England in 878: the Danelaw is shown in yellow

The Danelaw, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (also known as the Danelagh; Old English: Dena lagu; Danish: Danelagen), is a historical name given to the part of England in which the laws of the "Danes" held sway^[1] and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. It is contrasted with "West Saxon law" and "Mercian law". The term has been extended by modern historians to be geographical. The areas that comprised the Danelaw are in northern and eastern England. The origins of the Danelaw arose from the Viking expansion of the 9th century, although the term was not used to describe a geographic area until the 11th century. With the increase in population and productivity in Scandinavia, Viking warriors, having sought treasure and glory in the nearby British Isles, "proceeded to plough and support themselves", in the words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for the year 876.^[2]

Danelaw is also used to describe the set of legal terms and definitions created in the treaties between the English king, Alfred the Great, and the Danish warlord, Guthrum, written following Guthrum's defeat at the Battle of Edington in 878. In 886, the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum was formalised, defining the boundaries of their kingdoms, with provisions for peaceful relations between the English and the Vikings.

The Danish laws held sway in the Kingdom of Northumbria and Kingdom of East Anglia, and the lands of the Five Boroughs of Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Stamford and Lincoln.

The prosperity of the Danelaw, especially of Eoforwic (Danish Jórvík, modern York), led to its becoming a target for later Viking raiders. Conflict with Wessex and Mercia sapped the strength of the Danelaw. The waning of its military power together with the Viking onslaughts led to its submission to Edward the Elder in return for protection. It was to be part of his Kingdom of England, and no longer a province of Denmark, as the English laid final claim to it.

Background[link]

From around 800, waves of Danish assaults on the coastlines of the British Isles were gradually followed by a succession of Danish settlers. Danish raiders first began to settle in England from 865, when the brothers Halfdan Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless wintered in East Anglia. They soon moved north and in 867 captured Northumbria and its capital, York, defeating both the recently deposed King Osberht of Northumbria, as well as the usurper Ælla of Northumbria. The Danes then placed an Englishman, Ecgberht I of Northumbria, on the throne of Northumbria as a puppet.^[3]

King Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, Alfred, led their army against the Danes at Nottingham, but the Danes refused to leave their fortifications. King Burgred of Mercia then negotiated peace with Ivar, with the Danes' keeping Nottingham in exchange for leaving the rest of Mercia unmolested.

Under Ivar the Boneless, the Danes continued their invasion in 869 by defeating King Edmund of East Anglia at Hoxne and conquering East Anglia.^[4] Once again, the brothers Æthelred and Alfred attempted to stop Ivar by attacking the Danes at Reading. They were repelled with heavy losses. The Danes pursued, and on 7 January 871, Æthelred and Alfred defeated the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown. The Danes retreated to Basing (in Hampshire), where Æthelred attacked and was, in turn, defeated. Ivar was able to follow up this victory with another in March at Meretum (now Marton, Wiltshire).

On 23 April 871, King Æthelred died and Alfred succeeded him as King of Wessex. His army was weak and he was forced to pay tribute to Ivar in order to make peace with the Danes. During this peace the Danes turned to the north and attacked Mercia, a campaign that lasted until 874. Both the Danish leader Ivar and Mercian leader Burgred died during this campaign. Ivar was succeeded by Guthrum, who finished the campaign against Mercia. In ten years the Danes gained control over East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia, leaving only Wessex to resist.^[5]

Guthrum and the Danes brokered peace with Wessex in 876, when they captured the fortresses of Wareham and Exeter. Alfred laid siege to the Danes, who were forced to surrender after reinforcements were lost in a storm. Two years later, Guthrum again attacked Alfred, surprising him by attacking his forces wintering in Chippenham. King Alfred was saved when the Danish army coming from his rear was destroyed by inferior forces at Countisbury Hill, near Lynmouth Devon. Alfred was forced into hiding for a time, before returning in the spring of 878 to gather an army and attack Guthrum at Ethandun. The Danes were defeated and retreated to Chippenham, where King Alfred laid siege and soon forced them to surrender. As a term of surrender, King Alfred demanded that Guthrum be baptised a Christian; King Alfred served as his godfather.^[6]

Establishment of Danish self-rule[link]

This peace lasted until 884, when Guthrum again attacked Wessex. Alfred defeated him, with peace codified in the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum.^[7] The treaty outlined the boundaries of the Danelaw and allowed for Danish self-rule in the region. The Danelaw represented a consolidation of power for Alfred; the subsequent conversion of Guthrum to Christianity underlines the ideological significance of this shift in the balance of power.

Edward the Elder and his sister, Æthelflæd, the Lady of the Mercians, conquered Danish territories in the Midlands and East Anglia in a series of campaigns in the 910s, and some Danish jarls who submitted were allowed to keep their lands.^[8] Viking rule ended when Eric Bloodaxe was driven out of Northumbria in 954.

The reasons for the waves of immigration were complex and bound to the political situation in Scandinavia at that time; moreover, they occurred when Viking settlers were also establishing their presence in the Hebrides, Orkney, the Faroe Islands, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, France (Normandy), Russia and Ukraine (see Kievan Rus').^[9] Polabian Slavs (Wends) settled in parts of England, apparently as Danish allies.^[10]

Cnut and his successors[link]

Cnut the Great's domains, in red.

The Danes never gave up their designs on England. From 1016 to 1035 Cnut the Great ruled over a unified English kingdom, itself the product of a hitherto resurgent Wessex, as part of his North Sea Empire, together with Denmark, Norway and part of Sweden. Cnut was succeeded in England by his son Harold Harefoot, until he himself died in 1040, after which another of Cnut's sons, Harthacnut, took the throne. Since Harthacnut was already on the Danish throne, this reunited the North Sea Empire.

Harthacnut lived only another two years, and from his death in 1042 until 1066 the monarchy reverted to the English line in the form of Edward the Confessor.

Edward died in January 1066 without an obvious successor, and an English nobleman, Harold Godwinson, took the throne. In the autumn of that same year, two rival claimants to the throne led invasions of England in short succession. First, Harald Hardrada of Norway took York in September, but was defeated by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, in Yorkshire. Then, three weeks later, William of Normandy defeated Harold at the Battle of Hastings, in Sussex, and in December he accepted the submission of Edgar the Ætheling, last in the line of Anglo-Saxon kings, at Berkhamsted.

The Danelaw appeared in legislation as late as the early twelfth century with the Leges Henrici Primi, being referred to as one of the laws together with those of Wessex and Mercia into which England was divided.

Danish-Norwegian conflict in the North Sea[link]

In the years between the Sack of Lindisfarne in 793 and the Danish invasion of East Anglia in 865, Norwegian settlers founded the site of modern Dublin and fought as mercenaries in Irish tribal wars, liberally intermarrying with their Irish allies. Some 10 years later a Danish fleet probably from the Great Heathen Army in East Anglia arrived and attacked the settlement with the Irish and Norwegian enemies of the Hiberno-Norse, but were repulsed. It is also said in Irish and northern English oral history that Ivar the Boneless, and in some accounts also Ubbe Ragnarsson, died not in the Mercian campaign, but drowned fighting the Hiberno-Norse in the Irish sea. Dublin and other major Irish towns were under Danish rule for the next 100–200 years.

