to be considered on its own terms. In what follows, therefore, I provide a summary of the evidence of each individual phrase, treated in the order of their appearance in S 373. It is only once I have done this that these echoes and their collective significance can be assessed fully.

S 373 omnibusque presentis uitę curriculis⁹⁵

Asser, Life, ch. 24 omnia praesentis vitae curricula

The phrase vitae curriculum can be found in, among others, the writings of Aldhelm and Bede,⁹⁶ while praesentisque vitae curriculis and praesentisque vitae semper curriculo cotidie can be found varyingly in three additional royal diplomas purportedly of Edward the Elder, as well as in several later charters.⁹⁷ I am unaware, however, of any other text that uses curriculum vitae alongside omnia and praesentis to create the above chiastic phrase.

S 373 pro necessitate animę meę⁹⁸

Asser, Life, ch. 16 ad necessitatem animae

Asser, Life, ch. 92 de necessitate animae suae

Although references to necessitas alongside anima exist in the works of several patristic and medieval authors—not least in Vulgate Psalm 30—the genitive construction found in the Life and S 373 is highly unusual. I am aware of only one other charter with a connection to early medieval England that contains this idiom, namely a loose Latin translation of a mid-eleventh-century vernacular document from Bury St Edmunds.⁹⁹

S 373 pro communi nostra necessitate¹⁰⁰

Asser, Life, ch. 91 pro communi regni necessitate

The above distinctive phrase is relatively uncommon. It is absent from biblical and patristic literature, as it is from the corpus of Anglo-Saxon charters beyond S 373.

S 373 in sempiterno graphio in cruce Christi¹⁰¹

S 373 in sempiterno graphio in cruce Christi pro prefati monasterii libertate ab omni regali¹⁰²

Asser, Life, ch. 11 ab omni regali servitio et tributo liberavit, in sempiternoque graphio in cruce Christi, pro redemptione animae suae et antecessorum suorum

This is arguably the single most striking lexical parallel between S 373 and Asser’s Life. The draftsman of S 373 employs these words twice as a highly idiomatic way of denoting the issuing of a charter, with particular emphasis on the perpetual nature and solemnity of the codification.¹⁰³ Asser uses this phrase in his Life in exactly the same manner when describing the so-called ‘decimation’ donation of King Æthelwulf, which, according to the Life, consisted of the freeing of a tenth of the kingdom from royal services and dues.¹⁰⁴ Stevenson and, more recently, Keynes and Lapidge have drawn attention to the similarities in phrasing that this section of the Life has with charters purporting to relate directly to King Æthelwulf’s decimation, and thus it is very possible that Asser was here directly drawing on the vocabulary of a charter.¹⁰⁵ However, the particular phrase found in both the Life and S 373—namely the reference to in sempiterno graphio in cruce Christi—does not exist in any surviving charters from Æthelwulf’s reign, nor is this phrase commonly found in Anglo-Saxon diplomatic more generally. Of charters purportedly earlier than S 373, only one document contains these words: S 358, a royal diploma of Edward the Elder dated to 900 of questionable authenticity. Strikingly, the draftsman of S 358 uses this phrase in reference to the soul of King Æthelwulf (as well as that of King Alfred), leading Stevenson to suspect that the author of the charter was familiar with the Life.¹⁰⁶ Comparable phrases (though lacking references to Christ) can be found in several later charters,¹⁰⁷ as well as in a later Latin hagiography from Wales.¹⁰⁸

S 373 toto mentis affectu¹⁰⁹

Asser, Life, ch. 99 toto cordis affectu

Neither of the above phrases occurs particularly frequently in Medieval Latin literature, though they can both be found in the works of various authors. Toto mentis affectu occurs, for instance, in texts by Cassiodorus and Gregory the Great,¹¹⁰ while toto cordis affectu was employed by Cassiodorus, Alcuin and Florus of Lyon.¹¹¹ However, I am aware of only one other Anglo-Saxon charter containing either phrase.¹¹²

