Alfred of Beverley

Beverley, Alfred of (d. c. 1154 x c. 1157), chronicler, and sacrist of the collegiate church of St John the Evangelist and St John of Beverley wrote a history of Britain and England in nine chapters (c. 1148- c.1151) from its supposed foundation by the Trojan Brutus, down to the death of Henry I in 1135. Alfred's chief sources, in addition to Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica de Gentis Anglorum , are Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, Henry of Huntingdon's Historia Anglorum, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, and the Historia Regum, attributed to Symeon of Durham.e

Biography

Aluredus (Alfred) the sacrist, witnessed charters over the period c.1135 to c. 1154 in favour of Beverley and the nearby religious houses of Bridlington, Warter and Watton and Rufford Abbey.^[1]  Alfred’s attestation of a gift of land in Averham, in the East Riding, to the Cistercian Rufford Abbey (Nottinghamshire) is of particular interest. Preserved in the fifteenth-century Rufford cartulary, the attestation not only shows Alfred’s association with a Cistercian abbey located over sixty miles from Beverley, but also names Ernaldo filio Alueredi as a witness, ^[2] giving grounds to believe that Ernaldus was the son of Alfred the sacrist. We learn from the charter, therefore, that Alfred in common with many secular clerks of the time, was a family man. Beyond the charter evidence, what more is known of Alfred comes from what he himself tells us in his history and also from later hagiographical and historical sources.  In the descriptive survey of Britain prefacing the history, Alfred speaks of himself as contemporary with the removal of the Flemings from the north of England by King Henry I to south Wales (c.1110).^[3]  In later hagiographical sources Alfred is described as ‘an old man, wise in the laws of the church’.^[4]  As by c.1157 a certain Robert attests as sacrist of Beverley with the minster chapter in a charter of Warter Priory ^[5] and we can therefore infer that Alfred was probably dead before that date, it would appear likely that Alfred was born in the final decades of the eleventh century.

Alfred is also remembered in the late fourteenth century Beverley cartulary as ‘a man of venerable life and an ardent student of the scriptures’ (London, BL, Add. 61901, fol. 60v) and from York Minster, in hanging tablets carrying historical notices about the foundation of the church of York (wooden tryptichs), which also date from the late fourteenth century, excerpts from the history of ‘Alfridus Beverlacens thesaurarius’ are attached on the left hand tryptich.^[6]

Writings

Alfred’s History narrates the history of Britain from its supposed foundation by the Trojan Brutus down to the death of Henry I in 1135. Compiled over the years c.1148– c.1151 (previously held to be 1143) and at a time of crisis and schism in the church of York, the work was sparked by the appearance in c.1136 of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae History of the Kings of Britain (HRB) and by the reaction at the time to that work. What appears to have been Alfred’s original intention, to make excerpts of those parts of the work which did not ‘exceed the bounds of credibility’, developed into a more ambitious attempt to integrate Geoffrey’s history into an existing understanding of Britain’s early history, based largely on the accounts of classical authorities such as Orosius, Eutropius and Suetonius, and on Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (HE). To assimilate the HRB within existing historical understanding required its content to be significantly adapted and its two-thousand-year continuous narrative is divided into five distinct historical periods, designated the quinque status (five states or eras), and these occupy the first five chapters of the work.

Chapters six to nine of the History narrate the foundation of the heptarchic English kingdoms, the emergence of West Saxon hegemony and the creation of the kingdom of England, the Danish wars and the coming of the Normans. Alfred compiles his account from three main sources: from Lincoln, the Historia Anglorum (HA) of Henry of Huntingdon; from Worcester, the Genealogies and Accounts of the Saxon kingdoms contained in the preliminary section of the Chronicle of John of Worcester, and from Durham, the Historia Regum (HR) attributed to Symeon of Durham.

Other writings? The Liberties of Beverley

The Beverley Cartulary (BL, Add. 61901, fol. 60 v- 69 r) contains a tract entitled The Liberties of Beverley which names Master Alfred, the sacrist, as collector and the translator from  English into  Latin of the ancient liberties and privileges of the church of St John of Beverley, as granted by King Æthelstan (d. 939).^[7] The cartulary is an expensively produced volume commissioned by the chapter of Beverley in defence of its rights and privileges at a time of conflict between it and Archbishop Alexander Neville (c.1332–1392).

While the Liberties tract contains nothing from a time later than Alfred, and therefore his authorship is possible, the History offers little to support the view that its author, and that of the Liberties, are one and the same. The History contains a miracle story of St John of Beverley where Beverley’s status as a sanctuary-centre under the protection of the saint is described ^[8] – a central claim of the Liberties tract- but neither King Æthelstan, nor the other principal benefactors of Beverley described in the tract: Archbishop Wulfstan I of York (d.956), Archbishop Ealdred of York (d.1069) and King Edward the Confessor (d.1066), are linked in any way to Beverley in the History. Equally, royal privileges granted by King William I to Beverley which are reported in the History, are not found in the Liberties tract.^[9]  What the Liberties text attests, however, is the preservation of Alfred’s memory in later medieval Beverley. The Liberties text occupies a central place in the cartulary and is elaborately presented, making clear its significance to the compilers. In a matter of importance to the chapter of Beverley, it is Alfred’s name which is attached to the text. He is recalled as both a scholar – able to translate ancient privileges from English into Latin – and as a historian, the collector and redactor of oral traditions.

