ASSER or ASSERIUS MENEVENSIS (died c. 91o), English bishop, author of a life of Alfred the Great, was born in 'Vales. He became a monk at St. David's, and having acquired some reputation for learning, he was invited by King Alfred to his court. He agreed to spend six months of each year with the King and six months in his own land ; but his first stay at the royal court extended to eight months, and it is probable that the annual visit to Wales was curtailed, if not altogether discontinued. It is difficult to fix the date of Asser's arrival in England, but it was probably about 885. He was bishop of Exeter, and before 900 became bishop of Sherborne. His death is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the date 910, although it is pos sible that it occurred a year or two earlier.
Asser's work, Annales rerum gestarurn Alfredi magni, written about 893, contains a chronicle of English history from 849 to 887, and an account of Alfred's life, largely drawn from personal knowledge, down to 887. The only manuscript of which there is any record dates from about moo, and that was destroyed by fire in 1731. From that manuscript an edition was printed in under the direction of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canter bury; but this contained many interpolations and alterations which were copied by subsequent editors. The text has since been the subject of careful study, and the edition edited by W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904) distinguishes between the original work of Asser and the later additions. Some doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of the work, especially by T. Wright in the Biographia Britannica literaria (London, 1842), who ascribes the life to a monk of St. Neots; but the latest scholarship regards it as the work of Asser, although all the difficulties which surround the authorship have not been removed. The life was largely used by subsequent chroniclers, among others by Florence of Wor cester, Simeon of Durham, Roger of Hoveden, and William of Malmesbury.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See W. H. Stevenson, introduction to Asser's Life Bibliography.--See W. H. Stevenson, introduction to Asser's Life of King Alfred (1904) ; R. Pauli, introduction to Koenig Ael f red (1851).