S 373 sine ulla controuersia¹¹³

Asser, Life, ch. 49 sine ulla controversia

This phrase was employed by earlier authors including Cicero, Augustine, Bede and John Scottus Eriugena.¹¹⁴ I am unaware of it occurring in any other Anglo-Saxon charter.¹¹⁵

S 373 unius caniculari [sic] pastus, et pastus nouem noctium accipitrariis regis¹¹⁶

Asser, Life, ch. 76 et accipitrarios canicularios quoque docere

The DMLBS lists Asser’s Life as the earliest (and in the case of canicularius, only) witness to these extremely rare terms. I am unaware of any other Anglo-Saxon charter that contains either of these words. In both the Life and S 373, these terms are used to denote keepers of hounds and hawks who are specifically in the service of the king.

S 373 aliqua mala machinatione¹¹⁷

Asser, Life, ch. 76 sua machinatione facere

Asser’s Life is likewise the first attestation in the DMLBS for machinatio. As has already been stated, this word can then be found in several Anglo-Saxon charters, of which S 373 is the earliest.¹¹⁸

S 373 in uilla uenatoria quę Saxonice dicitur Bicanleag¹¹⁹

Asser, Life, ch. 22 In omni venatoria arte industrius venator incessabiliter laborat

Asser, Life, ch. 75 ut antequam aptas humanis artibus vires haberent, venatoriae scilicet et ceteris artibus

Venatoria is an extremely unusual adjective; Asser may have drawn here on the notion of venatoria ars from Gildas.¹²⁰ The only other Anglo-Saxon charters in which this word can be found are three specimens (S 372, 374 and 1286) that purport to have been issued at Bicanleag in 904, just like S 373; in all four cases, villa venatoria is used to describe Bicanleag.

Several of these phrasal parallels on their own are unlikely to rouse the suspicions of many readers; their cumulative force, however, demands our attention. First, the textual, diplomatic context from which S 373 comes needs to be explained. This charter is but one of a considerable number of documents that survive from Winchester that claim to have been issued by or for Edward the Elder, several of which record agreements that relate to the foundation there of the New Minster. There are connections between various of these charters in terms of both content and phrasing, but ascertaining the exact nature of these links is made difficult by the fact that many of these documents, including S 373, only survive thanks to their inclusion in the main twelfth-century section of the Codex Wintoniensis cartulary (British Library, Additional MS 15350), which was produced at Winchester cathedral priory. Some examples are patently later forgeries, though there is undoubtedly a core of authentic material within the group. Given the shared context in which many are preserved, however, identifying the authentic features is challenging. Further complexity comes from the fact that S 373 is primarily concerned with privileges for Taunton, an estate that was one of the most important possessions of the bishopric of Winchester in the tenth and eleventh centuries.¹²¹ Several other charters within the Codex Wintoniensis similarly relate to the bishopric of Winchester’s ownership of and privileges for Taunton, all of which either date to later in the tenth century or are purportedly earlier but are likely to have been forged in the later tenth or eleventh centuries.¹²² Since this estate inspired so much forgery, it is perhaps unsurprising that several scholars have expressed doubts about the authenticity of S 373 and have labelled it ‘spurious’—though no scholar has provided specific evidence for condemning the charter in this way.¹²³ Other assessments have been more positive, with a majority of commentators seemingly happy to accept it as fundamentally genuine, albeit with the possibility that it has been modified somewhat through its transmission.¹²⁴ This, to my mind, is a reasonable approach: the highly distinctive literary features of the diploma and its many contemporary circumstantial and diplomatic connections—several of which extend to material beyond the charters of the Old Minster archive—give us good reason to believe that we are dealing with a substantially authentic early tenth-century charter.

