"Stripped of Victorian reliquarianism, Alfred emerges from Kalmar's analysis as a more complex and more rounded person, one whose childhood experiences profoundly shaped his adult career. This is an engaging, entertaining, and highly perceptive study of a great early English king and of the fashioning of his cult, especially in the nineteenth century." - Sarah Foot, The Catholic Historical Review, 111, Winter 2025
"Kalmar's prose, packed with intellectual jests and provocations, serves as an invitation to rethink what we know about the past. The text critically maps the various trends of historiographical and hagiographical construction that have contributed to Alfred's legacy as both a real and mythologized monarch ...This book does more than recount the life of a king; it questions the very fabric of historiographical narrative construction, making it a significant contribution to the studies of historiography and medievalism." -Tarren Andrews, Speculum , 100/1, January, 2025.
Kalmars reading of Assers Life of King Alfred is original, personal, and engaging as befits the nature of the work itself. He captures the chemistry between an extraordinary king and the Welsh priest who entered into his service. Enjoy the ride! Professor Simon Keynes, University of Cambridge
A breathtaking endeavor, challenging, wide-ranging, and lovingly crafted, with conclusions good enough to be true. The author excels in drawing harmony from textual dissonance. Alfred and Asser will never be the same, nor will readers of this extraordinary book. Roberta Frank, Yale University
Tomás Kalmars willingness to read and think about virtually everything ever written about King Alfred turns what might have been a well-informed useful work on the long afterlife of Alfreds life and reign, and Assers Life of Alfred, into an excitingly dense microcosm of the genesis of British national identity over a thousand years. He traces a bedrock of historical fact morphing into national myth not only in schoolbook stories but championed by intellectuals and academics equally committed to their own true Alfred, hero and exemplar of the nation. Kalmar uses his original trope of Victorian reliquarianism to hold together medieval and modern emotional investments in the idea of Alfred, a true modern fetish for secular salvation, a religion of nation and empire. Built on exhaustive research, scrupulous close reading, and precise careful argumentation, Kalmars book makes scholarship enormously fun to read it has narrative propulsion told in an appealingly direct authorial voice. Historical erudition, medievalist and modern, is rarely this compellingly interesting, rarely so frankly entertaining on subjects of continuing importance. Nancy Partner, McGill University
An unusual take on Englands king who burnt the cakes but became the British Empires saint. Kalmar asks simple questions about King Alfred, offering thoughtful answers that will keep readers engrossed, chuckling, and even make them laugh out loud. Professor Jane Roberts, Emeritus Professor of English Language and Medieval Literature, University of London
Tomas Kalmars quest is to find the real Alfred in Assers vita. This not, however, a work of historical criticism in a traditional vein, but a skillful, immensely erudite, and sparklingly written exploration of the meanings of a classic hagiographical text. John W. Coakley, Feakes Professor of Church History, Emeritus, New Brunswick Theological Seminary
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