The haste with which the Danes resumed their attack on Norse Dublin before consolidating their control of Saxon England indicates that the entire Danish invasion was not primarily aimed at the conquest of Saxon England, but to secure a North Sea base of operations to use as a springboard in the conflict with the Norwegians, who controlled an extensive trade network in the Orkney Islands, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, the Isle of Wight, and Ireland, which exported goods as the Danes did, from the British Isles south-east through Kievan Rus as far as Constantinople and Baghdad, following the Dniepr from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

In the 11th century, when King Magnus I had freed Norway from Cnut the Great, the terms of the peace treaty provided that the first of the two kings Magnus (Norway) and Harthacnut (Denmark) to die would leave their dominion as an inheritance to the other. When Edward the Confessor ascended the throne of a united Dano-Saxon England, a Norse army was raised from every Norwegian colony in the British Isles and attacked Edward's England in support of Magnus', and after his death, his brother Harald Hardråde's, claim to the English throne. On the accession of Harold Godwinson after the death of Edward the Confessor, Hardraada invaded Northumbria with the support of Harold's brother Tostig Godwinson, and was defeated at the Battle of Stamford Bridge three weeks before William I's victory at the Battle of Hastings.

Chronology[link]

800 Waves of Danish assaults on the coastlines of the British Isles.

865 Danish raiders first began to settle in England. Led by brothers Halfdan and Ivar the Boneless, they wintered in East Anglia, where they demanded and received tribute in exchange for a temporary peace. From there they moved north and attacked Northumbria, which was in the midst of a civil war between the deposed king Osberht and a usurper Ælla. The Danes used the civil turmoil as an opportunity to capture York, which they sacked and burned.

867 Following the loss of York, Osberht and Ælla formed an alliance against the Danes. They launched a counter-attack, but the Danes killed both Osberht and Ælla and set up a puppet king on Northumbrian throne. In response, King Æthelred of Wessex, along with his brother Alfred marched against the Danes, who were positioned behind fortifications in Nottingham, but were unable to draw them into battle. In order to establish peace, King Burhred of Mercia ceded Nottingham to the Danes in exchange for leaving the rest of Mercia undisturbed.

869 Ivar the Boneless returned and demanded tribute from King Edmund of East Anglia.

870 King Edmund refused, Ivar the Boneless defeated and captured him at Hoxne and brutally sacrificed his heart to Odin in a so-called “blood eagle ritual”, in the process adding East Anglia to the area controlled by the invading Danes. King Æthelred and Alfred attacked the Danes at Reading, but were repulsed with heavy losses. The Danes pursued them.

871 On January 7, they made their stand at Ashdown (on what is the Berkshire/North Wessex Downs now in Oxfordshire). Æthelred could not be found at the start of battle, as he was busy praying in his tent, so Alfred led the army into battle. Æthelred and Alfred defeated the Danes, who counted among their losses five jarls (nobles). The Danes retreated and set up fortifications at Basing in Hampshire, a mere 14 miles (23 km) from Reading. Æthelred attacked the Danish fortifications and was routed. Danes followed up victory with another victory in March at Meretum (now Marton, Wiltshire).

King Æthelred died on April 23, 871 and Alfred took the throne of Wessex, but not before seriously considering abdicating the throne in light of the desperate circumstances, which were further worsened by the arrival in Reading of a second Danish army from Europe. For the rest of the year Alfred concentrated on attacking with small bands against isolated groups of Danes. He was moderately successful in this endeavour and was able to score minor victories against the Danes, but his army was on the verge of collapse. Alfred responded by paying off the Danes in order for a promise of peace. During the peace the Danes turned north and attacked Mercia, which they finished off in short order, and captured London in the process. King Burgred of Mercia fought in vain against the Ivar the Boneless and his Danish invaders for three years until 874, when he fled to Europe. During Ivar’s campaign against Mercia he died and was succeeded by Guthrum the Old as the main protagonist in the Danes’ drive to conquer England. Guthrum quickly defeated Burgred and placed a puppet on the throne of Mercia. The Danes now controlled East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia, with only Wessex continuing to resist.

875 The Danes settled in Dorset, well inside of Alfred’s Kingdom of Wessex, but Alfred quickly made peace with them.

876 The Danes broke the peace when they captured the fortress of Wareham, followed by a similar capture of Exeter in 877.

877 Alfred laid siege, while the Danes waited for reinforcements from Scandinavia. Unfortunately for the Danes, the fleet of reinforcements encountered a storm and lost more than 100 ships, and the Danes were forced to return to East Mercia in the north.

878 In January Guthrum led an attack against Wessex that sought to capture Alfred while he wintered in Chippenham. Another Danish army landed in south Wales and moved south with the intent of intercepting Alfred should he flee from Guthrum’s forces. However, they stopped during their march to capture a small fortress at Countisbury Hill, held by a Wessex ealdorman named Odda. The Saxons, led by Odda, attacked the Danes while they slept and defeated the superior Danish forces, saving Alfred from being trapped between the two armies. Alfred was forced to go into hiding for the rest of the winter and spring of 878 in the Somerset marshes in order to avoid the superior Danish forces. In the spring Alfred was able to gather an army and attacked Guthrum and the Danes at Ethandun. The Danes were defeated and retreated to Chippenham, where the English pursued and laid siege to Guthrum’s forces. The Danes were unable to hold out without relief and soon surrendered. Alfred demanded as a term of the surrender that Guthrum become baptised as a Christian, which Guthrum agreed to do, with Alfred acting as his Godfather. Guthrum was true to his word and settled in East Anglia, at least for a while.

884 Guthrum attacked Kent, but was defeated by the English. This led to the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, which established the boundaries of the Danelaw and allowed for Danish self-rule in the region.

902 Essex submits to Æthelwald.

903 Æthelwald incites the East Anglian Danes into breaking the peace. They ravage Mercia before winning a pyrrhic victory that saw the death of Æthelwald and the Danish King Eohric; this allows Edward the Elder to consolidate power.

911 The English defeat the Danes at the Battle of Tettenhall. The Northumbrians ravage Mercia but are trapped by Edward and forced to fight.

917 In return for peace and protection The Kingdoms of Essex and East Anglia accept Edward the Elder as their suzerain overlord.

Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, takes the borough of Derby.

918 The borough of Leicester submits peaceably to Æthelflæd's rule. The people of York promise to accept her as their overlord, but she dies before this could come to fruition. She is succeeded by her brother, the Kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex united in the person of King Edward.

919 Norwegian Vikings under King Rægnold (Ragnald son of Sygtrygg) of Dublin take York.

920 Edward is accepted as father and lord by the King of the Scots, by Rægnold, the sons of Eadulf, the English, Norse, Danes and others all of whom dwell in Northumbria, and the King and people of the Strathclyde Welsh.

954 Eric Bloodaxe is driven out of Northumbria, his death marking the end of the prospect of a Northern Viking Kingdom stretching from York to Dublin and the Isles.

1066 Harald Hardrada lands with an army, hoping to take control of York and the English crown. He is defeated and killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This event is often cited as the end of the Viking era.

1069 Sweyn II of Denmark lands with an army, in much the same way as Harald Hardrada. He took control of York after defeating the Norman garrison and inciting a local uprising. King William eventually defeated his forces and devastated the region in the Harrying of the North. Thus ended any association with Scandinavia.

Geography[link]

The Five Boroughs and the English Midlands in the early 10th century^[11]

The area occupied by the Danelaw was roughly the area to the north of a line drawn between London and Chester, excluding the portion of Northumbria to the east of the Pennines.

Five fortified towns became particularly important in the Danelaw: Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Stamford and Lincoln, broadly delineating the area now called the East Midlands. These strongholds became known as the Five Boroughs. Borough derives from the Old English word burh (cognate with German Burg, meaning castle), meaning a fortified and walled enclosure containing several households—anything from a large stockade to a fortified town. The meaning has since developed further.

Legal concepts[link]

The Danelaw was an important factor in the establishment of a civilian peace in the neighbouring Anglo-Saxon and Viking communities. It established, for example, equivalences in areas of legal contentiousness, such as the amount of reparation that should be payable in wergild.

