Note 289 — APPENDIX II Letter from Fulco, Archbishop of Rheims and Primate of the Franks, and legatus natus of the Apostolic See, to Alfred, the most Christian King of the Angles289

From Rev. Joseph Stevenson’s translation of The Book of Hyde, in Church Historians of England (London, 1854), Vol. 2, Part 2, pp. 499–503. The translator states that the text of the letter printed by Wise in his edition of Asser (see Stevenson’s edition of Asser, p. 308) ‘has been employed in correcting the many obscurities and errors of the copy inserted in the Liber de Hida.’ Of the letter our editor says: ‘It ... seems to be genuine. There is no conceivable motive for forging such a letter. We can discover no grounds for Pauli’s condemnation of it.... As Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, c. 122 (p. 130), states that Grimbald was sent to Alfred at his request by the Archbishop of Rheims, he would seem to have been acquainted with this letter.’