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IMC 2022: Sessions

Session 1010: Alfredian Voices, I: Time and Space in Alfredian Writing

Wednesday 6 July 2022, 09.00-10.30

Organiser:Francis Leneghan, Faculty of English Language & Literature, University of Oxford
Moderator/Chair:Francis Leneghan, Faculty of English Language & Literature, University of Oxford
Paper 1010-aLocating Borders in Alfredian England
(Language: English)
Richard Purkiss, Lincoln College, University of Oxford
Index terms: Geography and Settlement Studies, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Old English, Local History
Paper 1010-bOn the Priority of the Old English Source of Æthelweard's Chronicon
(Language: English)
Daniel Anlezark, Medieval & Early Modern Centre, University of Sydney
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin, Language and Literature - Old English, Political Thought
Paper 1010-cDemarcating History: Time Refashioned through Language in Alfred's Verse Preface to the Pastoral Care
(Language: English)
George Beckett, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Old English, Lay Piety, Political Thought
Abstract

Paper -a survey the treatment of borders in the Prefaces, Old English Orosius, 'Common Stock' of the Chronicle, and Asser's Life of King Alfred, relating them to the topography of territorial boundaries and the Alfred-Guthrum Treaty. Paper-b examines evidence for the relationship between the Old English source behind the Latin Chronicon attributed to Æthelweard (c. 980) and the common stock of the Alfredian Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Paper -c examines the Verse Preface to the Pastoral Care in light of postcolonial African literatures, demonstrating that Alfred imagines a border between past and present only to transgress this demarcation for his own political ends.