Many of the legalistic concepts were compatible; for example the Viking wapentake, the standard for land division in the Danelaw, was effectively interchangeable with the hundred. The use of the execution site and cemetery at Walkington Wold in East Yorkshire suggests a continuity of judicial practice.^[12]

Legacy[link]

Toponymy within the Southern Kingdom of Jorvik, showing the lasting legacy of Danish settlement

The influence of this period of Scandinavian settlement can still be seen in the North of England and the East Midlands, and is particularly evident in place-names: name endings such as -howe, -by (meaning "village") or -thorp ("hamlet") having Norse origins. There seems to be a remarkable number of Kirby/Kirkby names, some with remains of Anglo-Saxon building ^[13] indicating both a Norse origin and early church building.^[14] Scandinavian names blended with the English -ton give rise to typical hybrid place-names.^[15]

Old East Norse and Old English were still somewhat mutually comprehensible. The contact between these languages in the Danelaw caused the incorporation of many Norse words into the English language, including the word law itself, sky and window, and the third person plural pronouns she, they, them and their.^[16] Many Old Norse words still survive in the dialects of Northern England.^[17][18][19]

Four of the five boroughs became county towns — of the counties of Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. However, Stamford failed to gain such status—perhaps because of the nearby autonomous territory of Rutland.

Genetic heritage[link]

In 2000 the BBC commissioned a genetic survey of the British Isles by a team from University College London led by Professor David Goldstein for its programme 'Blood of the Vikings'. It concluded that Norse invaders settled sporadically throughout the British Isles with a particular concentration in certain areas, such as Orkney and Shetland.^[20] In this finding, the Vikings refers to Norwegian Vikings only, as the study did not set out to genetically distinguish descendants of Danish Vikings from descendants of Anglo-Saxon settlers. That was decided on the basis that the two groups originated from an area that overlaps each other on the continental North Sea coast, opposite of England (ranging from the Jutland peninsula to Belgium) and therefore deemed inconvenient or difficult to genetically distinguish.^[21]

Archaeology[link]

Major archaeological sites that bear testimony to the Danelaw are few. The most famous is the site at York, which is often said to derive its name from the Old Norse Jórvík. (That name is itself a borrowing of the Old English Eoforwic; the Old English diphthong eo being cognate with the Norse diphthong jo, the Old English intervocalic f typically being pronounced softly as a modern v, and wic being the Old English version of the Norse vik.) Eoforwic in turn was derived from an earlier name for the town, spelled Eboracum in Latin sources. Another Danelaw site is the cremation site at Heath Wood, Ingleby, Derbyshire.

Archaeological sites do not bear out the historically defined area as being a real demographic or trade boundary. This could be due to misallocation of the items and features on which this judgement is based as being indicative of either Anglo-Saxon or Norse presence. Otherwise, it could indicate that there was considerable population movement between the areas, or simply that after the treaty was made, it was ignored by one or both sides.

Thynghowe was an important Danelaw meeting place, today located in Sherwood Forest, in Nottinghamshire. The word "howe" often indicates a prehistoric burial mound. Howe is derived from the Old Norse word Haugr meaning mound.^[22] The site's rediscovery was made by Lynda Mallett, Stuart Reddish and John Wood. The site had vanished from modern maps and was essentially lost to history until the local history enthusiasts made their discoveries. Experts think the rediscovered site, which lies amidst the old oaks of an area known as the Birklands in Sherwood Forest, may also yield clues as to the boundary of the ancient Anglo Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. English Heritage recently inspected the site and believes it is a national rarity. Thynghowe^[23] was a place where people came to resolve disputes and settle issues. It is a Norse word, although the site may be older still, perhaps even from the Bronze Age.

See also[link]

• Norse-Gaels
• Raven banner
• Valknut
• Mjöllnir
• Runestone
• Stave church
• Longhouse
• List of generic forms in British place names
• Subpoena ad testificandum

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Types of Manorial Structure in the Northern Danelaw, Frank M. Stenton, London, 1910.
• The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Tiger Books International version translated and collated by Anne Savage,1995.

External links[link]

Find more about Danelaw on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

• News Item: BBC Blood of the Vikings
• BBC Viking History Links
• According to Ancient Custom: Research on the possible Origins and Purpose of Thynghowe Sherwood Forest

Coordinates: 54°N 1°W / 54°N 1°W / 54; -1

Alfred
Statue of Alfred the Great by Hamo Thornycroft in Winchester, unveiled during the millenary celebrations of Alfred's death.
King of Wessex
Reign	23 April 871 – 26 October 899
Predecessor	Æthelred
Successor	Edward
Spouse	Ealhswith
Issue
Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians Edward, King of Wessex Æthelgifu of Wessex Æthelweard of Wessex Ælfthryth, Countess of Flanders
Full name
Ælfred of Wessex
House	House of Wessex
Father	Æthelwulf, King of Wessex
Mother	Osburh
Born	849 The Royal Palace, Wantage, Oxfordshire
Died	26 October 899(899-10-26) (around 50) Winchester
Burial	ca. 1100 Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire, now lost

Alfred the Great (Old English: Ælfrēd, Ælfrǣd, "elf counsel"; 849 – 26 October 899) was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.

Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, and by his death had become the dominant ruler in England.^[1] He is the only English monarch to be accorded the epithet "the Great".^{[2] [3]} Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons". Details of his life are described in a work by the 10th century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser. Alfred was a learned and merciful man who encouraged education and improved his kingdom's legal system and military structure.

Childhood[link]

Prince Alfred on his first boar-hunt

Queen Osburga reads for her son Alfred, who would become Alfred the Great.

Alfred was born in the village of Wanating, now Wantage, Oxfordshire. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex, by his first wife, Osburh.^[4]

In 853, at the age of four, Alfred is said to have been sent to Rome where, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,^[5] he was confirmed by Pope Leo IV who "anointed him as king". Victorian writers interpreted this as an anticipatory coronation in preparation for his ultimate succession to the throne of Wessex. However, his succession could not have been foreseen at the time, as Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a "consul"; a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could explain later confusion.^[6] It may also be based on Alfred's later having accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Rome where he spent some time at the court of Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, around 854–855.

On their return from Rome in 856, Æthelwulf was deposed by his son Æthelbald. With civil war looming, the magnates of the realm met in council to hammer out a compromise. Æthelbald would retain the western shires (i.e., traditional Wessex), and Æthelwulf would rule in the east.

When King Æthelwulf died in 858, Wessex was ruled by three of Alfred's brothers in succession, Æthelbald, Æthelbert and Æthelred.^[7]

Bishop Asser tells the story of how as a child Alfred won a prize of a volume of poetry in English, offered by his mother to the first of her children able to memorise it. Legend also has it that the young Alfred spent time in Ireland seeking healing. Alfred was troubled by health problems throughout his life. It is thought that he may have suffered from Crohn's disease. Statues of Alfred in Winchester and Wantage portray him as a great warrior. Evidence suggests he was not physically strong, and though not lacking in courage, he was more noted for his intellect than a warlike character.^[8]

Under Æthelred[link]

During the short reigns of the older two of his three elder brothers, Æthelbald of Wessex and Æthelberht of Wessex, Alfred is not mentioned. However, his public life began with the accession of his third brother, Æthelred of Wessex, in 866. It is during this period that Bishop Asser applied to him the unique title of "secundarius", which may indicate a position akin to that of the Celtic tanist, a recognised successor closely associated with the reigning monarch. It is possible that this arrangement was sanctioned by Alfred's father, or by the Witan, to guard against the danger of a disputed succession should Æthelred fall in battle. The arrangement of crowning a successor as royal prince and military commander is well known among other Germanic tribes, such as the Swedes and Franks, to whom the Anglo-Saxons were closely related.

