[274] The word in the original is _ministeriales_. It is not Saxon but Franco-Latin and is an instance of the Frankish element in Asser's vocabulary. Here, as among the Franks, the _ministeriales_ were the officials of second-rate importance surrounding the king, the highest being known as the _ministri_. [275] This comparison of the gathering of learning to the operations of a bee in collecting honey is very common among classical writers and also among those of the Carolingian renaissance. It occurs in Lucretius, Seneca, Macrobius, Alcuin, and the poet Candidus. [276] Plegmund became archbishop of Canterbury in 890, but it is probable that he was with Alfred some time before his election to the primacy. [277] This Ethelstan was probably the person of that name who was consecrated bishop of Ramsbury in 909. [278] From another document it appears that Werwulf was a friend of Bishop Werfrith in Mercia before either took up residence at Alfred's court. [279] In Chap. 104 of Asser's biography the _capellani_ are described as supplying the king with candles, by whose burning he measured time. The word _capellanus_ is of pure Frankish origin and was originally applied to the clerks (_clerici capellani_) who were charged with the custody of the cope (_cappa_) of St. Martin, which was kept in the _capella_. From this the term _capella_ came to mean a room especially devoted to religious uses, that is, a chapel. It was used in this sense as early as 829 in Frankland. Whether by _capellanus_ Asser meant mere clerks, or veritable "chaplains" in the later sense, cannot be known, though his usage was probably the latter. [280] Chapter 87 of Asser informs us that Alfred mastered the art of reading in the year 887. [281] Grimbald came from the Flemish monastery of St. Bertin at St. Omer. He was recommended to Alfred by Fulco, archbishop of Rheims, who had once been abbot of St. Bertin. We do not know in what year Grimbald went to England, though there is some evidence that it was not far from 887. [282] John the Old Saxon is mentioned by Alfred as his mass-priest. It is probable that he came from the abbey of Corbei on the upper Weser. Not much is known about the man, but if he was as learned as Asser says he was, he must have been a welcome addition to Alfred's group of scholars particularly as the language which he used was very similar to that of the West Saxons in England. [283] That is, south of the Humber. [284] The service of the Church. [285] They were written, of course, in Latin. [286] By the middle of the third century A.D. as many as three different translations of the Old Testament into Greek had been made--those of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmochus. These eventually took fixed shape in the so-called Septuagint version of the Old Testament.