ASSER, John, or Asserius Menevensis, was born in Pembrokeshire, and educated in the monastery of St David’s by the Archbishop Asserius, who, according to Leland, was his kinsman. Here he became a monk, and by his assiduous application soon acquired universal fame as a person of great abilities and profound learning. King Alfred, always a munificent patron of genius, about the year 880 sent for him to court, and made him his preceptor and companion. As a reward for his services, the king appointed him abbot of two or three different monasteries, and at last promoted him to the episcopal see of Sherborne, where he died in the year 910. He was, says Pits, a man of happy genius, wonderful modesty, extensive learning, and great integrity of life. He wrote the life of Alfred {De Vila et liebus Gestis Alfredi), in 893, apparently for the use of his Welsh countrymen. The authenticity of this work was denied by Mr Wright (in his Biographia Britannica Liter aria), who thought it was the production of some monk of St Neots about the end of the 10th century. In this, however, he has had few followers, and the work is generally believed to be Asser’s, though somewhat interpolated. It was first published by Archbishop Parker at the end of Walsingham’s Hist. Bond., 1574. The best editions are those of Wise (8vo, Oxon., 1722), and of Thorpe in his edition of Florence of Worcester for the English Historical Society. An English translation is to be found in Bohn’s Antiquarian Library.