In 868, Alfred is recorded as fighting beside Æthelred in an unsuccessful attempt to keep the invading Danes led by Ivar the Boneless out of the adjoining Kingdom of Mercia.^[5] However, at the end of 870, the Danes arrived in his homeland. The year which followed has been called "Alfred's year of battles". Nine engagements were fought with varying outcomes, though the place and date of two of these battles have not been recorded.

In Berkshire, a successful skirmish at the Battle of Englefield on 31 December 870 was followed by a severe defeat at the siege and Battle of Reading by Ivar's brother Halfdan Ragnarsson on 5 January 871; then, four days later, Alfred won a brilliant victory at the Battle of Ashdown on the Berkshire Downs, possibly near Compton or Aldworth. Alfred is particularly credited with the success of this latter battle. However, later that month, on 22 January, the English were defeated at the Battle of Basing and, on the 22 March at the Battle of Merton (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire or Martin in Dorset), in which Æthelred was killed. The two unidentified battles may have occurred in between.^[9]

King at war[link]

Early struggles, defeat and flight[link]

Alfred the Great plots the capture of the Danish fleet.

In April 871, King Æthelred died, and Alfred succeeded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, despite the fact that Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. This was in accordance with the agreement that Æthelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at Swinbeorg. The brothers had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King Æthelwulf had left jointly to his sons in his will. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches their father had settled upon them and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the ongoing Danish invasion and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's succession probably went uncontested. Tensions between Alfred and his nephews, however, would arise later in his reign.^{[citation needed]}

Coin of Alfred, king of Wessex, London, 880 (based upon a Roman model).
Obv: King with royal band in profile, with legend: ÆLFRED REX "King Ælfred".

While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the English in his absence at an unnamed spot, and then again in his presence at Wilton in May.^[9] The defeat at Wilton smashed any remaining hope that Alfred could drive the invaders from his kingdom. He was forced, instead, to ‘make peace’ with them. The sources do not tell what the terms of the peace were. Bishop Asser claimed that the 'pagans' agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise; and, indeed, the Viking army did withdraw from Reading in the autumn of 871 to take up winter quarters in Mercian London. Although not mentioned by Asser or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably also paid the Vikings cash to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year.^[10] Hoards dating to the Viking occupation of London in 871/2 have been excavated at Croydon, Gravesend, and Waterloo Bridge; these finds hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings. For the next five years, the Danes occupied other parts of England.^[11]

In 876 under their new leader, Guthrum, the Danes slipped past the English army and attacked and occupied Wareham in Dorset. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault.^[9] Accordingly, he negotiated a peace which involved an exchange of hostages and oaths, which the Danes swore on a "holy ring" associated with the worship of Thor.^[5] The Danes, however, broke their word and, after killing all the hostages, slipped away under cover of night to Exeter in Devon. There, Alfred blockaded them, and with a relief fleet having been scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. They withdrew to Mercia, but, in January 878, made a sudden attack on Chippenham, a royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas, "and most of the people they killed, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made his way by wood and swamp, and after Easter he made a fort at Athelney in the marshes of Somerset, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe".^[5] From his fort at Athelney, an island in the marshes near North Petherton, Alfred was able to mount an effective resistance movement, rallying the local militias from Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire.^[9]

Alfred the Great is scolded by his subject, a neatherd's wife, for not turning the breads but readily eating them when they are baked in her cottage.

A popular legend, originating from 12th century chronicles,^[12] tells how when he first fled to the Somerset Levels, Alfred was given shelter by a peasant woman who, unaware of his identity, left him to watch some cakes she had left cooking on the fire. Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom, Alfred accidentally let the cakes burn.

870 was the low-water mark in the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. With all the other kingdoms having fallen to the Vikings, Wessex alone was still resisting.^[13]

Counterattack and victory[link]

King Alfred's Tower (1772) on the supposed site of Egbert's Stone, the mustering place before the Battle of Ethandun.^[14]

In the seventh week after Easter [4–10 May 878], around Whitsuntide, Alfred rode to ‘Egbert's Stone’ east of Selwood, where he was met by "all the people of Somerset and of Wiltshire and of that part of Hampshire which is on this side of the sea [that is, west of Southampton Water], and they rejoiced to see him".^[5] Alfred’s emergence from his marshland stronghold was part of a carefully planned offensive that entailed raising the fyrds of three shires. This meant not only that the king had retained the loyalty of ealdormen, royal reeves and king’s thegns (who were charged with levying and leading these forces), but that they had maintained their positions of authority in these localities well enough to answer his summons to war. Alfred’s actions also suggest a finely honed system of scouts and messengers.^{[citation needed]}

Alfred won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Ethandun, which may have been fought near Westbury, Wiltshire.^[9] He then pursued the Danes to their stronghold at Chippenham and starved them into submission. One of the terms of the surrender was that Guthrum convert to Christianity; and three weeks later the Danish king and 29 of his chief men were baptised at Alfred's court at Aller, near Athelney, with Alfred receiving Guthrum as his spiritual son.^[9] The "unbinding of the chrism" took place with great ceremony eight days later at the royal estate at Wedmore in Somerset, after which Guthrum fulfilled his promise to leave Wessex. There is no contemporary evidence that Alfred and Guthrum agreed upon a formal treaty at this time; the so-called Treaty of Wedmore is an invention of modern historians. The Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, preserved in Old English in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Manuscript 383), and in a Latin compilation known as Quadripartitus, was negotiated later, perhaps in 879 or 880, when King Ceolwulf II of Mercia was deposed.^[15] That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. By its terms the boundary between Alfred’s and Guthrum’s kingdoms was to run up the River Thames, to the River Lea; follow the Lea to its source (near Luton); from there extend in a straight line to Bedford; and from Bedford follow the River Ouse to Watling Street. In other words, Alfred succeeded to Ceolwulf’s kingdom, consisting of western Mercia; and Guthrum incorporated the eastern part of Mercia into an enlarged kingdom of East Anglia (henceforward known as the Danelaw). By terms of the treaty, moreover, Alfred was to have control over the Mercian city of London and its mints — at least for the time being.^[16] The disposition of Essex, held by West Saxon kings since the days of Egbert, is unclear from the treaty, though, given Alfred’s political and military superiority, it would have been surprising if he had conceded any disputed territory to his new godson.

The quiet years; Restoration of London[link]

Plaque in the City of London noting the restoration of the Roman walled city by Alfred

With the signing of the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, an event most commonly held to have taken place around 880 when Guthrum’s people began settling East Anglia, Guthrum was neutralised as a threat.^[17] In conjunction with this agreement an army of Danish left the island and sailed to Ghent. Alfred however was still forced to contend with a number of Danish threats. A year later in 881 Alfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish ships “On the high seas”.^[18] Two of the ships were destroyed and the others surrendered to Alfred’s forces.^[19] Similar small skirmishes with independent Viking raiders would have occurred for much of the period as they had for decades.

