Alfred the Great

An overbringing from Wikipedia

Alfred (also Ælfred from the Old English) (849? – 26 October 899) was king of the southern Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex from 871 to 899. Alfred is known for his readiness to make the kingdom strong against it's foes, mostly the Danish Vikings, becoming the only English King to be known by the name, "The Great" (although not English, Canute the Great was another King of England given this name by the Danes.) Alfred was the first of the West Saxon kings to name himself 'King of the Anglo-Saxons'. A fuller tale of his life is found in a work by the Welsh man of learning, Asser. A learned man, Alfred fostered learning and knowledge and made better the kingdom's law framework.

In 2002, Alfred was named in a folksay as the fourteenth greatest Briton of all time.

Childhood

Alfred was born sometime between 847 and 849 at Wantage. He was the fifth and youngest son of King Aethelwulf of Wessex, by his Jutish first wife, Osburga. In 868 Alfred wed Ealhswith, daughter of Ethelred Mucill.

At five years of age, Alfred is said to have gone to Rome with his father where, the Anglo-Saxon Tales tells us, he was welcomed into the fullness of the church, and blessed as a king by his godfather Pope Leo IV. Some Victorian writers have taken this as a betokening step in readiness for his rise one day to the throne of Wessex. However, this step could not have been foreseen at the time, since Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a helpmate or go-between of the church and a misreading of this step, wilfully or otherwise, could shed light on later misunderstanding. It may also be staddled on Alfred's later afaring, together with his father, to Rome and his spending some time at the kinghall of Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, sometime in 854-855. On their coming back from Rome in 856, Ethelwulf learned that his son Ethelbald had taken the throne from him. Ethelwulf left for Kent and died there in 858. Wessex became under kingships headed by Alfred's three brothers one after the other.

Asser tells the tale of how as a child Alfred won a book of Anglo-Saxon scopery, put up by his mother to the first of her children ready to know it by heart. This tale may be true, or it may be a folktale put forth to show the young Alfred's love of learning.

Under Ethelred

Throughout the short kingships of his two eldest brothers, Ethelbald and Ethelbert, little is known of Alfred. However with the coming to the throne of the third brother, Ethelred I, in 866, Alfred's life of rank and high standing truly began. It is in this time that Asser gives to him the name of 'secundarius,' which may be to show a ranking somewhat akin to that of the Celtic tanist, one acknowledged as next in line to the throne. It is perhaps that this set-up was given the blessing of the Witenagemot, to stave off the danger of in-fighting for the kingship should Ethelred fall in war. The step of crowning an atheling and war leader as next in line to the throne is well-known among Germanic kindreds, such as the Swedes and Franks, with whom the Anglo-Saxons had near ties.

In 868, Alfred, fighting beside his brother Ethelred, could not keep the Danes out of the neighbouring kingdom of Mercia. For nearly two years, Wessex itself was free from Viking strikes as Alfred paid the Vikings a frithgeld to leave him alone. However, at the end of 870, the Danes struck at his homeland. The next year, 871, has been called "Alfred's year of fight-outs". Nine fight-outs, with good and bad outcomes, were fought, though the steads and times of two of the fight-outs have not been written down. In Berkshire, a short but winning clash at the Battle of Englefield, on 31 December 870, was followed by a bloody setback at the besetting of, and fighting at, Reading, on 5 January 871, and then, four days later, an outstanding win in fighting at Ashdown on the Berkshire Downs, perhaps near Compton or Aldworth. Alfred is more than most others acknowledged for bringing about very good outcome in this latter clash. However, later that month, on 22 January, the English were once more overcome in fighting at Basing and, again, on the following 22 March at 'Merton' (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire or Martin in Dorset).

King at war

In April 871, King Ethelred died, and given that Ethelred left two young sons, Alfred became king of Wessex and with it came the burden of readiness for war. Although unrest at that time meant the enthroning of Alfred — a man with knowledge of the ways of war and with backers of means — over his brother's sons went smoothly without infighting, he still had to make free from threat their landship rights. While he was away, busy with the undertakings for his brother's burial, the Danes overcame the English at an unnamed stead, and then again under his leadership at Wilton in May. Following this, there was a halt in fighting and, for the next five years, the Danes took over other landships of England. However, in 876, under their new leader, Guthrum, they stole past the English warband and struck at Wareham in Dorset. From there, early in 877, and under the falsehood of frith talks, they moved westwards and took Exeter in Devon. There, Alfred beset them, and with the ships of a another fleet sent to help them having been blown asunder by a storm, the Danes had to yield to Alfred's fighters. They withdrew to Mercia, but, in January 878, made a strike without warning upon Chippenham, a kingly stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Yuletide, "and most of the folk they killed, save the King Alfred, and he with a little band made his way by wood and wetlands, and after Easter he built a stronghold at Athelney, and from that stronghold kept up the fighting against the foe" (Anglo-Saxon Tales). It has been said that the Yuletide onslaught may have been one step of an uprising within the witan, using Guthrum's warband to keep sway after the take-over.