The nature of S 373 is particularly complex and interesting thanks to its relationship with the aforementioned three charters that similarly claim to have been issued at Bicanleag in 904. One of these charters derives from Winchester’s New Minster archive, a royal diploma recording a donation to the New Minster of ten hides of land on the ‘Micheldever’ river.¹²⁵ The two other charters derive from Winchester’s Old Minster archive and, much like S 373, only survive thanks to their inclusion in the later Codex Wintoniensis. One is a royal diploma recording an exchange of lands in Hampshire between King Edward and Bishop Denewulf (on behalf of his community),¹²⁶ while the remaining document frames Denewulf and his familia as the benefactors, giving King Edward twenty hides of land at Stoke by Shalbourne in exchange for privileges at Taunton.¹²⁷ If we recall the agreement recorded in S 373, this last document appears to repeat part of the details of that royal diploma, though cast from the perspective of the bishop and his community rather than that of the king.¹²⁸ The duplication of information across these two charters need not raise suspicions; it is quite feasible that the estate at Stoke was of enough importance that one or both parties desired an independent title-deed for its ownership,¹²⁹ while we should not overlook the opportunity that the issuing of an additional charter offered for demonstrating the strength of relations between the king and bishop of Winchester. Indeed, although Alexander Rumble identifies several features of the diploma exchanging lands in Hampshire as potentially problematic for a charter of the early tenth century (S 372), the remaining charters in this group have generally been viewed positively by scholars in terms of their authenticity and they may well be substantially genuine early tenth-century texts.¹³⁰ Furthermore, we should note here that the witness-lists of the three royal diplomas in this group are extremely similar to one another and suggest that, if authentic, they were issued at the same meeting. The witness-list of the charter issued in the name of Denewulf and his community, on the other hand, is markedly different and perhaps indicates, therefore, that this derives from a different gathering—or at least a different session—of the witan at Bicanleag.¹³¹

Most important for the current discussion is how these four charters compare to one another in terms of their phrasing. The first point to note is that much of the wording of the charter issued on behalf of Denewulf is identical to that of the royal diploma recording the donation by Edward of land on the ‘Micheldever’ river to the New Minster.¹³² Unfortunately it is impossible to say whether this is because one of the charters acted as a model for the other, or whether their draftsmen had access to shared source material. More generally, the four charters sit well with each other as potentially deriving from a shared milieu.¹³³ While the ‘Micheldever’ diploma is the only charter to contain a boundary clause, the four documents otherwise are structurally similar to one another and contain some identical phrasing. The dating clauses, for example, are nearly identical, including, as stated above, the description of Bicanleag as a villa venatoria. The blessings are also extremely similar, while the sanctions are varations on a shared theme and structure. The opening invocations and proems, meanwhile, differ in phrasing and imagery, yet focus on comparable themes with some comparable stylistic features: all of these charters begin in their own ways with meditations on divine and secular power and all do so with elaborate syntax, hyperbaton, alliteration, adverbs and polysyllabic vocabulary. Furthermore, S 373 and two of the other three charters (as well as two earlier diplomas of Edward the Elder) express divine power unusually in reference to omnia visibilia et invisibilia, a phrase well known through its inclusion in the Nicene Creed.¹³⁴ There is a clear sense, therefore, that the draftsman of S 373 was well acquainted with other purportedly Edwardian diplomatic. Yet despite this, it stands apart from the three remaining Bicanleag charters of 904, which lack comparable verbal resonances with Asser’s Life.¹³⁵

