John the Old Saxon

Iohannes (John the Old Saxon)
Abbot of Athelney
See	Athelney
Appointed	unknown
Term ended	c. 904
Orders
Consecration	c. 892
Personal details
Born	unknown unknown - apparently in Old Saxony
Died	c. 904 unknown - might be Malmesbury
Denomination	Catholic

John the Old Saxon (active c. 885–904), also known as John of Saxony or Scotus, was a scholar and abbot of Athelney, probably born in Old Saxony. He was invited to England by King Alfred and contributed to Alfred's revival of English learning. In his life of Alfred, the Welshman Asser reports that John "was a man of most acute intelligence, immensely learned in all fields of literary endeavour, and extremely ingenious in many other forms of expression".

John is often referred as Iohannes. Asser states that he was of "Old" Saxon (as opposed to Anglo-Saxon or English) origins, in other words from east of the Rhine. Nothing more precise is known; as a monk, he might have been raised in one of the Saxon monasteries such as Korvey or Gandersheim, but he could also have come to England from western Francia, like Grimbald, who came to England from Rheims at approximately the same time as John, in the mid-880s. Asser comments at one point that John had some experience with fighting, which implies that he had a secular upbringing.

King Alfred acknowledges the help among others of "John my mass-priest" with one of his first translations from Latin to Anglo-Saxon, of Gregory's Regula Pastoralis. John witnessed one of Alfred's charters (a grant to Ealdorman Æthelhelm, dated 892), and presumably played a rôle in formulating his ecclesiastical policy. When Alfred founded the monastery of Athelney, John was appointed abbot, but as Asser relates, the monks included some of "Gallic", or West Frankish, origin. Two of these paid Frankish assassins to hide in the church and attack John when he came in to pray privately. John was seriously wounded, but his cries brought friends who saved him. He survived to witness several charters of King Edward the Elder, the latest of which are dated 904. That he witnessed as "priest" rather than as "abbot" may imply that he had by then relinquished his abbacy; however, none of the charters is witnessed by anyone described as an abbot.

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