A well known folktale tells how, when he first fled to the Somerset Flatlands, Alfred was taken in by a woman, a churl, who, unaware of who he was, left him to watch some cakes she had left baking in the oven. Beset by the bugbears of his kingdom, Alfred, by-hap, let the cakes burn and was scolded bitterly by the woman upon her coming home. When it dawned upon her that Alfred was the king, the woman chided herself, but Alfred said, forbearingly, that he was the one who needed to be sorry. From his stronghold at Athelney, a marshy island near North Petherton, Alfred's warband was strong enough to hold back and harry his foes, while at the same time, bringing together the nearby folkwards from Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire

Another tale tells how Alfred dressed himself up as a folk-singer or glee-man so as to get into Guthrum's camp to learn of his next steps. This it is thought led to the Fight-out of Edington, near Westbury in Wiltshire. The outcome was an overwhelming win for Alfred. The Danes yielded and, from the writing of Asser, we learn that Guthrum, and twenty-nine of his leaders, underwent christening when they underwrote the Frithdeed of Wedmore. As an aftermath, England became broken in two: the southwestern half was kept by the Saxons, and the northeastern half with London, thence known as the Danelaw, was kept by the Vikings. By the next year (879), both Wessex and Mercia, west of Watling Street, were free of the Danish threat.

For the next few years there was a halt in fighting, with the Danes being kept busy in Europe. A landing in Kent in 884 or 885 near Plucks Gutter, though easily driven back, gave heart to the East Anglian Danes to rise up. The set of steps taken by Alfred to quell this uprising came to a head in the taking of London in 885 or 886, and an understanding was reached between Alfred and Guthrum, known as the Frithdeed of Alfred and Guthrum. Once more, for a time, the fighting stopped, but in the fall of 892 or 893, the Danes struck again. Finding their life in Europe somewhat unstable, they moved over to England in 330 ships in two bands. They set themselves up, the greater body at Appledore, Kent, and the lesser, under Haesten, at Milton also in Kent. The Danes this time brought their wives and children with them, seemingly a meaningful step towards taking over and settling the land. Alfred, in 893 or 894, took up ground from whence he could see both the settlings of the Danes. While he was in talks with Haesten, the Danes at Appledore broke out and struck northwestwards. They were overtaken by Alfred's eldest son, Edward, and were overcome in wholescale fighting at Farnham in Surrey. They were bound to seek haven on an island in the Hertfordshire Colne, where they were hemmed-in and in the end made to yield. The fighters fell back on Essex and, after undergoing the hardships of another loss at Benfleet, banded together with Haesten's fighters at Shoebury. Alfred had been on his way to help his son at Thorney when he heard that the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes were threatening Exeter and at unnamed stronghold on the North Devon seaboard. Alfred, at once, set forth westward and raised the besetting of Exeter. What became of the other stronghold and its folk is not written down. Meanwhile the band under Haesten set out and headed along the Thames Dale, perhaps with the thought of helping their kinfolk in the west. But they were met by warbands, reckoning in many, under the leaderships of the three great aldermen of Mercia, Wiltshire and Somerset, and made to flee to the northwest, being in the end overtaken and holed up at Buttington. Some think this to be Buttington Tump at the mouth of the Wye Ea, others Buttington near Welshpool. A strike to break through the English fighting lines was pushed back. Those who got away from Buttington fled to Shoebury. Then after gathering together more fighters they made haste to the other side of England and took over the falling down sometime Romish walled town of Chester. The English did not try to beset them there in winter time, but went about stopping them from gathering  food and goods, from the neighbourhood. Early in 894 (or 895), want of food made the Danes pull back once more to Essex. At the end of this year and early in 895 (or 896), the Danes drew their ships up the Thames and Lea and built a stronghold  some twenty miles north of London. A head-on strike upon the Danish lines broke down, but later in the year, Alfred saw a means of hindering the use of the Thames by Danish ships. It quickly dawned on the Danes that they had been outwitted. They struck out northwestwards and wintered at Bridgenorth. The next year, 896 (or 897), they gave up the fight. Some went to Northumbria, some to East Anglia. Those who had no ties in England withdrew to Europe. The long years of fighting were over.

