Asser’s Bible and the Prologue to the Laws of Alfred

Abstract

In this article, I compare the Biblical citations in the Prologue to Laws of King Alfred with those in Asser’s De rebus gestis Ælfredi to see if the author(s) of these documents quoted from a similar text of the Scriptures, and what this data might reveal about the authorship of the aforementioned Prologue. My analysis shows that the author of both documents knew and relied on an Insular Celtic version of the New Testament. While acknowledging that the data available for analysis is too scant to draw firm conclusions, I suggest that my evidence supports the possibility that Asser played a formative role in drafting the Prologue to Alfred’s law code and speaks against the active participation of Alfred’s Continental guests.