Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Werferth
WERFERTH, WEREFRID, or HEREFERTH (d. 915), bishop of Worcester, was one of the little band of scholars whom King Alfred gathered round him, and to whom England owed the preservation of letters in the dark years of Danish invasion. On 7 June 873 (Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i. 471) he was consecrated bishop of Worcester by Archbishop Ethelred (d. 889) [q. v.], and is said, though doubtfully, to have been driven abroad by the Danes soon after, and to have gone into Gaul (ib. p. 474). Alfred seems to have called him to court about 884 (Sym. Dunelm ap. Petrie, Mon. Hist. Brit. p. 684), and to have given him a dignified position in his household, as one of his helpers in the restoration of letters in Wessex. Among other works Werferth, at the king's command, and probably after 890 (Anglia Sacra, i. 474), translated into Anglo-Saxon the ‘Dialogues’ of Pope Gregory; manuscripts of this translation are extant at Cambridge, London, and Oxford. He died in 915 (Flor. Wig. ap. Mon. Hist. Brit. i. 570).
[See, in addition to the authorities mentioned in the text, Asser, De Rebus Gest. Ælfredi in Petrie's Mon. Hist. Brit. pp. 486–7; Will. Malmesbury's Gesta Pontificum, p. 278 (Rolls Ser.), and Gesta Regum, p. 189 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Flores Historiarum, i. 361, 448, 486 (Rolls Ser.); Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. pp. 757–8; Leland's Commentarii de Script. Brit. i. 154–5; Bale's Script. Brit. Cat. app. p. 33; Le Neve's Fasti Eccles. Angl. ed. Hardy, iii. 47.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.278
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 297 | i | 23 | Werferth: omit now lost |
| 27-29 | for—a translation which Pits . . . in Cambridge. read Manuscripts of this translation are extant at Cambridge, Oxford, and London. |