Historical value

The long neglect in historical scholarship of Alfred’s History (until recently available only in its poor early eighteenth century edition) may be explained by the work’s reputation for unoriginality. The editor of the Monumenta Historica Britannica (1848), Henry Petrie, described the work as not containing ‘a single fact that may not be found in Bede, Florence of Worcester, Henry of Huntingdon, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Symeon of Durham’.^[10] More recent commentators have variously described the work as a ‘worthless compilation’, ^[11] its author ‘a dullard’, ^[12] and uninformative.^[13]

While the work is certainly derivative - some ninety percent is compiled from the works of others^[14] – it is neither unoriginal nor uninformative. The repackaging of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-history is innovative and created a periodization of the rule of the British kings which was later taken over by Ranulf Higden in his influential universal chronicle, Polychronicon (c.1320s – 1360s). From John Trevisa’s English translation of Higden’s work (1387)^[15] it passed to William Caxton’s printed Descripcion of Brytayne (1480) and from thence into Tudor historiography.^[16] Chapter six of the work sees borrowings which are skilfully woven together to provide an independent account. Several sources: Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bede, Henry of Huntingdon, John of Worcester and Symeon of Durham are quarried to narrate two important turning points in the island’s history:  the ‘passage of dominion’ from the British to the Anglo-Saxon kings on the island, and the transition from a heptarchy of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to the monarchy of England under the West Saxon kings.

Borrowings from Henry of Huntingdon’s HA, The Chronicle of John of Worcester and the Durham HR contain information of interest to the historical student. Further evidence for the collaborative and exchange culture in English historical writing in the first half of the twelfth century is provided. The sharing of texts and mutual borrowing that existed between centres of Benedictine historical writing at the time has long been recognised - described recently by some scholars as akin to ‘historical workshops’ ^[17] and Alfred’s use of texts from Worcester, Durham and Lincoln at various stages of their elaboration and transmission is evidence for continuity in this collaborative culture in English historical writing c.1150.

The handling of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-history in the History provides important evidence for its very earliest reception. The author is openly critical of Geoffrey’s account on occasion.^[18] Despite the promise to include only matter which did not exceed the ‘bounds of credibility’, through the omission of important Galfridian material and by the frequent collation of Geoffrey’s version of events with that of standard historical authority (Orosius, Eutropius, Bede), it is clear that doubts about the veracity of all he was reporting were harboured. It is of interest that, after William of Newburgh’s more forensic and vigorous attack on the HRB in his Historia Rerum Anglicarum (c.1195), this early questioning reception appears to have all but vanished in Insular historical writing.

Use of Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum (HA) provides additional evidence for that work’s important influence in twelfth century English historical writing. The HA appears to have served Alfred as a model, used to help plan his own compilation. This is evident in the textual borrowings, thematic structure, language, and absorption of Henry’s historical ideas which Alfred served to recycle. Alfred’s introductory description of Britain, which later was extensively quarried by Ranulf Higden in the opening book of his Polychronicon, - the mappa mundi (map of the world) - was for its greater part taken from the descriptive survey with which Henry opens the HA.

Borrowings from the Chronicle of John of Worcester play an important part in the making of the compilation. The drawn genealogical trees and dynastic accounts of the heptarchic Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, located in the preliminary section of the Worcester Chronicle, help shape Alfred’s understanding of the Anglo-Saxon past. Chapter eight of the History, which narrates the ‘monarchy of England’, begins with the rule of King Æthelstan. More decisively than with any other chronicler of the time, Alfred presents the kingdom of England as beginning with the rule of King Æthelstan, a view which can be directly linked to Alfred’s Worcester source. That Alfred had access in Beverley c.1150 to an independently circulating copy of the genealogical tables and accounts, extends our knowledge of the reach of Worcester historical writing at the time.

Use of the Durham HR in the History is also important. Roughly thirty percent of theHistory derives from the HR and as this material is taken from a version of the HR which predates its sole surviving manuscript witness – contained in Corpus Christi College Cambridge, MS 139 – which may have reached its present form by c.1180,^[19] rare evidence for the textual development of the HR during the twelfth century is provided. Use of the Durham HR also casts light on the interests and outlook of a secular historical writer of the time. Much of the HR’s important ecclesiastical matter is omitted but story-telling episodes of a more worldly nature are rarely passed over. We are reminded in Alfred’s reception of the HR, that the interests and mindset of members the secular church of Beverley were very different to the community of monks in the Cathedral priory of Durham.

