Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ælfric (fl.1005)

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579682Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 01 — Ælfric (fl.1005)1885William Hunt

ÆLFRIC, called Bata (or the bat) (fl. 1005), was a monk and a disciple of Ælfric the abbot, called Grammaticus [q. v.], at Winchester, some time before 1005. From the Oxford MS. of Ælfric's ‘Colloquium’ it appears that Ælfric Bata added something to this work composed by his master, and, as the Grammar and Glossary of Grammaticus are combined in that manuscript with the Colloquy, it is not unlikely that Ælfric Bata copied and edited the whole collection. It has been supposed that some of the writings attributed to the master were the work of the disciple. As, however, the only ground on which this opinion rests is that it is either impossible or unlikely that they should have been written by Ælfric, archbishop of Canterbury, there is no reason for accepting it, for it is capable of ample proof that the archbishop and the grammarian were not the same person. Ælfric Bata, no less than his master, was regarded as an opponent of transubstantiation. Osbern, who wrote with the evident intention of upholding this doctrine, of which his patron, Archbishop Lanfranc, was the champion, in his ‘Miracles of St. Dunstan’ represents the saint appearing in a vision to a worshipper at his tomb and saying that he had been opposing Ælfric Bata, who was ‘trying to dispossess the church of God.’

[For Ælfric's Colloquium, see Ælfric Grammaticus, Miracula S. Dunstani, Osbern, in Memorials of St. Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, p. 136 (Rolls Series); Wright's Biog. Lit.]

W. H.

Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.3
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line

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164 i 12 f.e. Ælfric, called Bata: omit (or the bat)