''The Proverbs of Alfred'' is a collection of early

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...

sayings ascribed to King Alfred the Great (called "England's darling"), said to have been uttered at an assembly in

Seaford, East Sussex Seaford is a town in East Sussex, England, east of Newhaven and west of Eastbourne.OS Explorer map Eastbourne and Beachy Head Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publishing Date:2009. In the Middle Ages, Sea ...

. The collection of proverbs was probably put together in Sussex in the mid-12th century. The manuscript evidence suggests the text originated at either a

Cluniac The Cluniac Reforms (also called the Benedictine Reform) were a series of changes within medieval monasticism of the Western Church focused on restoring the traditional monastic life, encouraging art, and caring for the poor. The movement began wi ...

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

monastery, either

Lewes Priory Lewes Priory is a part-demolished medieval Cluniac priory in Lewes, East Sussex in the United Kingdom. The ruins have been designated a Grade I listed building. History The Priory of St Pancras was the first Cluniac house in England and h ...

, to the north of Seaford, or

Battle Abbey Battle Abbey is a partially ruined Benedictine abbey in Battle, East Sussex, England. The abbey was built on the site of the Battle of Hastings and dedicated to St Martin of Tours. It is a Scheduled Monument. The Grade I listed site is now ...

, to the north-east.Rouse, ''The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England'', pp. 38-39.

Transmission

The ''Proverbs of Alfred'' survive in four

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...

s of the 13th century: *Cotton Galba A. xix (MS C) *Maidstone Museum A.13 (MS M) *Cambridge, Trinity College, B.14.39 (MS T) *Oxford, Jesus College, 29 (MS J)Rouse, ''The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England'', p. 13. The text appears to have been produced in the late 12th century. There is no reason to suppose that any of the proverbs go back to King Alfred. King Alfred, who translated several works into the vernacular, is not known to have translated or composed proverbs. However, his legendary status in later tradition gave him a reputation for having done so, as the Middle English poem ''

The Owl and the Nightingale ''The Owl and the Nightingale'' ( la, Altercatio inter filomenam et bubonem) is a twelfth- or thirteenth-century Middle English poem detailing a debate between an owl and a nightingale as overheard by the poem's narrator. It is the earliest exa ...

'' likewise suggests. Some of the proverbs in the ''Proverbs of Alfred'' appear elsewhere under another name ('' Hendyng'', which may itself be less of a proper name than an adjective).

Form and contents

The proverbs are in

alliterative verse In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of ...

, but the verse does not adhere to the rules of classical Old English poetry.

Caesura 300px, An example of a caesura in modern western music notation A caesura (, . caesuras or caesurae; Latin for " cutting"), also written cæsura and cesura, is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begin ...

e are present in every line, but the lines are broken in two (cf. ''

Pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

''). The collection shows signs of transition in verse form from the earlier Anglo-Saxon alliterative form to the new

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

rhyme form, for rhyme occasionally occurs in the poetry. Late in the poem, the verse even picks up Norman metre and something like a couplet form. At the same time, the proverbs resemble the gnomic compositions of earlier Anglo-Saxon instruction. The proverbs are expressed as highly compressed metaphors that are halfway to the poetry found in the Anglo-Saxon riddle and ''Gnomic Verses.'' Collections of sayings and precepts were common in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

as well, but the distinctive compression of the Alfredian proverbs is clearly a sign of their Anglo-Saxon origin. Given that it is most likely that the author and his antecedents gathered up proverbs over time, the heterogeneous contents of the book are predictable. The proverbs contain popular wisdom, religious instruction, and advice on the wickedness of women. The latter is most likely a scribal interpolation.

Sample

An example of the ''Proverbs'' is lines 423–48, here in the translation of Christopher Cannon.Christopher Cannon, 'Proverbs and the Wisdom of Literature: ''The Proverbs of Alfred'' and Chaucer’s ''Tale of Melibee''’, ''Textual Practice'', 24.3 (2010), 407–34 (pp, 413-14) .

References

Sources

*Keynes, Simon, and Lapidge, Michael, ''Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred & Other Contemporary Sources''. Penguin Classics, 1984.

External links