Alfredian Apocrypha: The Dialogues and the Bede

This chapter appears in the sub-section of this volume entitled 'Alfrediana', which, means something like 'works associated in some way with Alfred'. Whereas the Old English translations of Gregory's Dialogues (OEGD) adds very little to its original, and the Old English translations of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica (OEHE) follows suit to some degree, both of these texts offer very little of what Janet Bately has called "independent writing" of the kind that would reveal the mind of the great king. One finds a great deal of this sort of writing in the Old English Boethius and Soliloquies . This is why they may fairly be considered apocryphal, though in both cases an argument could be made for inclusion, if not in the corpus, then at least in Alfred's original scheme. The author considers briefly why each text was translated, within the context of their status as "apocryphal Alfrediana". Keywords: apocryphal Alfrediana; Janet Bately; OEGD; OEHE