What would we know of Alfred the Great without his medieval biography? This question is made more acute by the fact that the only known medieval manuscript of Asser's Life of King Alfred was destroyed in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731. Reliant on early modern transcripts, modern scholars have grappled with this question as an extension of passionate and personal debates over whether the work itself is genuine, complete, or any good. In this idiosyncratic book, Kalmar asks: what is truly at stake in these disagreements? For Kalmar, it is our methods for interpreting medieval narrative texts—but also our belief in the historical Alfred himself.

In exploring what is at stake in reading Asser's text, Kalmar foregrounds the modern historiography of Alfred's life. He highlights points of debate among editors, translators, antiquaries, and historians, running chronologically from the celebration of the 1849 “anniversary” of Alfred's birth, via Stevenson's edition and Galbraith's assault on Asser's authenticity, to Kalmar's own encounter with Galbraith. One prominent thread ties methods of textual analysis to religious cultures of interpretation: we follow an 1876 debate between the Protestant Henry Howorth and the Roman Catholic bishop William Clifford over the authenticity of Asser's Life of Alfred; elsewhere, Kalmar takes as inspiration the “redaction criticism” of twentieth-century biblical scholars. The book's historiographical approach invites us to consider our own investments in the figure of Alfred the Great, and in our historical methodologies: what do we desire, and what do we believe? With unusual honesty, the author explicitly identifies his own desire to reach the historical Alfred, and his own belief in the possibility of locating “relics” of the king's psyche through literary analysis.

King Alfred the Great, his Hagiographers and his Cult is divided into three sections, addressing the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Life of Alfred, and the Old English Boethius. The overall argument turns on the idea that crucial episodes within these Alfredian texts—Alfred's anointing by the Pope in Rome, Alfred winning a book of Saxon poetry as a prize from his mother, and a passage on a race for a golden crown—prefigure and echo each other. In Kalmar's close readings, these passages follow a similar structure, ultimately deriving from the same fabulist, the same mind, shaped by (childhood) experience, and presenting a distinct way of understanding the world. If the author of these “fables” (not necessarily the written texts they are preserved in) can be identified as Alfred himself, they thus provide us with a true relic of King Alfred's mind.

At its heart, this is a book about Asser's Life of Alfred. Kalmar reads the Life as a coherent literary work, not a Latin translation of the Chronicle padded with stories of lesser value. The Life's coherence can be understood in how it unites “horizontal chronology” with “vertical hagiography” (e.g., 78); it aims to illuminate Alfred's character through the year-by-year sequence of Alfred's deeds and the presentation of his modus vitae in representative fables. Asser's “vertical hagiography” also transcends linear chronology through episodes that act as typological figures, so that when Alfred is anointed by the Pope and learns a book of Saxon poetry in childhood, these episodes prefigure his ascendance to kingship and full literacy in adulthood.

Kalmar's crucial arguments are held in these central chapters. He demonstrates that Asser's use of Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni is allusive, not imitative, a conscious strategy to create depth of meaning; readers were expected to recognize the echoes to Einhard's words and perceive the distinctions as well as the similarities. Another convincing argument concerns the dates of Alfred's birth and of the Life of Alfred's composition. Building on a case laid out in his 2016 Peritia article, Kalmar argues that the anno Alfredi dates in the annalistic sections are not original to the Life. The inconsistencies and errors in the given years of Alfred's life therefore have no bearing on the authenticity and authority of the Life itself. This argument, along with a re-reading of the reference to Alfred in the West Saxon Genealogical Preface, allows Kalmar to propose that Asser wrote in 887 (not 893, as generally accepted). He can then dismiss both 848 and 849 as possible birthdates for Alfred, in favor of 842. Kalmar indicates the importance of these arguments through the metaphor of a reliquary—this book holds its authentic relic in the center.

Through such metaphors, the book owns itself as written by one of the “hagiographers” of its title, who also include scholars of the past 150 years and, of course, Asser himself. But are these really the same kinds of hagiography? Early medieval hagiography was not a literary game, nor a purely scholarly pursuit. It was written with real faith in the power of the saints. Since there is no suggestion here that Alfred was to be venerated as a saint, a more direct comparison with specific early medieval hagiographical texts might yield further insight. Rebecca Thomas's study of Asser's use of the Vita Alcuini makes a start (“The Vita Alcuini, Asser and Scholarly Service at the Court of Alfred the Great,” English Historical Review 134 [2019]: 1–24). Additionally, we should consider Asser's echoes beyond narrative texts, as Robert Gallagher has done with royal charters (“Asser and the Writing of West Saxon Charters,” English Historical Review 136 [2021]: 773–808); Gallagher's discoveries could be applied in several ways to support Asser's authenticity within the debates discussed here.

Alfred the Great, his Hagiographers and his Cult is written in a playful style, often beginning a chapter with a series of quotations, allusions, and stories. At times, we enter into a direct dialogue with Alfred himself. It will be immensely stimulating to all engaged in Alfredian studies—it does require a grounding in the texts and editions under discussion—and will also present useful ideas to anyone interested in medieval authorship, biography, and hagiography. It would be productive for scholars of hagiography to reconsider childhood episodes in the vitae of the saints in light of the perspectives presented here. Finally, this unique and entertaining book provides an excellent model of how a literary historiography can progress our understanding of medieval texts.