In the year 883, though there is some debate over the year, King Alfred, because of his support and his donation of alms to Rome, received a number of gifts from the Pope Marinus.^[20] Among these gifts was reputed to be a piece of the true cross, a true treasure for the devout Saxon king. According to Asser, because of Pope Marinus’ friendship with King Alfred, the pope granted an exemption to any Anglo-Saxons residing within Rome from tax or tribute.^[21]

After the signing of the treaty with Guthrum, Alfred was spared any large-scale conflicts for some time. Despite this relative peace, the king was still forced to deal with a number of Danish raids and incursions. Among these was a raid taking place in Kent, an allied country in Southeast England, during the year 885, which was quite possibly the largest raid since the battles with Guthrum. Asser’s account of the raid places the Danish raiders at the Saxon city of Rochester,^[18] where they built a temporary fortress in order to besiege the city. In response to this incursion, Alfred led an Anglo-Saxon force against the Danes who, instead of engaging the army of Wessex, fled to their beached ships and sailed to another part of Britain. The retreating Danish force supposedly left Britain the following summer.^[22]

Not long after the failed Danish raid in Kent, Alfred dispatched his fleet to East Anglia. The purpose of this expedition is debated, though Asser claims that it was for the sake of plunder.^[22] After traveling up the River Stour, the fleet was met by Danish vessels that numbered 13 or 16 (sources vary on the number) and a battle ensued.^[22] The Anglo-Saxon Fleet emerged victorious and as Huntingdon accounts, “laden with spoils.”^[23] The victorious fleet was then caught unaware when attempting to leave the River Stour and was attacked by a Danish force at the mouth of the river. The Danish fleet was able to defeat Alfred's fleet which may have been weakened in the previous engagement.^[24]

A year later, in 886, Alfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to make it habitable again.^[25] Alfred entrusted the city to the care of his son-in law Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia. The restoration of London progressed through the later half of the 880s and is believed to have revolved around a new street plan, added fortifications in addition to the existing Roman walls, and, some believe, the construction of matching fortifications on the South bank of the River Thames.^[26] This is also the period in which almost all chroniclers agree that the Saxon people of pre-unification England submitted to Alfred.^[27] This was not, however, the point in which Alfred came to be known as King of England; in fact he would never adopt the title for himself. In truth the power which Alfred wielded over the English peoples at this time seemed to stem largely from the military might of the West Saxons, Alfred’s political connections from having the ruler of Mercia as his son-in-law, and Alfred’s keen administration talents.

Between the restoration of London and the resumption of large scale Danish attacks in the early 890s, Alfred’s reign was rather uneventful. The relative peace of the late 880s was marred by the death of Alfred's sister, Æthelswith, who died en route to Rome in 888.^[28] In the same year the Archbishop of Canterbury, Æthelred also passed away. One year later Guthrum, or Athelstan by his baptised name, Alfred’s former enemy and king of East Anglia, died and was buried in Hadleigh, Suffolk.^[29] Guthrum’s passing marked a change in the political sphere Alfred dealt with. Guthrum’s death created a power vacuum which would stir up other power–hungry warlords eager to take his place in the following years. The quiet years of Alfred’s life were coming to a close, and war was on the horizon.

Further Viking attacks repelled[link]

After another lull, in the autumn of 892 or 893, the Danes attacked again. Finding their position in mainland Europe precarious, they crossed to England in 330 ships in two divisions. They entrenched themselves, the larger body at Appledore, Kent, and the lesser, under Hastein, at Milton, also in Kent. The invaders brought their wives and children with them, indicating a meaningful attempt at conquest and colonisation. Alfred, in 893 or 894, took up a position from which he could observe both forces. While he was in talks with Hastein, the Danes at Appledore broke out and struck northwestwards. They were overtaken by Alfred's oldest son, Edward, and were defeated in a general engagement at Farnham in Surrey. They took refuge on an island at Thorney, on the Hertfordshire Colne, where they were blockaded and were ultimately forced to submit.^[30] The force fell back on Essex and, after suffering another defeat at Benfleet, coalesced with Hastein's force at Shoebury.^[9]

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. Alfred at once hurried westward and raised the Siege of Exeter. The fate of the other place is not recorded. Meanwhile, the force under Hastein set out to march up the Thames Valley, possibly with the idea of assisting their friends in the west. But they were met by a large force under the three great ealdormen of Mercia, Wiltshire and Somerset, and forced to head off to the northwest, being finally overtaken and blockaded at Buttington. Some identify this with Buttington Tump at the mouth of the River Wye, others with Buttington near Welshpool. An attempt to break through the English lines was defeated. Those who escaped retreated to Shoebury. Then, after collecting reinforcements, they made a sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined Roman walls of Chester. The English did not attempt a winter blockade, but contented themselves with destroying all the supplies in the neighbourhood. Early in 894 (or 895), want of food obliged the Danes to retire once more to Essex. At the end of this year and early in 895 (or 896), the Danes drew their ships up the River Thames and River Lea and fortified themselves twenty miles (32 km) north of London. A direct attack on the Danish lines failed but, later in the year, Alfred saw a means of obstructing the river so as to prevent the egress of the Danish ships. The Danes realised that they were outmanoeuvred. They struck off north-westwards and wintered at Cwatbridge near Bridgnorth. The next year, 896 (or 897), they gave up the struggle. Some retired to Northumbria, some to East Anglia. Those who had no connections in England withdrew back to the continent.^[9]

Military reorganisation[link]

Alfred the Great silver offering penny, 871–899. Legend: AELFRED REX SAXONUM "Ælfred King of the Saxons".

Wessex's history of failures preceding his success in 878 emphasised to Alfred that the traditional system of battle he had inherited played to the Danes' advantage. While both the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes attacked settlements to seize wealth and other resources, they employed very different strategies. 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 marshaled against them in defence. In contrast, the Danes preferred to choose easy targets, mapping cautious forays designed to avoid risking all their accumulated plunder with high-stake attacks for more. Alfred determined their strategy was to launch smaller scaled attacks from a secure and reinforced defensible base which they could retreat to should their raiders meet strong resistance. These bases were prepared in advance, often by capturing an estate and augmenting its defences with surrounding ditches, ramparts and palisades. Once inside the fortification, Alfred realised, the Danes enjoyed the advantage, better situated to outlast their opponents or crush them with a counter attack as the provisions and stamina of the besieging forces waned.^[31]

The means by which they marshaled the forces to defend against marauders also left the Anglo-Saxons vulnerable to the Vikings. It was only after the raids were underway that a call went out to landowners to gather men for battle, and large regions could be devastated before the newly assembled army arrived. And although the landowners were obliged to the king to supply these men when called, during the attacks in 878, many of them opportunistically abandoned their king and collaborated with Guthrum.^[32]

With these lessons in mind, Alfred capitalised on the relatively peaceful years immediately following his victory at Ethandrun by focusing on an ambitious restructuring of his kingdom's military defences. 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.^[33]

Burghal system[link]

A rare High Medieval image of Alfred, 13th century

At the centre of Alfred's reformed military defence system was a network of fortresses, or burhs, distributed at strategic points throughout the kingdom.^[34] There were thirty-three total spaced approximately 30 kilometres (20 mi) distant, enabling the military to confront attacks anywhere in the kingdom within a single day.^[35][36] Alfred's burhs, (later termed boroughs), consisted mainly of massive earthen walls surrounded by wide ditches, probably reinforced with wooden revetments and palisades.^[37] The size of the burhs ranged from tiny outposts such as Pilton to large fortifications in established towns, the largest at Winchester.^[38] Many of the burhs were twin towns that straddled a river and connected by a fortified bridge, like those built by Charles the Bald a generation before. The double-burh blocked passage on the river, forcing Viking ships to navigate under a garrisoned bridge lined with men armed with stones, spears, or arrows. Other burhs were sited near fortified royal villas allowing the king better control over his strongholds.^[39]