Despite such complexities, the concentration of lexical echoes of Asser’s Life remains in S 373 and, to my mind, is so strong as to suggest a firm connection of some sort. How can we explain this? Three possible scenarios arise. First, there is the possibility that the author of one text knew the text of the other, or at least a glossary derived from it. If we accept Asser’s Life as a fundamentally authentic product of the late ninth century, then this scenario would demand that we consider the possibility that the author of S 373 knew Asser’s Life or an associated glossary. In this context it is worth pointing out that the verbal links identified above are relatively dispersed throughout the Life; thus, if the draftsman of S 373 had read Asser’s biography, then he or she quite possibly would have read a version comparable with the entirety of the text as it survives today.¹³⁶ As Simon Keynes has outlined, the royal diplomas of Edward the Elder are likely to have been produced by individuals working within the king’s household;¹³⁷ the diction of S 373, therefore, may be evidence for the reception of the Life in this royal milieu. In this regard, a comparable piece of evidence is an undated Latin passage describing the boundaries of the estate at Taunton that is similarly preserved thanks to the Codex Wintoniensis, to which Alexander Rumble has recently drawn attention for its inclusion of the unusual noun gronna (‘marsh, swamp’)—a term rarely found in Anglo-Latin and Old English contexts, but one that Asser employed twice within his Life, as well as once in its adjectival form gronnosa.¹³⁸ This has led Rumble to suggest that that these Latin bounds were either the work of an individual familiar with the Life or were composed by someone connected with the nearby minster at Athelney, the abbot of which, during the earliest years of the Life’s possible reception, was John the Old Saxon. In either case, the bounds may date from the late ninth or early tenth century.

However, that the draftsman of S 373 knew the Life need not mean that the charter is authentic—though its circumstantial and literary features suggest, I would argue, that we are in this case dealing with a substantially genuine diploma. A useful reminder of this methodological caveat comes from another document within the Codex Wintoniensis that likewise purports to be a royal diploma of Edward the Elder. This is the aforementioned charter that contains in sempiterno graphio in cruce Christi in reference to King Æthelwulf; it also contains the via universitatis idiom and two further phrases that provide lexical links with the Life.¹³⁹ It is quite clear, however, as several scholars have demonstrated, that this diploma in its present form is a forgery, a concoction drawn up with the use of earlier charter material.¹⁴⁰ The Asserian diction of the Codex Wintoniensis therefore goes beyond its authentic material.

The second scenario that could explain the links between S 373 and Asser’s Life is the influence of a shared contemporary milieu. This scenario requires both texts to be substantially authentic products of the late ninth and early tenth centuries, though it does not require a direct relationship between the two texts; the author of one need not have read the other. Instead, the shared phrasing may be indicative of a range of distinctive Latin vocabulary and formulae that was in use within the social world of the West Saxon royal court. Here it is worth remembering that, although we lack a substantial body of Latin material from this milieu beyond the charters and the Life, we can be sure that some individuals were reading and writing in Latin to some degree: masses needed to be performed;¹⁴¹ Latin letters and diplomas needed to be written; Latin needed to be taught at the ‘school’; and we know that someone composed Latin acrostics and someone revised the royal ordo.¹⁴² The scholars brought to Alfred’s court, including Asser, would have played key roles in this activity, and it is possible that through their collaborations and teaching they nurtured a distinctive Latin discourse. Comparison in this regard could be made with the linguistic characteristics shared by numerous texts in the corpus of Old English associated with King Alfred,¹⁴³ as well as with the distinctive vernacular lexicon of the later tenth century associated with the environs of Bishop Æthelwold’s school at Winchester.¹⁴⁴

The third and final scenario is perhaps the most tantalising: shared authorship—that, in other words, Asser composed S 373. There is good evidence to suggest that on occasion (if not more regularly) bishops in early medieval England were called upon to draw up royal diplomas on behalf of kings, even though there are few surviving charters that can be identified with certainty as the work of a known bishop.¹⁴⁵ This evidential paradox is partly due to the fact that Anglo-Saxon charters do not customarily contain subscriptions that are explicitly notarial.¹⁴⁶ Furthermore, if bishops did indeed produce charters for kings, it is a duty that was little remarked upon in contemporary literature; it was not a primary concern of writers in the presentation of episcopal identity.

