Alfred the Great – 13

Today’s installment concludes Alfred the Great’s Reign,
the name of our combined selection from Thomas Hughes and John R. Green. The concluding installment, by John R. Green from The Conquest of England, was published in 1883.

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed thirteen thousand words from great works of history. Congratulations! For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Alfred the Great’s Reign.

Time: 871-901
Place: Wessex

The loneliness which breathes in words like these has often begotten in great rulers a cynical

But it was with the Franks that his intercourse was closest and it was from them that he drew the scholars to aid him in his work of education. A scholar named Grimbald came from St. Omer to preside over his new abbey at Winchester; and John, the old Saxon, was fetched from the abbey of Corbey to rule a monastery and school that Alfred’s gratitude for his deliverance from the Danes raised in the marshes of Athelney. The real work, however, to be done was done, not by these teachers but by the King himself. Alfred established a school for the young nobles in his court and it was to the need of books for these scholars in their own tongue that we owe his most remarkable literary effort.

He took his books as he found them — they were the popular manuals of his age — the Consolation of Boethius, the Pastoral of Pope Gregory, the compilation of Orosius, then the one accessible handbook of universal history and the history of his own people by Bede. He translated these works into English but he was far more than a translator, he was an editor for the people. Here he omitted, there he expanded. He enriched Orosius by a sketch of the new geographical discoveries in the north. He gave a West Saxon form to his selections from Bede. In one place he stops to explain his theory of government, his wish for a thicker population, his conception of national welfare as consisting in a due balance of priest, soldier and churl. The mention of Nero spurs him to an outbreak on the abuses of power. The cold providence of Boethius gives way to an enthusiastic acknowledgment of the goodness of God.

As he writes, his large-hearted nature flings off its royal mantle and he talks as a man to men. “Do not blame me,” he prays with a charming simplicity, “if any know Latin better than I, for every man must say what he says and do what he does according to his ability.”

But simple as was his aim, Alfred changed the whole front of our literature. Before him, England possessed in her own tongue one great poem and a train of ballads and battle-songs. Prose she had none. The mighty roll of the prose books that fill her libraries begins with the translations of Alfred and above all with the chronicle of his reign. It seems likely that the King’s rendering of Bede’s history gave the first impulse toward the compilation of what is known as the English or Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was certainly thrown into its present form during his reign. The meagre lists of the kings of Wessex and the bishops of Winchester, which had been preserved from older times, were roughly expanded into a national history by insertions from Bede; but it is when it reaches the reign of Alfred that the chronicle suddenly widens into the vigorous narrative, full of life and originality, that marks the gift of a new power to the English tongue. Varying as it does from age to age in historic value, it remains the first vernacular history of any Teutonic people, and, save for the Gothic translations of Ulfilas, the earliest and most venerable monument of Teutonic prose.

But all this literary activity was only a part of that general upbuilding of Wessex by which Alfred was preparing for a fresh contest with the stranger. He knew that the actual winning back of the Danelagh must be a work of the sword and through these long years of peace he was busy with the creation of such a force as might match that of the Northmen. A fleet grew out of the little squadron which Alfred had been forced to man with Frisian seamen.

The national fyrd or levy of all freemen at the King’s call was reorganized. It was now divided into two halves, one of which served in the field while the other guarded its own burhs (burghs or boroughs) and townships and served to relieve its fellow when the men’s forty days of service were ended. A more disciplined military force was provided by subjecting all owners of five hides of land to “thane-service,” a step which recognized the change that had now substituted the thegn for the eorl and in which we see the beginning of a feudal system. How effective these measures were was seen when the new resistance they met on the Continent drove the Northmen to a fresh attack on Britain.

In 893 a large fleet steered for the Andredsweald, while the sea-king Hasting entered the Thames. Alfred held both at bay through the year till the men of the Danelagh rose at their comrades’ call. Wessex stood again front to front with the Northmen. But the King’s measures had made the realm strong enough to set aside its old policy of defense for one of vigorous attack. His son Edward and his son-in-law Ethelred, whom he had set as ealdorman * over what remained of Mercia, showed themselves as skillful and active as the King.

[* Primitive of alderman; in this period, a chieftain, lord or earl; subsequently, the chief magistrate of a territorial district, as of a county or province.]

The aim of the Northmen was to rouse again the hostility of the Welsh but while Alfred held Exeter against their fleet, Edward and Ethelred caught their army near the Severn and overthrew it with a vast slaughter at Buttington. The destruction of their camp on the Lea by the united English forces ended the war; in 897 Hasting again withdrew across the Channel and the Danelagh made peace. It was with the peace he had won still about him that Alfred died in 901; and warrior as his son Edward had shown himself, he clung to his father’s policy of rest.

This ends our selections on Alfred the Great’s Reign by two of the most important authorities of this topic:

• Life of Alfred the Great by Thomas Hughes published in 1869.
• The Conquest of England by John R. Green published in 1883.

Thomas Hughes began here. John R. Green began here.

This site features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

More information on Alfred the Great’s Reign here and here and below.

We want to take this site to the next level but we need money to do that. Please contribute directly by signing up at https://www.patreon.com/history