Page:Source Problems in English History.djvu/35

 and inartistic, that one is sometimes almost inclined to think that the compiler, while keeping his annals (as he could hardly help doing) in chronological order, cut up his biographical matter into strips, put the strips in a hat, and then took them out in any order which chance might dictate.” Yet the same style, language, and oddities of thought appear in both parts and force the conclusion that there was a single author. The passage here used is, it will be seen, from the annals Asser probably wrote while Alfred was still alive. Why his work stopped so suddenly at 887 is not known.

3. Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Ethelwerd, who claimed that he was the great-great-grandson of Alfred’s brother Ethelred, wrote late in the tenth century and brought his chronicle down to 973. He dedicated his work to a kinswoman, Matilda, who, he states, was descended in the same number of generations from Alfred. It has been shown that this was Matilda of Swabia. granddaughter of the Emperor Otto I. and his first wife Edith, daughter of Edward the Elder of England. Ethelwerd was probably the ealdorman of that name who witnessed a number of charters between 976 and 998, and who is otherwise heard of in that period. His very pompous and obscure Latin history is yet worthy of study because it is clear that he used an earlier version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle than any extant. This version lacked some things found in the later manuscripts, but clearly contained points of importance which they lack. These would have been lost but for Ethelwerd’s work. But sometimes he did more than follow his copy of the Chronicle; and in view of his time, his position, and his connections with the House of Wessex, it seems likely that he had access to such written and traditional material as to make his additions worthy of notice. It