It is at this point that we should remember the aforementioned diploma recording an exchange of estates between Edward and Asser (the latter on behalf of his familia at Sherborne).¹⁴⁷ This charter contains a small number of verbal parallels with the Life, though not as many and none as striking as those found in S 373. Susan Kelly has previously discussed the possibility that this diploma was drawn up either by Asser himself or by a member of his community at Sherborne, on the grounds that Asser and his church were the beneficiaries of the document.¹⁴⁸ However, in doing so, Kelly identified several passages within this charter that have parallels with other contemporary diplomas, including S 373, which Kelly saw as complicating the idea that Asser may have written it.¹⁴⁹ This reservation is unwarranted. There are good grounds, as I have shown, for suspecting that Asser had had access to a diploma of King Æthelwulf when writing the Life. Furthermore, given his continued involvement at the West Saxon court into the early tenth century, Asser may well have also become very familiar with—and contributed to the development of—Edwardian diplomatic.¹⁵⁰

To return to S 373, where the strongest lexical parallels lie, we might note several of its syntactic and stylistic features that, in addition to vocabulary, could be compared with the prose of the Life. See, for example, the liberal use of adverbs, alliteration, long sentences and hyperbaton, none of which points necessarily towards an exclusive relationship between S 373 and the Life, but does not undermine the lexical evidence. The possibility that Asser composed this charter, however, is made more compelling by three points. First, as bishop of Sherborne, Asser was the current diocesan bishop of the territory in which the main focus of the diploma—the minster at Taunton—was based (this is not the case with the other two diplomas issued at Bicanleag in 904, both of which concern land in the diocese of Winchester). Secondly, as the diploma tells us, one of the estates given to Edward by Denewulf was Banwell, which, as I have already noted, was the site of a minster that Alfred had previously donated to Asser. Asser may well, therefore, have had a personal stake in the negotiations that sat behind S 373. Thirdly and perhaps most remarkably, S 373 is the only one of the four Bicanleag charters that Asser does not attest; his absence from S 373 is the only discrepancy between the witness-lists of the three diplomas in this group. Could this be because Asser was acting as draftsman rather than witness for the conveyance of this charter?¹⁵¹ With all things considered, both stylistic and in terms of the details of the agreement, this seems to me to be the simplest and most plausible explanation.

IV

Comparison of the phrasing of Asser’s Life and Anglo-Saxon charters provides an informative case-study for considering how Latin diplomatic discourse developed in early medieval England. What we have seen is the entry (via royal diplomatic) and subsequent circulation of a range of distinctive words and phrases that are likely to represent the influence of a specific text or author; yet the association of this diction with its source quickly falls from view. No charter acknowledges Asser or his Life as a source and it is unlikely, for example, that the royal draftsman employing via universitatis in 943 in a diploma of King Edmund chose this phrase with Asser and his royal biography in mind. By then, this striking idiom was simply part of the stock phrasing of royal diplomatic. This means, in other words, that no single charter that employs via universitatis—or any other diction that we might wish to associate with Asser—necessarily represents knowledge of the Life. The complex challenge of identifying possible direct influence is represented particularly powerfully by the example of that part of the Old Minster archive surviving in the Codex Wintoniensis, a manuscript which contains numerous charters with diction reminiscent of the Life, some of which are forgeries. Although we cannot discount the possibility of direct knowledge of the Life on the part of later forgers, it seems highly likely that authentic documents provided the phrasing for these forgeries. What must be stressed above all, however, is that the presence of such phrasing alone neither supports nor undermines the authenticity of any one of these charters.