This network of well-garrisoned burhs posed significant obstacles to Viking invaders, especially those laden with booty. The system threatened Viking routes and communications making it far more dangerous for the Viking raiders. However the Vikings lacked both the equipment necessary to undertake a siege against the burh and a developed doctrine of siegecraft, having tailored their methods of fighting to rapid strikes and unimpeded retreats to well defended fortifications. The only means left to them was to starve the burh into submission, but this allowed the king time to send assistance with his mobile field army or garrisons from neighbouring burhs. In such cases, the Vikings were extremely vulnerable to pursuit by the king's joint military forces.^[40] Alfred's burh system posed such a formidable challenge against Viking attack that when the Vikings returned in 892 and successfully stormed a half-made, poorly garrisoned fortress up the Lympne estuary in Kent, the Anglo-Saxons were able to limit their penetration to the outer frontiers of Wessex and Mercia.^[41]

Alfred's burghal system was revolutionary in its strategic conception and potentially expensive in its execution. His contemporary biographer Asser wrote that many nobles baulked at the new demands placed upon them even though they were for "the common needs of the kingdom".^[42][43] The cost of building the burhs was great in itself, but this paled before the cost of upkeep for these fortresses and the maintenance of their standing garrisons. A remarkable early tenth-century document, known as the Burghal Hidage, provides a formula for determining how many men were needed to garrison a borough, based on one man for every 5.5 yards (5 meters) of wall. This calculates to a total of 27,071 soldiers needed system wide, or approximately one in four of all the free men in Wessex.^[44]

Reconstituted fyrd[link]

Over the last two decades of his reign, Alfred undertook a radical reorganisation of the military institutions of his kingdom, strengthened the West Saxon economy through a policy of monetary reform and urban planning and strove to win divine favour by resurrecting the literary glories of earlier generations of Anglo-Saxons. Alfred pursued these ambitious programmes to fulfill, as he saw it, his responsibility as king. This justified the heavy demands he made upon his subjects' labour and finances. It even excused the expropriation of strategically located Church lands. Recreating the fyrd into a standing army, ringing Wessex with some thirty garrisoned fortified towns, and constructing new and larger ships for the royal fleet were costly endeavours that provoked resistance from noble and peasant alike. But they paid off. When the Vikings returned in force in 892 they found a kingdom defended by a standing, mobile field army and a network of garrisoned fortresses that commanded its navigable rivers and Roman roads.^[9][45]

Alfred analysed the defects of the military system that he had inherited and implemented changes to remedy them. Alfred's military reorganisation of Wessex consisted of three elements: the building of thirty fortified and garrisoned towns (burhs) along the rivers and Roman roads of Wessex; the creation of a mobile (horsed) field force, consisting of his nobles and their warrior retainers, which was divided into two contingents, one of which was always in the field; and the enhancement of Wessex's seapower through the addition of larger ships to the existing royal fleet.^[9] Each element of the system was meant to remedy defects in the West Saxon military establishment exposed by the Viking invasions. If under the existing system he could not assemble forces quickly enough to intercept mobile Viking raiders, the obvious answer was to have a standing field force. If this entailed transforming the West Saxon fyrd from a sporadic levy of king's men and their retinues into a mounted standing army, so be it. If his kingdom lacked strongpoints to impede the progress of an enemy army, he would build them. If the enemy struck from the sea, he would counter them with his own naval power. Characteristically, all of Alfred's innovations were firmly rooted in traditional West Saxon practice, drawing as they did upon the three so-called ‘common burdens' of bridge work, fortress repair and service on the king's campaigns that all holders of bookland and royal loanland owed the Crown. Where Alfred revealed his genius was in designing the field force and burhs to be parts of a coherent military system. Neither Alfred's reformed fyrd nor his burhs alone would have afforded a sufficient defence against the Vikings; together, however, they robbed the Vikings of their major strategic advantages: surprise and mobility.^{[citation needed]}

Administration and taxation[link]

To obtain the needed garrison troops and workers to build and maintain the burhs' defences, Alfred regularised and vastly expanded the existing (and, one might add, quite recent) obligation of landowners to provide ‘fortress work’ on the basis of the hidage assessed upon their lands.^[46] The allotments of the Burghal Hidage represent the creation of administrative districts for the support of the burhs. The landowners attached to Wallingford, for example, were responsible for producing and feeding 2,400 men, the number sufficient for maintaining 9,900 feet (3 km) of wall. Each of the larger burhs became the centre of a territorial district of considerable size, carved out of the neighbouring countryside in order to support the town. In one sense, Alfred conceived nothing truly new here. The shires of Wessex went back at least to the reign of King Ine, who probably also imposed a hidage assessment upon each for food rents and other services owed the Crown.

English navy[link]

The Alfred Jewel, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, commissioned by Alfred.

Alfred also tried his hand at naval design. In 896,^[47] he ordered the construction of a small fleet, perhaps a dozen or so longships, that, at 60 oars, were twice the size of Viking warships. This was not, as the Victorians asserted, the birth of the English Navy. Wessex possessed a royal fleet before this. King Athelstan of Kent and Ealdorman Ealhhere had defeated a Viking fleet in 851, capturing nine ships,^[48] and Alfred himself had conducted naval actions in 882.^[49] But, clearly, the author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and probably Alfred himself regarded 897 as marking an important development in the naval power of Wessex. The chronicler flattered his royal patron by boasting that Alfred's ships were not only larger, but swifter, steadier and rode higher in the water than either Danish or Frisian ships. (It is probable that, under the classical tutelage of Asser, Alfred utilised the design of Greek and Roman warships, with high sides, designed for fighting rather than for navigation.) Alfred had seapower in mind: if he could intercept raiding fleets before they landed, he could spare his kingdom from ravaging. Alfred's ships may have been superior in conception. However, in practice they proved to be too large to manoeuvre well in the close waters of estuaries and rivers, the only places in which a 'naval' battle could occur.^[50] (The warships of the time were not designed to be ship killers but troop carriers. A naval battle entailed a ship's coming alongside an enemy vessel, at which point the crew would lash the two ships together and board the enemy. The result was effectively a land battle involving hand-to-hand fighting on board the two lashed vessels.)^{[citation needed]}

In the one recorded naval engagement in the year 896,^[5][47] Alfred's new fleet of nine ships intercepted six Viking ships in the mouth of an unidentified river along the south of England. The Danes had beached half their ships, and gone inland,^[47] either to rest their rowers or to forage for food. Alfred's ships immediately moved to block their escape to the sea. The three Viking ships afloat attempted to break through the English lines.^[47] Only one made it, Alfred's ships intercepted the other two.^[47] Lashing the Viking boats to their own, the English crew boarded the enemy's vessels and proceeded to kill everyone on board. The one ship that escaped managed to do so only because all of Alfred's heavy ships became mired when the tide went out. What ensued was a land battle between the crews of the grounded ships. The Danes, heavily outnumbered, would have been wiped out if the tide had not risen. When that occurred, the Danes rushed back to their boats, which being lighter, with shallower drafts, were freed before Alfred's ships. Helplessly, the English watched as the Vikings rowed past them.^{[citation needed]} But the pirates had suffered so many casualties (120 Danes dead against 62 Frisians and English^[47]), that they had difficulties putting out to sea.^[47] All were too damaged to row around Sussex and two were driven against the Sussex coast.^[47] The shipwrecked sailors were brought before Alfred at Winchester and were hanged.^[47]

Legal reform[link]

Silver coin of Alfred

In the late 880s or early 890s, Alfred issued a long domboc or law code, consisting of his "own" laws followed by a code issued by his late seventh-century predecessor King Ine of Wessex. Together these laws are arranged into 120 chapters. In his introduction, Alfred explains that he gathered together the laws he found in many 'synod-books' and "ordered to be written many of the ones that our forefathers observed—those that pleased me; and many of the ones that did not please me, I rejected with the advice of my councillors, and commanded them to be observed in a different way."^[51] Alfred singled out in particular the laws that he "found in the days of Ine, my kinsman, or Offa, king of the Mercians, or King Æthelbert of Kent, who first among the English people received baptism." It is difficult to know exactly what Alfred meant by this. He appended rather than integrated the laws of Ine into his code, and although he included, as had Æthelbert, a scale of payments in compensation for injuries to various body parts, the two injury tariffs are not aligned. And, Offa is not known to have issued a law code, leading historian Patrick Wormald to speculate that Alfred had in mind the legatine capitulary of 786 that was presented to Offa by two papal legates.^[52]

