English–Danish Rivalry and the Mutilation of Alfred in the Eleventh-Century Chronicle Poem The Death of Alfred

Susanne Kries, Universität Potsdam

The inclusion of poetry among the prose entries of the Anglo-Saxon Chroniclesraises significant questions about the compilation of the Chronicles and the cultural and political climate of eleventh-century England. Since Chronicle poems were composed in both the tenth and eleventh centuries, "Chronicle verse tradition seems to have been both well recognized and culturally powerful." In his interesting study of the Chronicle poems, Thomas A. Bredehoft attributes to them "generic coherence" and emphasizes their importance within the macrostructure of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.