Despite such qualifications, the fundamental fact remains that at some point these phrases were introduced to diplomatic discourse for the first time. To return to via universitatis, the evidence suggests that whenever this idiom was first employed by a charter draftsman—whether during the reign of King Æthelstan or earlier—that draftsman was personally familiar with Latin diction which was particularly idiomatic of Asser. It seems to me, therefore, that the example of via universitatis alone could be taken as a rare—and indeed, the earliest—piece of evidence for the reception of the Life of King Alfred in medieval England. The example of S 373, however, raises another possibility: that it was Asser himself who introduced via universitatis (and other phrasing) into diplomatic discourse as a composer of royal diplomas. This possibility is particularly interesting in three regards. First, as has already been noted, it represents a further possible example of a bishop acting as a royal draftsman. In a context in which we see another bishop, Denewulf, issuing (perhaps not on the exact same occasion) a charter with identical phrasing to that of a contemporary royal diploma, it is a reminder of the frequent prominence of bishops at royal assemblies, particularly in the conveyance of documentation there—a fact also reflected in the prominence of episcopal individuals in the witness-lists of these documents, particularly in many of the diplomas issued on behalf of King Edward.¹⁵² Secondly, it adds to the considerable body of evidence for the international contribution to the production of Anglo-Saxon charters—an aspect of documentary culture that deserves greater attention than it has hitherto received.¹⁵³ Thirdly and finally, it expands the role of Asser within contemporary West Saxon literary activity. It suggests that he was still a prominent composer of Latin prose in a West Saxon royal milieu after the death of King Alfred, and it serves as a reminder that charters were an integral part of literary activity in this setting. Given the social context for Latin composition at the West Saxon court at this time, it would make a great deal of sense if Asser and the other scholars summoned by Alfred were, at least on occasion, required to perform service as charter draftsmen. Certainly the reception of Asser’s Latinity in England was more extensive than some scholars have argued; and it is only through the integration of charters into our view of literary activity, and by paying attention to the individual words and phrases within them, that this can be uncovered.

Footnotes

Appendix

Sawyer 373

Here I provide the text of S 373 as it has been edited by Alexander R. Rumble in Charters of the Old Minster, Winchester (forthcoming). As stated above, this charter only survives thanks to its inclusion in the Codex Wintoniensis, fo. 60r–v. The layout of the text below does not represent its presentation in the manuscript. I have set in bold those passages that I have identified as offering parallels with the prose of Asser’s Life, while I have italicised that section proposed by Finberg to be a later interpolation.¹⁵⁴ The text is followed by my own translation.

