Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/125

 9* s. VIIL AUG. ID, HOI.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

117

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1901.

CONTENTS. No. 189.

NOTES: King Alfred "the Truth -teller," 117 Rare Scotch Tract,, 118 The Miller of Sans Souci : an Oriental Analogue Record Voyage across the Atlantic, 119 Smallest Book Published " Veirium "Leaden Roofs "Wicked" Prayer Book, 120 Green Unlucky Stone Stocks Epitaph " Fault " in Tennis "Turn," 121 " Waitress "Butler of Edmonton, 122.

QUERIES : Consett Somerset, the Protector Curious Bad/?e Lockt<ms, of Leicestershire, 122 Lancashire Families "Cultivation" Reliquary at Orvieto Hollings- worth Portraits of Officers Earl of Kinnoul, 123 Isaac Family of Kent Motto of the Ordnance Office Crosdill Fisher Family De Morgan and Books Little John's Remains, 124 Deputy-Governors of Counties, 125.

REPLIES : Lamb as Journalist, 125 The ' Marseillaise,' 126-Knileboard, 127" Three acres and a cow " " Vzesac Mihm "Isabel of Portugal Ashwood Family Ships of War on Land, 128 Royal Borough of Kensington Hone. 129 Leigh Hunt Hull Saying Designation of Foreigners in Mexico ' Bouzingot "Scott Query, 130 Sweeny Todd Chain-mail in the British Army Phillippo Royal Borough, 131 -First Earl of Stirling Living in Three Centuries, 132 Civil List Pensions John Martin Mackesy, 133 Portraits in Dulwich Gallery Transfer of Land by "Church Gift" 'Nomenclator Navalis' St. Edmund, 134 Lamb Questions "Pint umbit," 135.

NOTES ON BOOKS: Maynadier's 'The Wife of Bath's Tale : its Sources and Analogues 'Reviews and Maga- zines.

Notices to Correspondents.

KING ALFRED " THE TRUTH-TELLER."

IT seems to be Tennyson in his * Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington ' who has made " the Truth-teller " so well known as an epithet of King Alfred ; and it seems equally certain that Tennyson derived that epithet from ' The History of the Anglo-Saxons,' by Sharon Turner. This work had considerable vogue in the first half of the last century. It was first published in 1799-1805, and ran through several editions. The sixth, dated 1836, now lies before me.

At the end of chap. v. bk. v. vol. ii., Sharon Turner writes :

" We will close our account of Alfred's moral character by one remarkable trait. An author who lived at the period of the Norman Conquest, in mentioning some of the preceding kings with short appropriate epithets, names Alfred with the simple but expressive addition of ' the truth-teller,' as if it had been his traditional character."

And in a note he refers to ' Hermanni Mira- cula Edmundi,' written about 1070 (Cotton MS. Tiberius, bk. ii.), which contains the phrase " Elueredi Veridici."

Turner's suggestion that the character was traditional is confirmed by the fact that that same adjective veridicus is applied to the

king in the 'Annales Asserii' the Chroni- con falsely assigned to Asser. I quote from Wise's edition of Asser, 1722, p. 72, at the end of the e De Rebus Gestis ^Elfredi,' where he informs us " Clausula hsec verbatim pro- pemodum ex Pseudo-Asserii Annalibus trans- fertur pag. 172, 173," the "Clausula" being as follows :

"Anno Domini 900, ^Elfredus veridicus, vir in bello per omnia strenuissimus, rex Occidentalium Saxonum nobilissimus, prudens vero et religiosus atque sapientissimus, hoc anno, postquam regnasset viginti et novem annis et dimidio super totam Angliam praeter illas partes quse subditae erant Dacis, cum magno suorum dolore viam universitatis adiit, die septimo Kalend. Novemb. anno regni sui vigesimo nono et dimidio, anno vero eetatis suse quinquagesimo primo, indictione quarta. Qui apud Wintoniam Civitatem regalem decenter et regali honore est sepultus in ecclesia Sancti Petri, Apos- tolorum principis. Mausoleum quoque ipsius con- stat factum de marmore porphyrio pretiosissimo." And then Wise proceeds to cite Henry of Huntingdon's well-known lines beginning Nobilitas innata tibi probitatis honorem, Armipotens ^Elfrede, dedit, probitasque laborem Perpetuumque labor nomen, &c.,

iii which, by the way, probitas does not mean veracity, as one translator would have it mean, rendering the first two verses in this wise :

Thine own greatness inborn, O Alfred mighty in

battle, Made thee a teller of truth and truth-telling made

thee a doer.

Probitas is certainly rightly glossed by T. Arnold in his edition of Henry of Huntingdon as answering to the French prouesse. So Maigne D'Arnis gives as equivalents " gene- rositas, animi magnitude, preeclarum facinus, factum, prouesse" and for probus he gives "miles animo valens preux, brave." What is meant is shown clearly enough by Geoffrey of Monmouth's use of the word. Geoffrey, dedicating his famous work to Robert, Duke of Gloucester, speaks of him as one "quern innata probitas in militia militibus prsefecit," i.e. t " whom his military genius has placed in command," literally "whom his inborn valorousness or prowess in warfare has placed at the head of troops." Similarly, when Alfred is described by Matthew of Westminster, anno 868, as "juvenis admirandse probitatis," what is praised is his vigorous soldiership.

Wise quotes from the pseudo- Asser a

second passage in which the epithet of

"truth-teller" occurs (see his 'Prafatio,'

. xxix): "Quod a domino meo Alfredo

Anglo-Saxonum rege veridico etia,m ssepemihi

referente audivi."

Thus there are at least three instances in