ALBA The term alba, or “dawn song,” comes from
the Occitan regions of southern France. The verse form
varies, but the subject matter involves lovers who have
spent the night together reluctantly having to part at
dawn. The tone resembles a LAMENT, the lovers wishing
the night would continue forever. Some poems involve
an appeal to the lover to awaken, and many incorpo-
rate a warning from a watchman who has guarded the
lovers from spies and other interruptions during the
night. The origins of the alba can be traced to the late
10th century, although classical precedents exist, but
the fi rst surviving Occitan text is Guiraut de Bornelh’s
“Reis glorios” (Glorious sun) from the late 12th cen-
tury. In Folc de Marseilla (d. 1231), the form is even
adapted to a religious purpose in “Vers Dieus, el vostre
nom et de Sancta Maria.” Though technically the alba
is a subset to the AUBADE, the two terms are often used
interchangeably.
FURTHER READING
Dronke, Peter. The Medieval Lyric. 3rd ed. Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 1996.
Van Vleck, Amelia E. “The Lyric Texts.” In A Handbook of
the Troubadours, edited by F. R. P. Akehurst and Judith
M. Davis, 21–60. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1995.
Carol E. Harding
ALDHELM (640?–ca. 709) Very little is known
about Aldhelm except that he studied at Canterbury
under Archbishop Theodore and the abbot Hadrian
and later served as abbot at Malmesbury and bishop of
Sherborne. However, many of Aldhelm’s works still
exist, and they provide important evidence for study-
ing the beginnings of recorded poetry and prose in
England. Aldhelm wrote in a complicated linguistic
style called hermeneutical Latin, though many specu-
late he also wrote Old English poetry that has been
lost.
Aldhelm wrote many different kinds of texts, includ-
ing riddles, treatises on the art of metrics, religious
lyric poems, letters, charters, and poetic and prosaic
versions of a text called the De virginitate (On Virginity).
Aldhelm’s riddles were perhaps the most popular of
his writings. Covering numerous topics from cats to
women giving birth, they are composed in Anglo-Latin
hexameters. Stylistically, the texts are short and myste-
rious. His writings on metrics, particularly De metris
(On Meters) and De pedum regulis (On the Rules of Feet),
outline in great detail the proper ways for poets to con-
struct their verse and demonstrate the study of metrics
to be both an art and a science. All of these works—the
riddles and the two metrical treatises—are found in a
lengthy letter from Aldhelm to Acircius, which can be
dated sometime between 685 and 705.
See also ANGLO-SAXON RIDDLES, EXETER BOOK.
FURTHER READING
Lapidge, Michael, and James L. Rosier, trans. Aldhelm: The
Poetic Works. Woodbridge, Suffolk, U.K.: D.S. Brewer,
1985.
Orchard, Andy. The Poetic Art of Aldhelm. Cambridge Stud-
ies in Anglo-Saxon England 8. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994.
Joshua R. EylerALEXANDRINE A 12-syllable line of verse
written in iambic hexameter, in which each line of six
feet has two syllables with an unstressed syllable fol-
lowed by a stressed syllable. An alternate pattern fea-
tures a short syllable followed by a long syllable. The
form originated in French heroic verse. A prominent
English example is found in EDMUND SPENSER’s The
FAERIE QUEENE, in which eight lines of iambic pentam-
eter are followed by an alexandrine.ALFRED THE GREAT (AELFRED THE
GREAT) (849–899) The fi fth and youngest son
of Ethelwulf of Wessex and his wife Osburga of the
Jutes, Alfred assumed the throne in 871 after the death
of his brother, Aethelred. He had spent his youth in
Kent, learning literature and philosophy alongside the
warrior arts.
Alfred’s fi rst action was to buy peace from the
Vikings. This peace was short-lived, and he spent the
next several years engaged in guerilla-style battles,
fi nally retaking London in 886, upon which he declared
himself “King of the English.” Alfred also forged the
Danelaw (common boundary) with his former enemy,
Guthrum. Politically astute, he reformed the legal code,ALFRED THE GREAT 5