Text

Regnante imperpetuum Domino nostro Iesu Christo, cuius potestas nec crescit nec minuit, omnibusque presentis uitę curriculis cotidie semper subterlabentibus suęque condicioni omnibus uisibilibus et inuisibilibus ineuitabiliter uelint nolint cotidie subdentibus. Quapropter ego Eadward, diuina indulgente clementia Angulsaxonum rex, omnia quęcumque dicta aut facta uel etiam pacta sunt in nostris temporibus relatui digna pro necessitate animę meę et pro communi nostra necessitate, necnon etiam subsequentis posteritatis nostrę, litterarum memorię commendare procuraui ne aut fusca obliuionis caligine oblitterata uel incuria scriptorum et testium id agente ignorata regnantibus post nos et suis optimatibus ad lites et contentiones de cętero deuenirent. Qua de re in hac cartula demonstrare conor quod ego, cum consilio et consensu optimatum meorum quorum nomina infra scripta sunt, libertatem illius monasterii quod Saxonice Tantun dicitur, cum omnibus ad se pertinentibus, uillis, campis, siluis, pascuis, pratis, et piscium capturis, in sempiterno graphio in cruce Christi Deneƿulfo episcopo et illi uenerabili familię in Wentana ciuitate commoranti, ab omnibus regalibus fiscalibus et commitialibus necnon et ab omnibus mundialibus taxationibus expeditam, excepta expeditione et arcis et pontis constructione, toto mentis affectu dedi, ea conditione quo semper prefatum monasterium pertineat atque deseruiat episcopali sedi in Wintonia ciuitate sine ulla controuersia et sine disceptatione, nec in nostro tempore nec etiam ab ullo nostro successore hęc donatio commutetur aut uioletur insempiternum. Sed et hoc alacri animo Christo concessi ut episcopi homines, tam nobiles quam ignobiles in prefato rure degentes, hoc idem ius in omni haberent dignitate quo regis homines perfruuntur regalibus fiscis commorantes, et omnia secularium rerum iudicia ad usus presulum exerceantur eodem modo quo regalium negotiorum discutiuntur iudicia. Predicte etiam uillę mercimonium quod Anglice þæs tunes cyping appellatur, censusque omnis ciuilis, sanctę Dei ęcclesię in Wintonia ciuitate sine retractionis obstaculo, cum omnibus commodis, ęternaliter deseruiat. Erat namque antea in illo supradicto monasterio pastus unius noctis regi, et.viii. canum et unius caniculari pastus, et pastus nouem noctium accipitrariis regis, et quicquid rex uellet inde ducere usque ad Curig uel Ƿillettun cum plaustris et equis. Et si aduene de aliis regionibus aduenirent debebant ducatum habere ad aliam regalem uillam quę proxima fuisset in illorum uia. Ille quoque episcopus et illa uenerabilis familia michi.lx. manentes in illis illustribus locis quę Saxonice ita nominantur, id est .x. manentes æt Crauuancumbe, et .x. æt Cumbtune, et.xx. æt Bananƿylle,.xx. quoque æt Stoce iuxta Scealdeburnan, perpetualiter in sempiterno graphio in cruce Christi pro prefati monasterii libertate ab omni regali censu et comitiali omnique mundana exactione equaliter expeditas, excepta expeditione et arcis et pontis constructione, libenti animo condonauerunt. Hoc etiam sub diuino testamento precipimus et imperamus ne umquam aliqua commutatio uel uicissitudo illius nostre donationis et confirmationis in utraque parte fiat quamdiu illa Christianitas in ista insula consistat. Si quis hanc nostram donationem et commutationem custodire et augere uoluerit, custodiat illum Deus et augeat illi omnia bona presentis et futurę uitę. Sin uero aliqua mala machinatione minuere uel infringere uoluerit, sciat se ante celsi\si/mi iudicis horribile tribunal rationem redditurum in die iudicii, si non prius hic digna emendauerit pęnitentia. Hęc autem cartula scripta est anno dominicę incarnationis.dcccciiii., indictione.vii., in uilla uenatoria quę Saxonice dicitur Bicanleag, coram idoneis testibus quorum nomina subsequenter scripta sunt.

• Ego Eadward rex.

• Ego Pleigmund archiepiscopus.

• Ego Deneƿulf episcopus.

• Ego Ƿulfsige episcopus.

• Ego Æþelƿeard filius regis.

• Ego Ordlaf dux.

• Ego Osulf dux.

• Ego Ordgar dux.

• Ego Heahferð dux.

• Ego Ælfƿald dux.

• Ego Iohan presbiter.

• Ego Ƿerulf presbiter.

• Ego Tata presbiter.

• Ego Æþelstan presbiter.

• Ego Byrnstan presbiter.

• Ego Searu presbiter.

• Ego Ƿealda presbiter.

• Ego Friðestan [diaconus].

• Ego Ƿighel<m> [diaconus].

• Ego Ƿitbord minister.

• Ego Deormod minister.

• Ego Beorthelm minister.

• Ego Odda minister.

• Ego Wlfred minister.

• Ego Buga minister.

• Ego Ealhmund minister.

• Ego Wlfstan minister.

• Ego Æþelferð minister.

• Ego Wlfhelm minister.

• Ego Wlfhun minister.

• Ego Wlfhere minister.

• Ego Wlfric minister.

