[150], The portrayal of the West-Saxon resistance to the Vikings by Asser and the chronicler as a Christian holy war was more than mere rhetoric or propaganda. 'I ... collected these together and ordered to be written many of them which our forefathers observed, those which I liked; and many of those which I did not like I rejected with the advice of my councillors ... For I dared not presume to set in writing at all many of my own, because it was unknown to me what would please those who should come after us ... Then I ... showed those to all my councillors, and they then said that they were all pleased to observe them' (Laws of Alfred, c.885-99). He may have ended up in the clergy, or have been a senior thegn (or noble) to his elder brothers once they were kings. Believing that without Christian wisdom there can be neither prosperity nor success in war, Alfred aimed "to set to learning (as long as they are not useful for some other employment) all the free-born young men now in England who have the means to apply themselves to it". And God bless Wessex, for which he died... And when King Harald urged his devils to run from the field, I knew then, with a beautiful certainty, that the day and the battle had belonged to us! [72][73], With these lessons in mind Alfred capitalised on the relatively peaceful years immediately following his victory at Edington by focusing on an ambitious restructuring of his kingdom's military defences. [60], A year later, in 886, Alfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to make it habitable again. Alfred had no opportunity to acquire the education he sought, however, until much later in life. At the battle of Ashdown in 871, Alfred routed the Viking army in a fiercely fought uphill assault. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a "consul" and a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could explain later confusion. Two years later, at the Battle of Merton in March 871, Alfred and his brother suffered a serious defeat by the Danes. Alfred wrote for the benefit of his people, but he was also deeply interested in theological problems for their own sake and commissioned the first of the translations, Gregory’s Dialogues, “that in the midst of earthly troubles he might sometimes think of heavenly things.” He may also have done a translation of the first 50 psalms. [174], Alfred commissioned Bishop Asser to write his biography, which inevitably emphasised Alfred's positive aspects. [179], A bronze statue of Alfred the Great stands at the eastern end of The Broadway, close to the site of Winchester's medieval East Gate. The conflict raged on with Alfred making a strategic calculation to blockade Danish ships, forcing the Vikings to withdraw to Mercia. Alfred the Great Statue, Winchesterby Odejea (CC BY-NC-SA). The great warrior Heahmund, staunch defender of our faith. In their raids the Anglo-Saxons traditionally preferred to attack head-on by assembling their forces in a shield wall, advancing against their target and overcoming the oncoming wall marshalled against them in defence. Compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle began during his reign. By the time of the Reformation, Alfred was seen as a pious Christian ruler who promoted the use of English rather than Latin, and so the translations that he commissioned were viewed as untainted by the later Roman Catholic influences of the Normans. [135], Apart from the lost Handboc or Encheiridio, which seems to have been a commonplace book kept by the king, the earliest work to be translated was the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, a book greatly popular in the Middle Ages. [93], Alfred's burghal system was revolutionary in its strategic conception and potentially expensive in its execution. Shortly after taking London, Alfred sealed an alliance with Mercia by arranging a marriage between his daughter Aethelflaed (r. 911-918 CE) and the earl of that region, Aethelred II (r. 883-911 CE). ", Some Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that Alfred should be recognised as a saint. Later he takes part in a holy crowning ceremony, where he is gifted with an exquisite sword and made a consul of Rome. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Alfred was born in 849 CE, the son of King Aethelwulf of Wessex and his wife Osburh. By the 890s, Alfred's charters and coinage (which he had also reformed, extending its minting to the burhs he had founded) referred to him as 'king of the English', and Welsh kings sought alliances with him. The Danes broke their word, and after killing all the hostages, slipped away under cover of night to Exeter in Devon. He commissioned the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a vital document for the time which promoted the unification of England, but also a valuable document today allowing us to learn so much information about this period of English history. So when the Viking raids resumed in 892 Alfred was better prepared to confront them with a standing, mobile field army, a network of garrisons, and a small fleet of ships navigating the rivers and estuaries. [136] Nonetheless the consensus remains that they were part of the Alfredian programme of translation. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/Alfred_the_Great/. At some point in early May, he managed to draw the Vikings out of their stronghold at Eddington and defeated them in battle using the tactic of the shield wall. These came into the possession of the vicar of nearby St Bartholomew's Church who reburied them in an unmarked grave in the church graveyard. The productivity of a region was then taken into consideration when stationing a certain number of troops there. Like other West Saxon kings, Alfred established a legal code; he assembled the laws of Offa and other predecessors, and of the kingdoms of Mercia and Kent, adding his own administrative regulations to form a definitive body of Anglo-Saxon law. Alfred was patron of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (which was copied and supplemented up to 1154), a patriotic history of the English from the Wessex viewpoint designed to inspire its readers and celebrate Alfred and his monarchy. Alfred conquers London and declares himself the king of the Anglo-Saxons. [134] It is unknown when Alfred launched this programme but it may have been during the 880s when Wessex was enjoying a respite from Viking attacks. Can you be so sure as to know the divine mind that guides all things? [128], Manuscript production in England dropped off precipitously around the 860s when the Viking invasions began in earnest, not to be revived until the end of the century. [34], In 868, Alfred was recorded as fighting beside Æthelred in a failed attempt to keep the Great Heathen Army led by Ivar the Boneless out of the adjoining Kingdom of Mercia. The battle of Brunanburh, a defining battle in English history between the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. [81][82], Alfred's burhs (of which 22 developed into boroughs)[g][83] ranged from former Roman towns, such as Winchester, where the stone walls were repaired and ditches added, to massive earthen walls surrounded by wide ditches, probably reinforced with wooden revetments and palisades, such as at Burpham in West Sussex. Under his leadership, a more unified Anglo-Saxon culture was forming. Nor did his piety prevent him from expropriating strategically sited church lands, especially estates along the border with the Danelaw, and transferring them to royal thegns and officials who could better defend them against Viking attacks. Alfred himself had married Eahlswith, a Mercian noblewoman, and another daughter, Aelfthryth, to the Count of Flanders, a strong naval power at a time when the Vikings were settling in eastern England. [111] In practical terms the most important law in the code may well have been the first: "We enjoin, what is most necessary, that each man keep carefully his oath and his pledge" which expresses a fundamental tenet of Anglo-Saxon law. In spite of his accomplishments and fame, Alfred was not as highly respected at this time as he would come to be in later centuries, possibly because the Viking invasions would continue in Britain until c. 1066 CE. According to St Dunstan's apprentice, "poor King Eadred would suck the juice out of the food, chew what remained for a little while and spit it out: a nasty practice that often turned the stomachs of the thegns who dined with him. [67], Alfred had been on his way to relieve his son at Thorney when he heard that the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes were besieging Exeter and an unnamed stronghold on the North Devon shore.

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