9th-century Bishop of Sherborne, writer, and monk
Asser (; ; died c. 909) was a Welsh monk from St David's, Dyfed, who became Bishop of Sherborne in the 890s. About 885 he was asked by Alfred the Great to leave St David's and join the circle of learned men whom Alfred was recruiting for his court. After spending a year at Caerwent because of illness, Asser accepted.
In 893, Asser wrote a biography of Alfred, called the "Life of King Alfred". The manuscript survived to modern times in only one copy, which was part of the Cotton library. That copy was destroyed in a fire in 1731, but transcriptions that had been made earlier, together with material from Asser's work which was included by other early writers, have made it possible to reconstruct the work. The biography is the main source of information about Alfred's life and provides far more information about Alfred than is known about any other early English ruler. Asser assisted Alfred in his translation of Gregory the Great's "Pastoral Care", and possibly with other works.
Asser is sometimes cited as a source for the legend about Alfred's having founded the University of Oxford, which is now known to be false. A short passage making this claim was interpolated by William Camden into his 1603 edition of Asser's "Life". Doubts have also been raised periodically about whether the entire "Life" is a forgery, written by a slightly later writer, but it is now almost universally accepted as genuine.
Name and early life.
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 Aser, or Asher, the eighth son of Jacob in Genesis. Old Testament names were common in Wales at the time, but it has been suggested that this name may have been adopted at the time Asser entered the church. Asser may have been familiar with a work by St Jerome on the meaning of Hebrew names (Jerome's given meaning for "Asser" was "blessed").
According to his "Life of King Alfred", Asser was a monk at St David's in what was then the kingdom of Dyfed, in south-west Wales. Asser makes it clear that he was brought up in the area, and was tonsured, trained and ordained there. He also mentions Nobis, a bishop of St David's who died in 873 or 874, as being a kinsman of his.
Recruitment by Alfred and time at court.
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 held a high opinion of the value of learning and recruited men from around Britain and from continental Europe to establish a scholarly centre at his court. It is not known how Alfred heard of Asser, but one possibility relates to Alfred's overlordship of south Wales. Several kings, including Hywel ap Rhys of Glywysing and Hyfaidd of Dyfed (where Asser's monastery was), had submitted to Alfred's overlordship in 885. Asser gives a fairly detailed account of the events. There is a charter of Hywel's which has been dated to c. 885; amongst the witnesses is one "Asser", which may be the same person. Hence it is possible that Alfred's relationship with the southern Welsh kings led him to hear of Asser.
Asser recounts meeting Alfred first at the royal estate at Dean, Sussex (now East and West Dean, West Sussex). Asser provides only one datable event in his history: on St Martin's Day, 11 November 887, Alfred decided to learn to read Latin. Working backwards from this, it appears most likely that Asser was recruited by Alfred in early 885.
Asser's response to Alfred's request was to ask for time to consider the offer, as he felt it would be unfair to abandon his current position in favour of worldly recognition. Alfred agreed but also suggested that he should spend half his time at St David's and half with Alfred. Asser again asked for time to consider, but ultimately agreed to return to Alfred with an answer in six months. On his return to Wales, however, Asser fell ill with a fever and was confined to the monastery of Caerwent for twelve months and a week. Alfred wrote to find out the cause of the delay, and Asser responded that he would keep his promise when he recovered. When he did recover, in 886, he agreed to divide his time between Wales and Alfred's court, as Alfred had suggested. Others at St David's supported this, since they hoped Asser's influence with Alfred would avoid "damaging afflictions and injuries at the hands of King Hyfaidd (who often assaulted that monastery and the jurisdiction of St David)".
Asser joined several other noted scholars at Alfred's court, including Grimbald, and John the Old Saxon; all three probably reached Alfred's court within a year of each other. His first extended stay with Alfred was at the royal estate at Leonaford, probably from about April through December 886. It is not known where Leonaford was; a case has been made for Landford, in Wiltshire. Asser records that he read aloud to the king from the books at hand. On Christmas Eve, 886, after Asser had for some time failed to obtain permission to return to Wales, Alfred gave Asser the monasteries of Congresbury and Banwell, along with a silk cloak and a quantity of incense "weighing as much as a stout man." He allowed Asser to visit his new possessions and thence to return to St David's.
Thereafter Asser seems to have divided his time between Wales and Alfred's court. Asser gives no information about his time in Wales, but mentions various places that he visited in England, including the battlefield at Ashdown, Cynuit (Countisbury), and Athelney. It is evident from Asser's account that he spent a good deal of time with Alfred: he recounts meeting Alfred's mother-in-law, Eadburh (who is not the same Eadburh who died as a beggar in Pavia), on many occasions; and says that he has often seen Alfred hunting.