Translation

With our lord Jesus Christ reigning ever after, whose power neither grows nor diminishes, and with every cycle of the present life always everyday slipping away, and with everything both visible and invisible, willing and unwilling, inevitably daily being subject to his terms, for these reasons I Edward, with the permission of divine mercy, king of the Anglo-Saxons, have arranged to commit to the memory of writing all and any words or deeds or indeed agreements of our times that are deserving of an account, for the need of my soul and for our communal necessity and also that of our subsequent posterity, lest consigned either by the dark mist of oblivion or with the neglect of writers and witnesses bringing it about, being made unknown to kings and their good men that follow us, they otherwise arrive at disagreements and strife. Concerning such matters I therefore endeavour to show in this charter that, with the approval and consent of my excellent men whose names are written below, I gave with all the affection of the mind the freedom of that minster which in English is called Taunton with all the estates, fields, woods, pastures, meadows and fisheries pertaining to it, as an everlasting inheritance over the cross of Christ to Bishop Denewulf and that venerable community dwelling in the city of Winchester, set free from all royal and comital revenues, as well as from all worldly tax payments, with the exception of military service and the construction of a fortification or bridge. These things are under the condition that the said minster may always pertain to and serve the episcopal see of Winchester without any controversy and without dispute; neither in our time nor in that of any of our successors may this donation ever be altered or violated. And I conceded this to Christ with an eager soul so that bishops and both noble and common men dwelling in the aforementioned country have the same privilege in every rank that men of the king enjoy living off royal revenues, and all judgements of secular matters be exercised to the use of bishops in the same way in which judgements of royal business are tried. In the aforementioned town may the market place, which in English is called the ‘tunes cyping’, and all the civil revenue of the church of God in the city of Winchester, without any barrier of hesitation, serve eternally with all its profits. For it [the obligation] was before in the aforementioned minster the feeding for one night of the king and eight dogs and the feeding of one keeper of hounds and the feeding for nine nights of the keeper of hawks of the king, and whatever the king wished to lead from there up until Curry or Williton with carts and horses; and if outsiders came from other regions they ought to have a guide to another royal estate, whichever was closest to their way. Also, the bishop and the venerable community with a willing soul gave to me 60 hides in the celebrated places that in English are thusly named, that is 10 hides at Crowcombe, 10 at Compton (Bishop), 20 at Banwell, 20 also at Stoke by Shalbourne, for perpetuity as an everlasting inheritance over the cross of Christ, in exchange for the liberty of the said minster, freed from every royal or comital tribute and equally from every earthly exaction, with the exception of military service and the construction of a fortification or bridge. We order and command this under divine testimony lest at any time some upheaval or change to our donation and confirmation occur in any part, as long as Christianity remains on this island. If anyone wishes to protect or augment this our donation and exchange, may God protect them and augment for them all the good of the present and future life. But if anyone wishes to diminish or break it with any evil craft, may they know that on Judgement Day they will give an account of themselves before the terrible tribunal of the most lofty judge, if before they have not emended this with worthy repentance. This charter was written in the year of our Lord’s incarnation 904, the sixth indiction, on the hunting estate which in English is called Bicanleag, before the appropriate witnesses whose names subsequently are written. I King Edward; I Archbishop Plegmund; I Bishop Denewulf; I Bishop Wulfsige; I Æthelweard, son of the king; I Ealdorman Ordlaf; I Ealdorman Oswulf; I Ealdorman Ordgar; I Heahfrith; I Ealdorman Ælfwald; I John, priest; I Wærwulf, priest; I Tata, priest; I Æthelstan, priest; I Beornstan, priest; I Searu, priest; I Waldo, priest; I Frithestan, [deacon]; I Wighelm, [deacon]; I Wihtbrord, thegn; I Deormod, thegn; I Beorhthelm, thegn; I Odda, thegn; I Wulfred, thegn; I Buga, thegn; I Ealhmund, thegn; I Wulfstan, thegn; I Æthelfrith, thegn; I Wulfhelm, thegn; I Wulfhun, thegn; I Wulfhere, thegn; I Wulfric, thegn.¹⁵⁵