New Ways

After the scattering of the Danish incomers, Alfred turned his mind to the building of a bigger and stronger fleet, partly to quell the strikes against, and the laying to waste of towns along the shores of Wessex by Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes, and to stop the landing of others bent on takeover. This is not, as often said, the beginning of the English fleet. There had been an earlier fight at sea under Alfred, and there was one fought under Æthelwulf in 851, and earlier ones, perhaps in 833 and 840. The Anglo-Saxon Tales, however, does acknowledge Alfred with the building of a new kind of ship, built following his thoughts, outlines and draft and said to be, "swifter, steadier and also faster than the others". However, these new ships do not seem to have been a great step forward, as we hear of them grounding in fighting and sinking in a storm. Nevertheless both the British, and Ameriksland Fleets look upon Alfred as their founder.

Alfred's halved "The Fyrd" his main fighting body, "so that there was always half at home and half out" (Anglo-Saxon Tales). The work needed for setting up and running a ready-for-war, many-numbered warband in two shifts, of which one was feeding the other, must have been truly great. The manifold make-up which Alfred's kingdom had reached by 892 is shown in a fairly trustworthy deed which sets out stewards, such as a thesaurius, cellararius and pincerna— wealth- steward, food-keeper and butler. Notwithstanding the anger and irk which Alfred must have felt in 893, when one band of fighters, which had "fulfilled their call-up (stemn)", gave up the besetting of a band of Viking Danish just as Alfred was moving in to take over from them, although this set-up seems to have worked quite well on the whole. One of the weaknesses before the time of Alfred's kingship in warding-off threats from foes had been the want of a standing fyrd, strongholds were mostly left unmanned, making it very easy for the Vikings to quickly take up  gainful steads from which to make war against the kingdom. Alfred greatly raised the awareness of the need to be ready for war, by building strengthened burhs (or boroughs) throughout Wessex.

Through the careful steps undertaken whilst digging at least four of these steads (at Wareham, Cricklade, Lydford and Wallingford), it has been shown that in every instance that the earth and stone mounds of the burghs of Alfred's kingship, found by the diggers, were the town's first line against threat from foe. The things that had to be done for their upkeep, and for warding-off foes from these and many other burghs, with full-time bands of fighters needed, are further set out in written deeds, still with us today, and in deeds of the day-to-day running known as the Burghal Hidage. Going back to a time, at least, within twenty years of Alfred's death, if not indeed from the time of his kingship, it almost truly casts us back to the time of Alfred's kingship and his ways of folkdom running. When looking at the deeds, side by side, of the town lay-outs for the the towns of Wallingford and Wareham with that of Winchester, it shows that their lay-outs were the same, thus giving truth to the belief that these newly settled burhs were also built as naves of living and goods-mongering, as well as a havens from fear and threat when harrying and harm was at hand.

Thereafter, the English dwellers and its wealth were drawn into such towns where there was greater freedom from Danish Viking threat, but also easier for geldraising by the King. Alfred is thus acknowledged with taking meaningful steps towards putting the folkdom on a new path, above all, in those shires harried by the Danes. Even if one does not believe that Alfred was the main strength behind the shaping of the "Burghal Hidage", what is true is that, in the steads of Mercia taken over by Alfred from the Vikings, the shire set-up seems now to have been brought in to being for the first time. This is most likely what gave rise to the belief that Alfred was the founder, or shaper, of shires, hundreds and tithings. Alfred's care for the law and the smooth running of the kingdom is shown both in writings and in folklore; and he is held dear under the name "Keeper of the Needy". Of the undertakings of the Witangemot, we do not hear very much under Alfred. He was always sharply aware of, and willing to acknowledge its rights, but both the happenings of the time and his strength of mind would have thrown the might of the folkdom into his hands. The law-making of Alfred most likely belongs to the later days of his kingship, after the worry and strain of Viking threats had lessened. He also gave much time and thought to the handling of kingdom’s wealth, though  almost nothing is known of his work in this field.

