Brother Asser (died 909) was a Welsh monk and the Bishop of Sherborne from 895 to 909. He notably wrote the biography of King Alfred the Great.
Biography[]
Asser in 877
Asserius Menevensis was born in Dyfed, Wales, and he originally worked as a monk at St. David's. Asser later came into the service of King Peradur of Cornwall, and, in 878, he served as Peradur's envoy to the raider Uhtred of Bebbanburg, recruiting him to help Peradur with reclaiming a captured fortress from Skorpa of the White Horse's Vikings. However, Uhtred betrayed Peradur and helped Skorpa slay Peradur and steal his treasures, and Asser fled to the court of King Alfred the Great at Winchester in Wessex. Asser testified that Uhtred had violated the peace between Sessex and Cornwall, and King Alfred forced Uhtred to resume his debts to the Catholic Church (which he had paid off with his treasure). In 885, Alfred recruited Asser, who taught him Latin. He was given the monastery of Exeter after 887, and he served as Bishop of Sherborne from 895 until his death in 909. In 893, he wrote the Life of King Alfred, a biography of the King; he had started working on the project as early as 877, when he was supposedly motivated to devote his life to a larger work after a ray of sunlight shone through a window in Winchester and pointed him to a scripture.