Abstrakt
The Old English word æstel is of ‘unknown meaning’, according to the Dictionary of Old English. The word famously appears in Alfred the Great’s late-ninth-century prose ‘Preface’ to the Old English Pastoral Care: ‘And to each bishopric in my kingdom I will send one [a copy of the Pastoral Care]; and in each there is an æstel which is worth fifty mancuses.
And I command in God’s name that no person take that æstel from that book, nor that book from the minster’ [‘ond to ælcum biscepstole on minum rice wille ane onsendan; & on ælcre bið an æstel, se bið on fiftegum mancessa. Ond ic bebiode on Godes naman ðæt nan mon ðone æstel from ðære bec ne do, ne ða boc from ðæm mynstre’].
An æstel, evidently, was an object of significant value. Many scholars today associate the term with the Alfred Jewel, likely a bulb or handle for a pointer that would have been used to trace one’s place while reading.
Other interpretations, however, have been proposed, including that æstel referred to book-boards or a reliquary for a fragment of the True Cross. The etymology of æstel has likewise proven difficult to ascertain, though it has been traced to Celtic, Germanic, and Latinate languages.