Law : Alfred’s Dooms Book

Alfred most abiding work was his Book of Laws sometimes called Deemings, or Book of Dooms. Sir Winston Churchill believed that Alfred blended the Law of Moses; Celtic Law, and old laws of the Anglo-Saxons before they became followers of Christ. And lately, Dr. F.N. Lee has looked at the side-by-side akinship between Alfred’s laws and Laws of Moses. Earlier, Thomas Jefferson reached the belief after looking back through the eretide of English everyday law: "The folk law came into being long before the Anglo-Saxons became followers of Christ, at a time when they had yet heard his name or even knew that such a man as Christ had lived".

Dealings with other Lands

Asser speaks most highly of Alfred's dealings with  leaders of other lands, but little hard and fast knowledge is readily at hand. His yearning to learn about overseas lands is strong, shown by the insets he put in his anglo-saxon overbringing of Orosius' work. Known also is a body of writings between Alfred and Elias III, the High Bishop of Jerusalem and, indeed, it is most likely that stewards, were sent by Alfred to India. His dealings reached as far as  Baghdad. and its Holy Leader. Furthermore, the sending of  alms bearers  to Rome to meet with the  Holy  Father  were undertaken often. Around 890, Wulfstan of Haithabu undertook a wayfaring from Haithabu on Jutland along the Baltic Sea to the Prussian  goods-mongering town of Truso. Alfred earnestly sought feedback from him of  knowledge  gained  during his  time in these northern and eastern lands of Europe Much more is known of Alfred's dealings with the Celtic athelings in the western half of Britain. Almost from the start of his kingship, writes Asser, the southern Welsh athelings, because of the  fear of being overthrown by the folk from  North Wales and Mercia,  took the time to make themselves fairly known to  Alfred. Later the North Welsh kingship followed their lead, and the latter worked  with the English in the driving out of the Danes in 893 (or 894). That Alfred sent alms to Irish as well as to monkhouses in Europe  may be taken to be true on Asser's say-so. The tale of the calling upon of Alfred by the three holy wayfarers "Scots" (they were Irish) in 891 can also be held to be true. The tale that he himself in his childhood was sent to Ireland to be healed by the Holyman Modwenna, though steeped in the dim mists of folklore, may show Alfred's keenness to know more about that island.

'''Church and Thede Ways

Very little is known of the church under Alfred. The Danish raids had been ever so boonless, laying waste to the minsters, and though Alfred set up two or three new minsters and drew monks from overseas to England, monkhoodship did not aquicken greatly during his kingship. The Danish raids also had a  harmful  bearing on learning, leading almost to the  fading  away  of  Latin, even amongst  the monks and churchmen: the foreword to Alfred's overbringing of Pope Gregory 1's "Care of Souls" (Pastoral Care) into Old English  bears a wonderfully written, if not even-handed, witness  to this.

Alfred set up a school of learning, following the way of Charlemagne. To this end, he brought men like Grimbald and John the Saxon from Europe, and Asser from South Wales. Not only did the King see to his own learning, he also made a set of overbringings for the teaching of churchmen and the wider folkhoard, most of these writings are still are with us today. These belong to the later part of his kingship most likely the last four years, of which the Anglo-Saxon tales are have little to say. Besides the lost "Handbook" or (Encheiridion,) which seems to have been nothing more than a book on everyday things kept by the king, the earliest work to be put into Old English was the (Dialogues) Talks of Gregory, a book greatly liked by the folk in the Middle Eldth. Although this was not undertaken by Alfred, the overbringing being done made by his great friend Werferth, Bishop of Worcester, the king only writing a foreword. The next work to be undertaken was Gregory's "Care of Souls," (Pastoral Care) in the main for the good of, and to help church teachers in the churchwicks. In this, Alfred stays almost wholly true to Gregory's writings; but the lead-in  is one of the most mind-awakening writings of the kingship, or indeed of English eretide. The next two works taken in hand were eretide books, the "Allworld Eretide by Orosius" and the "Church Eretide of The English Folk". The right to firstness should be given to the Orosius,  but this has given rise to much thought and talking-about. In the Orosius, Alfred by leaving out some things and putting-in  many other bits, so makes Orosius first writing almost into a new work; in the Bede the writer’s word  is followed almost to it fullness,  Although some less weighty and unenthralling bits are left out. Of late years some have wondered, wavering in the belief as to whether Alfred truly is  the overbringer of  Bede's work. But for the wonderers, as yet theirs qualms cannot be found to be so.