Bishop of Sherborne.
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. Asser's predecessor as Bishop of Sherborne, Wulfsige, attested a charter in 892. Asser's first appearance in the position is in 900, when he appears as a witness to a charter; hence the succession can only be dated to the years 892 to 900. In any event, Asser had already been a bishop prior to his appointment to the see of Sherborne, since Wulfsige is known to have received a copy of Alfred's "Pastoral Care" in which Asser is described as a bishop.
It is possible that Asser was a suffragan bishop within the see of Sherborne, but he may instead have been a bishop of St David's. He is listed as such in Giraldus Cambrensis's "Itinerarium Cambriae", although this may be unreliable as it was written three centuries later, in 1191. A contemporary clue is found in Asser's own writing: he mentions that bishops of St David's were sometimes expelled by King Hyfaidd and adds that "he even expelled me on occasion." This also implies that Asser was himself a bishop of St David's.
"The Life of King Alfred".
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 long, is one of the most important sources of information on Alfred the Great.
Asser drew on a variety of texts to write his "Life". The style is similar to that of two biographies of Louis the Pious: "Vita Hludovici Imperatoris", written c. 840 by an unknown author usually called "the Astronomer", and "Vita Hludowici Imperatoris" by Thegan of Trier. It is possible that Asser may have known these works. He also knew Bede's "Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum"; the "Historia Brittonum", a Welsh source; the "Life of Alcuin"; and the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle". It is also clear from the text that Asser was familiar with Virgil's "Aeneid", Caelius Sedulius's "Carmen Paschale", Aldhelm's "De Virginitate", and Einhard's "Vita Karoli Magni" ("Life of Charlemagne"). He quotes from Gregory the Great's "Regula Pastoralis", a work he and Alfred subsequently collaborated in translating, and from Augustine of Hippo's "Enchiridion". About half of the "Life" is little more than a translation of part of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" for the years 851–887, though Asser adds personal opinions and interpolates information about Alfred's life. Asser also adds material relating to the years after 887 and general opinions about Alfred's character and reign.
Asser's prose style has been criticised for weak syntax, stylistic pretensions, and garbled exposition. His frequent use of archaic and unusual words gives his prose a baroque flavour that is common in Insular Latin authors of the period. He uses several words that are peculiar to Frankish Latin sources. This has led to speculation that he was educated at least partly in Francia, but it is also possible that he acquired this vocabulary from Frankish scholars he associated with at court, such as Grimbald.
The "Life" ends abruptly with no concluding remarks and it is considered likely that the manuscript is an incomplete draft. Asser lived a further fifteen or sixteen years and Alfred a further six, but no events after 893 are recorded.
It is possible that the work was written principally for the benefit of a Welsh audience. Asser takes pains to explain local geography, so he was clearly considering an audience not familiar with the areas he described. More specifically, at several points he gives an English name and follows it with the British / Welsh equivalent name, such as in the case of Nottingham. As a result, and given that Alfred's overlordship of south Wales was recent, it may be that Asser intended the work to acquaint a Welsh readership with Alfred's personal qualities and reconcile them to his rule. However, it is also possible that Asser's inclusion of Welsh placenames simply reflects an interest in etymology or the existence of a Welsh audience in his own household rather than in Wales. There are also sections such as the support for Alfred's programme of fortification that give the impression of the book's being aimed at an English audience.
Asser's "Life" omits any mention of internal strife or dissent in Alfred's own reign, though when he mentions that Alfred had to harshly punish those who were slow to obey Alfred's commands to fortify the realm, he makes it clear that Alfred did have to enforce obedience. Asser's life is a one-sided treatment of Alfred, though since Alfred was alive when it was composed, it is unlikely to contain gross errors of fact.
In addition to being the primary source for Alfred's life, Asser's work is also a source for other historical periods, where he adds material to his translation of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle". For example, he tells a story about Eadburh, the daughter of Offa. Eadburh married Beorhtric, king of the West Saxons. Asser describes her as behaving "like a tyrant" and ultimately accidentally poisoning Beorhtric in an attempt to murder someone else. He finishes by describing her death as a beggar in Pavia. 
Manuscripts of "The Life of King Alfred".
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 was destroyed in a fire in 1731. The lack of distribution may be because Asser had not finished the manuscript and so did not have it copied. However, the material in the "Life" is recognizable in other works. There is some evidence from early writers of access to versions of Asser's work, as follows:
The history of the Cotton manuscript itself is quite complex. The list of early writers above mentions that it may have been in the possession of at least two of them. It