The chronology of Alfred’s works is not known. The
only vernacular text mentioned by Asser in 893 is the
Dialogues. However, this may be because the Life of
King Alfred was never completed. Equally inconclu-
sive is William of Malmesbury’s claim that Alfred was
working on the Psalms at the time of his death: he may
have drawn his conclusion from the fact that only the
fi rst 50 psalms had been translated, even though the
practice of subdividing the Psalter into units of 50 seems
to have been a common one. It is probable, however,
that the Pastoral Care (circulated ca. 890–95) was the
fi rst of Alfred’s translations, while verbal echoes may
(less certainly) suggest that the Soliloquies followed the
Boethius, which in its turn may have been later than the
anonymous Orosius, a text possibly completed as early
as 890 or 891.
See also Bede the Venerable; Gregory I, PopeFurther ReadingPrimary Sources
Bately, Janet M., ed. The Old English Orosius. EETS s.s. 6.
London: Oxford University Press, 1980
Bright, James W., and Robert L. Ramsay, eds. Liber Psalmorum:
The West-Saxon Psalms, Being the Prose Portion, or the “First
Fifty,” of the So-Called Paris Psalter. Boston: Heath, 1907
Carnicelli, Thomas A., ed. King Alfred’s Version of St. Augustine’s
Soliloquies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969
Hargrove, Henry Lee, trans. King Alfred’s Old English Version
of St. Augustine’s Soliloquies Turned into Modern English.
New York: Holt, 1904
Hecht, Hans, ed. Bischof Warferths von Worcester Übersetzung
der Dialogue Gregors des Grossen. 2 vols. Bibliothek der
angelsächsischen Prosa 5. Leipzig: Wigand, 1900–07
Keynes, Simon, and Michael Lapidge, trans. Alfred the Great:
Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources.
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983
Kotzor, G., ed. Das altenglische Martyrologium. Bayerische
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse 88/1–2.
Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981
Miller, Thomas, ed. and trans. The Old English Version of Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the English People. EETS o.s. 95,
96, 110, 111. London: Trübner, 1890–98
Sedgefi eld, Walter John, ed. King Alfred’s Old English Version
of Boethius De consolatione Philosophiae. Oxford: Claren-
don, 1899
Sedgefi eld, Walter John, trans. King Alfred’s Version of the Con-
solations of Boethius. Oxford: Clarendon, 1900
Stevenson, William Henry, ed. Asser’s Life of King Alfred. Ox-
ford: Clarendon, 1904. Repr. Oxford: Clarendon, 1959
Sweet, Henry, ed. and trans. King Alfred’s West-Saxon Version of
Gregory’s “Pastoral Care.” EETS o.s. 45, 50. London: Trüb-
ner, 1871–72. Repr. with corrections by N.R. Ker. London:
Oxford University Press, 1958.
History
Abels, Richard P. Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-
Saxon England. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1988
Brooks, Nicholas P. “England in the Ninth Century: The Crucible
of Defeat.” TRHS, 5th ser. 29 (1979): 1–20Campbell, James. “Asser’s Life of Alfred.” In The Inheritance of
Historiography, 350–900, ed. C. Holdsworth and T.P Wise-
man. Exeter: University of Exeter, 1986, pp. 115–35
Hinton, David A. Alfred’s Kingdom: We s s ex and the South,
800–1500. London: Dent, 1977
Hodges, Richard. The Anglo-Saxon Achievement: Archaeology
and the Beginnings of English Society. London: Duckworth,
1989
Keynes, Simon. “A Tale of Two Kings: Alfred the Great and
Æthelred the Unready.” TRHS, 5th ser. 36 (1986): 195–217
Maddicott, J.R. “Trade, Industry and the Wealth of King Alfred.”
Past and Present 123 (May 1989): 3–51
Nelson, JX. “‘A King across the Sea’: Alfred in Continental
Perspective.” TRHS, 5th ser. 36 (1986): 45–68
Nelson, J.L. “Reconstructing a Royal Family: Refl ections on
Alfred, from Asser, Chapter 2.” In People and Places in
Northern Europe, 500–1600: Essays in Honour of Pe t e r
Sawyer, ed. Ian Wood and Niels Lund. Woodbridge: Boydell,
1990, pp. 47–66
Nelson, J.L. “The Political Ideas of Alfred of Wessex.” In Kings
and Kingship in Medieval Europe. London: King’s College
London, 1993, pp. 125–58
Smyth, A.P. King Alfred the Great. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995 [idiosyncratic but in parts thought-provoking
study]
Sturdy, D.J. Alfred the Great. London: Constable, 1995
Wormald, Patrick. “The Ninth Century.” In The Anglo-Saxons,
ed. James Campbell. Oxford: Phaidon, 1982, pp. 132–59
[excellent short account, in the absence of a full-scale modern
scholarly study].Alfred and Learning
Bately, Janet. The Literary Prose of King Alfred’s Reign: Trans-
lation or Transformation? London: King’s College London,- Repr. OEN Subsidia 10. Binghamton: CEMERS,
1984
Frantzen, Allen J. King Alfred. Boston: Twayne, 1986
Liggins, Elizabeth M. “The Authorship of the Old English Oro-
sius.” Anglia 88 (1970): 289–322
O’Neill, Patrick. “Old English Introductions to the Prose Psalms
of the Paris Psalter: Sources, Structure and Composition.”
SP78 (1981): 20–38
Payne, F. Anne. King Alfred and Boethius: An Analysts of the
OE Version of the “Consolation of Philosophy.” Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1968
Potter, Simeon. On the Relation of the Old English Bede to
Werferth’s Gregory and to Alfred’s Translations. Prague:
Nákladem Král, 1931
Szarmach, Paul E. “The Meaning of Alfred’s Preface to the Pas-
toral Care.” Mediaevalia 6 (1982 for 1980): 57–86
Szarmach, Paul E., ed. Studies in Earlier Old English Prose.
Albany: SUNY Press, 1986 [many relevant articles]
Whitelock, Dorothy. “The Old English Bede.” PBA 48 (1962):
57–90. Repr. in British Academy Pa p e rs on Anglo-Saxon
England, ed. E.G. Stanley. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1990, pp. 227–60
Whitelock, Dorothy. “The Prose of Alfred’s Reign.’” In Continu-
ations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed.
E.G. Stanley. London: Nelson, 1966, pp. 67–103
Wittig, Joseph S. “King Alfred’s Boethius and Its Latin Sources:
A Reconsideration.” ASE 11 (1983): 157–98
Wormald, Patrick. “The Uses of Literacy in Anglo-Saxon England
and Its Neighbours.” TRHS, 5th ser. 27 (1977): 95–114.
Janet L Nelson
Janet M. Bately
ALFRED THE GREAT