About a fifth of the law code is taken up by Alfred's introduction, which includes translations into English of the Decalogue, a few chapters from the Book of Exodus, and the'Apostolic Letter' from Acts of the Apostles (15:23–29). The Introduction may best be understood as Alfred's meditation upon the meaning of Christian law.^[53] It traces the continuity between God's gift of Law to Moses to Alfred's own issuance of law to the West Saxon people. By doing so, it links the holy past to the historical present and represents Alfred's law-giving as a type of divine legislation.^[54] This is the reason that Alfred divided his code into precisely 120 chapters: 120 was the age at which Moses died and, in the number-symbolism of early medieval biblical exegetes, 120 stood for law.^[55] The link between the Mosaic Law and Alfred's code is the 'Apostolic Letter,' which explained that Christ "had come not to shatter or annul the commandments but to fulfill them; and he taught mercy and meekness" (Intro, 49.1). The mercy that Christ infused into Mosaic Law underlies the injury tariffs that figure so prominently in barbarian law codes, since Christian synods "established, through that mercy which Christ taught, that for almost every misdeed at the first offence secular lords might with their permission receive without sin the monetary compensation, which they then fixed."^[56] The only crime that could not be compensated with a payment of money is treachery to a lord, "since Almighty God adjudged none for those who despised Him, nor did Christ, the Son of God, adjudge any for the one who betrayed Him to death; and He commanded everyone to love his lord as Himself."^[56] Alfred's transformation of Christ's commandment from "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Matt. 22:39–40) to love your secular lord as you would love the Lord Christ himself underscores the importance that Alfred placed upon lordship, which he understood as a sacred bond instituted by God for the governance of man.^[57]

When one turns from the domboc's introduction to the laws themselves, it is difficult to uncover any logical arrangement. The impression one receives is of a hodgepodge of miscellaneous laws. The law code, as it has been preserved, is singularly unsuitable for use in lawsuits. In fact, several of Alfred's laws contradict the laws of Ine that form an integral part of the code. Patrick Wormald's explanation is that Alfred's law code should be understood not as a legal manual, but as an ideological manifesto of kingship, "designed more for symbolic impact than for practical direction."^[58] In practical terms, the most important law in the code may well be the very 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.^[59]

Alfred devoted considerable attention and thought to judicial matters. Asser underscores his concern for judicial fairness. Alfred, according to Asser, insisted upon reviewing contested judgments made by his ealdormen and reeves, and "would carefully look into nearly all the judgements which were passed [issued] in his absence anywhere in the realm, to see whether they were just or unjust."^[60] A charter from the reign of his son Edward the Elder depicts Alfred as hearing one such appeal in his chamber, while washing his hands.^[61] Asser represents Alfred as a Solomonic judge, painstaking in his own judicial investigations and critical of royal officials who rendered unjust or unwise judgments. Although Asser never mentions Alfred's law code, he does say that Alfred insisted that his judges be literate, so that they could apply themselves "to the pursuit of wisdom." The failure to comply with this royal order was to be punished by loss of office.^[62] It is uncertain how seriously this should be taken; Asser was more concerned to represent Alfred as a wise ruler than to report actual royal policy.^{[citation needed]}

Foreign relations[link]

Asser speaks grandiosely of Alfred's relations with foreign powers, but little definite information is available.^[9] His interest in foreign countries is shown by the insertions which he made in his translation of Orosius. He certainly corresponded with Elias III, the Patriarch of Jerusalem,^[9] and possibly sent a mission to India in honour of Saint Thomas the Apostle, whose tomb was believed to lie in that country.^[63] Contact was also made with the Caliph in Baghdad.^[64] Embassies to Rome conveying the English alms to the Pope were fairly frequent.^[65] Around 890, Wulfstan of Hedeby undertook a journey from Hedeby on Jutland along the Baltic Sea to the Prussian trading town of Truso. Alfred personally collected details of this trip.^[66]

Alfred's relations with the Celtic princes in the western half of Britain are clearer. Comparatively early in his reign, according to Asser, the southern Welsh princes, owing to the pressure on them from North Wales and Mercia, commended themselves to Alfred. Later in the reign the North Welsh followed their example, and the latter cooperated with the English in the campaign of 893 (or 894). That Alfred sent alms to Irish and Continental monasteries may be taken on Asser's authority. The visit of the three pilgrim "Scots" (i.e. Irish) to Alfred in 891 is undoubtedly authentic. The story that he himself in his childhood was sent to Ireland to be healed by Saint Modwenna, though mythical, may show Alfred's interest in that island.^[9]

Religion and culture[link]

Historical mixed media figure of Alfred the Great produced by artist/historian George S. Stuart and photographed by Peter d'Aprix. This image, from the George S. Stuart Gallery of Historical Figures

In the 880s, at the same time that he was "cajoling and threatening" his nobles to build and man the burhs, Alfred, perhaps inspired by the example of Charlemagne almost a century before, undertook an equally ambitious effort to revive learning.^[9] It entailed the recruitment of clerical scholars from Mercia, Wales and abroad to enhance the tenor of the court and of the episcopacy; the establishment of a court school to educate his own children, the sons of his nobles, and intellectually promising boys of lesser birth; an attempt to require literacy in those who held offices of authority; a series of translations into the vernacular of Latin works the king deemed "most necessary for all men to know";^{[citation needed]} the compilation of a chronicle detailing the rise of Alfred's kingdom and house; and the issuance of a law code that presented the West Saxons as a new people of Israel and their king as a just and divinely inspired law-giver.^{[citation needed]}

Very little is known of the church under Alfred. The Danish attacks had been particularly damaging to the monasteries, and though Alfred founded monasteries at Athelney and Shaftesbury, the first new monastic houses in Wessex since the beginning of the eighth century,^[67] and enticed foreign monks to England, monasticism did not revive significantly during his reign.^{[citation needed]} Alfred undertook no systematic reform of ecclesiastical institutions or religious practices in Wessex. For him the key to the kingdom's spiritual revival was to appoint pious, learned, and trustworthy bishops and abbots. As king he saw himself as responsible for both the temporal and spiritual welfare of his subjects. Secular and spiritual authority were not distinct categories for Alfred.^{[citation needed]} He was equally comfortable distributing his translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care to his bishops so that they might better train and supervise priests, and using those same bishops as royal officials and judges. 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.^[68]

The Danish raids had also a devastating impact on learning in England. Alfred lamented in the preface to his translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care that "learning had declined so thoroughly in England that there were very few men on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English, or even translate a single letter from Latin into English: and I suppose that there were not many beyond the Humber either".^[69] Alfred undoubtedly exaggerated for dramatic effect the abysmal state of learning in England during his youth. That Latin learning had not been obliterated is evidenced by the presence in his court of learned Mercian and West Saxon clerics such as Plegmund, Wæferth, and Wulfsige, but Alfred's account should not be entirely discounted.^{[citation needed]} 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.^[70] Numerous Anglo-Saxon manuscripts burnt up along with the churches that housed them. And a solemn diploma from Christ Church, Canterbury dated 873 is so poorly constructed and written that historian Nicholas Brooks posited a scribe who was either so blind he could not read what he wrote or who knew little or no Latin. "It is clear," Brooks concludes, "that the metropolitan church [of Canterbury] must have been quite unable to provide any effective training in the scriptures or in Christian worship."^[71]

