ABSTRACT
The work known as The Proverbs of Alfred survives in four manuscripts, all of which were copied at dates considerably later than that of the lost original. They differ from each other in language, arrangement, and meter; but all agree in attributing the collection to Alfred. Alfred the Great, who became king of Wessex in 871 and died in 899, was a patron of letters and himself an author. Yet it seems unlikely that he prepared the original version of this poem in Old English. The contents are timeless, being derived partly from written sources, such as the Old Testament, and partly from universal oral tradition, but the linguistic and metrical evidence suggests that The Proverbs was composed in Sussex around 1150 or a little later. The poem, though conventional in content, is lively in style and was apparently popular enough to impress both Lawman and the author of The Owl and the Nightingale.
