![]() ![]() ![]() A full exploration of context establishes these texts as part of a single discourse which placed Alfred himself at the heart of all rightful power and authority. It explains the extraordinary burst of royal learned activity focused on inventive translations from Latin into Old English attributed to Alfred's own authorship. This book is a comprehensive study of political thought at the court of King Alfred the Great (871–99). Above all, the Life emerges as a work with strong resonances with the cultural preoccupations of the late ninth century. Taken as a whole, the ideas, allusions and influences present in the work allow Asser's Life to be seen not merely as a descriptive but also as a thematic portrait of the king's intellectual interests. ![]() In the process, Asser is shown to be an author with a keen sense of the prevailing notions of royal authority, but one equally aware of the potential dangers such notions could bring, particularly when one key royal attribute, humility, could be seen as indicative more of weakness than fitness to rule. This article attempts to place this account in its contemporary setting, analysing its devotional, intellectual and political contexts, in order to argue that, far from being an anomaly, it reflects the cultural interests of the Alfredian court and the influence upon it of contemporary Carolingian notions of rulership. Asser's account of Alfred's mysterious illnesses is one of the most puzzling and most-discussed passages in his Life. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |