Alfric

ALFRIC, al´fric (ÆLFRIC) (Alfricus Grammaticus): Anglo-Saxon abbot. He was a scholar and friend of Athelwold of Abingdon, afterward bishop of Winchester (c. 963), and was abbot of Cerne in Dorsetshire and of Ensham (c. 1006). He has been identified, probably with insufficient reason, with Alfric, archbishop of Canterbury (996-1006), and with Alfric, archbishop of York (1023-51). He did much for the education of clergy and people, and his name is second only to that of King Alfred as a writer of Anglo-Saxon prose. He was a strong opponent of the doctrine of transubstantiation. His writings include a grammar with glossary, a collection of homilies, and a translation of the first seven books of the Old Testament. The Elfric Society was founded in London in 1842 to publish his works as well as others. For this society B. Thorpe edited two books of the homilies (2 vols., London, 1844-46); the third book has been edited by W. Skeat (Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, London, 1881). The grammar may be found in the Sammlung englischer Denkmäler, Berlin, 1880; the Heptateuchus, in C. W. M. Grein, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa, i. (Cassel, 1872).

Bibliography: DNB, i. 164-166; Caroline L. White, Ælfric (Yale Studies in English, No. ii.), Boston, 1898.