Following the example of Charlemagne, Alfred established a court school for the education of his own children, those of the nobility, and "a good many of lesser birth".^{[citation needed]} There they studied books in both English and Latin and "devoted themselves to writing, to such an extent .... they were seen to be devoted and intelligent students of the liberal arts."^[72] He recruited scholars from the Continent and from Britain to aid in the revival of Christian learning in Wessex and to provide the king personal instruction. Grimbald and John the Saxon came from Francia; Plegmund (whom Alfred appointed archbishop of Canterbury in 890), Bishop Werferth of Worcester, Æthelstan, and the royal chaplains Werwulf, from Mercia; and Asser, from St. David's in south-western Wales.^{[citation needed]}

Alfred's educational ambitions seem to have extended beyond the establishment of a court school. 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."^[73] Conscious of the decay of Latin literacy in his realm, Alfred proposed that primary education be taught in English, with those wishing to advance to holy orders to continue their studies in Latin. The problem, however, was that there were few "books of wisdom" written in English. Alfred sought to remedy this through an ambitious court-centred programme of translating into English the books he deemed "most necessary for all men to know."^[73] 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.

Apart from the lost Handboc or Encheiridion, 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. The translation was undertaken at Alfred's command by Werferth, Bishop of Worcester, with the king merely furnishing a preface.^[9] Remarkably, Alfred, undoubtedly with the advice and aid of his court scholars, translated four works himself: Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, St. Augustine's Soliloquies, and the first fifty psalms of the Psalter. One might add to this list Alfred's translation, in his law code, of excerpts from the Vulgate Book of Exodus. The Old English versions of Orosius's Histories against the Pagans and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People are no longer accepted by scholars as Alfred's own translations because of lexical and stylistic differences.^[74] Nonetheless, the consensus remains that they were part of the Alfredian programme of translation. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge suggest this also for Bald's Leechbook and the anonymous Old English Martyrology.^[75]

Alfred's first translation was of Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, which he prefaced with an introduction explaining why he thought it necessary to translate works such as this one from Latin into English. Although he described his method as translating "sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense," Alfred's translation actually keeps very close to his original, although through his choice of language he blurred throughout the distinction between spiritual and secular authority. Alfred meant his translation to be used and circulated it to all his bishops.^[9]

Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy was the most popular philosophical handbook of the Middle Ages. Unlike his translation of the Pastoral Care, Alfred here deals very freely with his original and though the late Dr. G. Schepss^[76] showed that many of the additions to the text are to be traced not to Alfred himself, but to the glosses and commentaries which he used, still there is much in the work which is solely Alfred's and highly characteristic of his style. It is in the Boethius that the oft-quoted sentence occurs: "My will was to live worthily as long as I lived, and after my life to leave to them that should come after, my memory in good works." The book has come down to us in two manuscripts only. In one of these^[77] the writing is prose, in the other^[78] a combination of prose and alliterating verse. The latter manuscript was severely damaged in the 18th and 19th centuries,^[79] and the authorship of the verse has been much disputed; but likely it also is by Alfred. In fact, he writes in the prelude that he first created a prose work and then used it as the basis for his poem Metres of Boethius, his crowning literary achievement. He spent a great deal of time working on these books, which he tells us he gradually wrote through the many stressful times of his reign to refresh his mind. Of the authenticity of the work as a whole there has never been any doubt.^{[citation needed]}

The last of Alfred's works is one to which he gave the name Blostman, i.e., "Blooms" or Anthology. The first half is based mainly on the Soliloquies of St Augustine of Hippo, the remainder is drawn from various sources, and contains much that is Alfred's own and highly characteristic of him. The last words of it may be quoted; they form a fitting epitaph for the noblest of English kings. "Therefore he seems to me a very foolish man, and truly wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear."^{[citation needed]}

Alfred appears as a character in the twelfth- or thirteenth-century poem The Owl and the Nightingale, where his wisdom and skill with proverbs is praised. The Proverbs of Alfred, a thirteenth-century work, contains sayings that are not likely to have originated with Alfred but attest to his posthumous medieval reputation for wisdom.^{[citation needed]}

Drawing of the Alfred Jewel

The Alfred jewel, discovered in Somerset in 1693, has long been associated with King Alfred because of its Old English inscription "AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN" (Alfred ordered me to be made). The jewel is about 2½ inches (6.1 cm) long, made of filigreed gold, enclosing a highly polished piece of quartz crystal beneath which is set a cloisonné enamel plaque, with an enamelled image of a man holding floriate sceptres, perhaps personifying Sight or the Wisdom of God.^[80] It was at one time attached to a thin rod or stick based on the hollow socket at its base. The jewel certainly dates from Alfred's reign. Although its function is unknown, it has been often suggested that the jewel was one of the æstels—pointers for reading—that Alfred ordered sent to every bishopric accompanying a copy of his translation of the Pastoral Care. Each æstel was worth the princely sum of 50 mancuses, which fits in well with the quality workmanship and expensive materials of the Alfred jewel.^{[citation needed]}

Historian Richard Abels sees Alfred's educational and military reforms as complementary. Restoring religion and learning in Wessex, Abels contends, was to Alfred's mind as essential to the defence of his realm as the building of the burhs.^[81] As Alfred observed in the preface to his English translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, kings who fail to obey their divine duty to promote learning can expect earthly punishments to befall their people.^[82] The pursuit of wisdom, he assured his readers of the Boethius, was the surest path to power: "Study Wisdom, then, and, when you have learned it, condemn it not, for I tell you that by its means you may without fail attain to power, yea, even though not desiring it".^[83] 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'. It reflected Alfred's own belief in a doctrine of divine rewards and punishments rooted in a vision of a hierarchical Christian world order in which God is the Lord to whom kings owe obedience and through whom they derive their authority over their followers. The need to persuade his nobles to undertake work for the 'common good' led Alfred and his court scholars to strengthen and deepen the conception of Christian kingship that he had inherited by building upon the legacy of earlier kings such as Offa as well as clerical writers such as Bede, Alcuin and the other luminaries of the Carolingian renaissance. This was not a cynical use of religion to manipulate his subjects into obedience, but an intrinsic element in Alfred's worldview. He believed, as did other kings in ninth-century England and Francia, that God had entrusted him with the spiritual as well as physical welfare of his people. If the Christian faith fell into ruin in his kingdom, if the clergy were too ignorant to understand the Latin words they butchered in their offices and liturgies, if the ancient monasteries and collegiate churches lay deserted out of indifference, he was answerable before God, as Josiah had been. Alfred's ultimate responsibility was the pastoral care of his people.^{[citation needed]}

Family[link]

In 868, Alfred married Ealhswith, daughter of a Mercian nobleman, Æthelred Mucil, Ealdorman of the Gaini. The Gaini were probably one of the tribal groups of the Mercians. Ealhswith's mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal family.^[84]

They had five or six children together, including Edward the Elder, who succeeded his father as king, Æthelflæd, who would become Queen of Mercia in her own right, and Ælfthryth who married Baldwin II the Count of Flanders. His mother was Osburga daughter of Oslac of the Isle of Wight, Chief Butler of England. Asser, in his Vita Ælfredi asserts that this shows his lineage from the Jutes of the Isle of Wight. This is unlikely as Bede tells us that they were all slaughtered by the Saxons under Cædwalla. In 2008 the skeleton of Queen Eadgyth, granddaughter of Alfred the Great was found in Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany. It was confirmed in 2010 that these remains belong to her — one of the earliest members of the English royal family.^[85]

Ancestry[link]