ABSTRACT
The story we have of Alfred’s family history is largely the story Alfred chose to tell us. It is preserved now in Asser’s Life in particular, for whose content Alfred himself was an important source, and in Alfred’s will, in which the king recited a series of agreements and arrangements about family land.1 Another version is to be found in the West Saxon genealogical material. This too was compiled in Alfred’s reign in circles close to the king to defend Alfred’s claim to the throne. It was then incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.2 All of these accounts are arguably teleological, explaining how the late ninth-century situation had been arrived at, and making Alfred the end towards which the West Saxon family was inexorably moving. All are certainly retrospective, and potentially heavily edited, versions of the family’s past, and the resulting problems for reconstructing Alfred’s family have been recognized.3 The purpose of this paper is to revisit and extend the analysis of those problems, particularly for the period pre-871. Janet Nelson’s article cited in note 3 has already suggested that asking about the women as well as the men of the family may be a way forward. I want to give that new key of gender another turn in an attempt to unlock and remember more of the ninth-century family story Alfred rewrote and forgot.
