Asser (also known as John Asser or Asserius Menevensis) was a Welsh monk who lived from at least AD 885 until about 909. Almost nothing is known of Asser's early life. The name Asser is likely to have been taken from … 查看更多內容

Much of what is known about Asser comes from his biography of Alfred, in particular a short section in which Asser recounts how Alfred recruited him as a scholar for his court. Alfred … 查看更多內容

In 893, Asser wrote a biography of Alfred entitled The Life of King Alfred; in the original Latin, the title is Vita Ælfredi regis Angul Saxonum. The date is known from Asser's mention of the king's age in the text. The work, which is less than twenty thousand words … 查看更多內容

In 1603 the antiquarian William Camden published an edition of Asser's Life in which there appears a story of a community of scholars at Oxford, who were visited by Grimbald:
In the year of our Lord 886, the second year of the … 查看更多內容

Sometime between 887 and 892, Alfred gave Asser the monastery of Exeter. Asser subsequently became Bishop of Sherborne, though the year of succession is unknown. … 查看更多內容

The early manuscript of the Life does not appear to have been widely known in medieval times. Only one copy is known to have survived into modern times. It is known as Cotton MS Otho A xii, and was part of the Cotton library. It was written about 1000 and … 查看更多內容

During the 19th and 20th centuries, several scholars asserted that Asser's biography of King Alfred was not authentic, but a forgery. A prominent claim was made in 1964 by the respected historian V.H. Galbraith in his essay "Who Wrote Asser's Life of Alfred?" … 查看更多內容