Sources

The History of Alfred of Beverley, ed. J. P. T. Slevin, trans. L. Lockyer, Boydell Medieval Texts (Woodbridge, 2023) Abb. HAB

Aluredi Beverlacensis Annales, sive Historia de Gestis Regum Britanniae Libris IX, ed. Thomas Hearne (Oxford, 1716)

Beverley Minster Fasti, ed. R.T.W McDermid, Yorkshire Archaeological Record Series, vol. cxlix (Huddersfield, 1990), pp. 17, 18, 113. Abb. BMF

Descriptive Catalogue of Material Relating to the History of Britain and Ireland, ed. T. D. Hardy, Rolls Series, ii (1865), pp. 169-74

Early Yorkshire Charters, vols i-iii, ed. W. Farrer (Edinburgh, 1914-16); vols iv-xii, ed. C. T. Clay.

Yorkshire Archaeological Record Series, extra series, (1935-65).

English Episcopal Acta v. York 1070-1154, ed. Janet Burton (British Academy/Oxford, 1988).

Monumenta Historica Britannica, ed. H. Petrie (London, 1848), p. 28 Abb. MHB

Rufford Charters, ed. C. J. Holdsworth, Thoroton Society Record Series, 4 vols. 29, 30, 32, 34 (Nottingham, 1972-81).

Sanctuarium Dunelmense et Sanctuarium Beverlacense, ed. J. Raine Snr, Surtees Society, i (1837), pp. 97-108

The Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops, ed. J. Raine 3 vols. Rolls Series 71 (London 1879-94), Abb HCY

A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540, R. Sharpe, p.54

Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307 (London, 1974), pp. 186, 195, 212

AntonIa Gransden, ‘Prologues in the Historiography of Twelfth-Century England’, in  Gransden, Legends, Traditions and History in Medieval England (London, 1992), pp. 125-51 at pp. 133-4, 142.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Beverley, Alfred of, Sidney Lee (1917), revised by J. C. Crick (September, 2004)

John P. T. Slevin, ‘Observations on the twelfth-century Historia of Alfred of Beverley’ Haskins Society Journal, 27 (2015), pp. 101-128.

__________, ‘The Historical Writing of Alfred of Beverley’ (unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Exeter, 2013). Available in Open Research Exeter.

J. S. P. Tatlock, The Legendary History of Britain. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae and its early Vernacular Versions (Berkley, 1950), pp. 210-11

John Taylor, Medieval Historical Writing in Yorkshire, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, St Anthony’s Hall Publications 19 (York, 1961), p. 8

R. William Leckie, Jr., The Passage of Dominion. Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Periodization of Insular History in the Twelfth Century (Toronto, 1981), pp.45-6, 86-92, 96

N. Wright, ‘Twelfth- century receptions of a text: Anglo-Norman Historians and Hegesippus’, Anglo-Norman Studies 31 (2009),177-95.

Archives

Oxford, Boldl. MS Rawlinson B 200

Aberystwyth, NLW, MS Peniarth 384

London, BL MS Cotton Cleopatra A I

Paris, BnF MS Latin 4126

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^[1] HAB, p. xx.

^[2] Ibid. Charter 5.

^[3] HAB, p. 9.

^[4] HCY, vol. i. p. 304. Alfred appears in a miracle story collection, appended to a Life of St John by Folcard, monk of St Bertin’s in Flanders (c.1070’s) entitled Alia Miracula, Auctore ut Plurimum Teste Oculato.

^[5] BMF p. 113.

^[6] HAB, p. xxvii. The hanging tablets are presently housed in the York Minster library.

^[7] Raine, Sanctuarium Dunelmense et Sanctuarium Beverlacense, pp.97-108.

^[8] HAB, ix. pp.138-9.

^[9] HAB, ix. p.139, n. 17

^[10] MHB, p. 28

^[11] Charles Gross, A Bibliography of English History to 1485, ed. E. B. Graves (Oxford, 1975), p. 405

^[12] Tatlock, Legendary History, pp. 210-11.

^[13] John Taylor, Medieval Historical Writing in Yorkshire, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, St Anthony’s Hall Publications 19 (York, 1961), p. 8

^[14] HAB p. lxxiv.

^[15] HAB p. lviii.

^[16] HAB pp. lviii-lx.

^[17] David Rollason, ‘Symeon of Durham’s Historia de Regibus Anglorum et Dacorum as a product of Historical Workshops’ in The Long Twelfth Century View of the Anglo-Saxon Past, ed. Martin Brett and David Woodman (Farnham, 2015), pp.95-111 at p. 102

^[18] HAB, ii. p. 25; v. pp. 73-4.

^[19] Rollason, ‘Symeon of Durham’s Historia de Regibus Anglorum et Dacorum as a product of Historical Workshops’, p. 102