For 200 years, three families had fought for the West Saxon throne, and no son had followed his father as king. The result was a land battle involving hand-to-hand fighting on board the two lashed vessels. After collecting reinforcements, they made a sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined Roman walls of Chester. He is known as a merciful and learned man who laid emphasis on education. In 882, Alfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish ships. Before construction began, convicts that would later be imprisoned at the site were sent in to prepare the ground, to ready it for building. [168][169], Alfred is venerated as a saint by some Christian traditions. Once again, Alfred's place of rest was disturbed for the now 3rd time. Those who escaped retreated to Shoebury. [77][79], The foundation of Alfred's new military defence system was a network of burhs, distributed at tactical points throughout the kingdom. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault. [145], It was at one time attached to a thin rod or stick based on the hollow socket at its base. [87], A document now known as the Burghal Hidage provides an insight into how the system worked. He was born in 849 CE, but the youngest of five children. 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. 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. [d] This made Ecgberht an ætheling – a prince eligible for the throne. The translation was undertaken at Alfred's command by Wærferth, Bishop of Worcester, with the king merely furnishing a preface. The resulting power vacuum stirred other power-hungry warlords eager to take his place in the following years. [109], When one turns from the domboc's introduction to the laws themselves, it is difficult to uncover any logical arrangement. Later in his reign, the North Welsh followed their example and the latter cooperated with the English in the campaign of 893 (or 894). Jan 7, 2020 - Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899. [49], 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). He was given the epithet "the Great" during and after the Reformation in the 16th century, and together with Danish Cnut the Great, is the only king of England to be given such a name. [59] The victorious fleet was surprised when attempting to leave the River Stour and was attacked by a Danish force at the mouth of the river. Marriage of Ethelfleda. Alfred was the youngest son of Ethelwulf, king of Wessex.In 865, when Alfred was a youth, Wessex and the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England - Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia - were threatened by invasion when a Danish Viking "Great Army" landed on the east coast.The Danes first conquered Northumbria and East Anglia and then turned to attack Mercia. Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, and by the time of his death had become the dominant ruler in England. The exact circumstances and the place of his death are not known. No ancestor of Ecgberht had been a king of Wessex since Ceawlin in the late sixth century, but he was believed to be a paternal descendant of Cerdic, the founder of the West Saxon dynasty. [164] The 1999 archeological excavation uncovered the foundations of the abbey buildings and some bones, suggested at the time to be those of Alfred; they proved instead to belong to an elderly woman. [164][165] In 1866, amateur antiquarian John Mellor claimed to have recovered a number of bones from the site which he said were those of Alfred. Alfred the Great's Legacy From 'A History of the British Nation' by AD Innes, 1912. Before his death he ordered the construction of the New Minster hoping that it would become a mausoleum for him and his family. [58] The Anglo-Saxon fleet emerged victorious, and as Huntingdon accounts, "laden with spoils". One of those unfortunate abbeys was the very New Minster abbey where Alfred was laid to rest. He was an early advocate for education. Alfred at once hurried westward and raised the Siege of Exeter. The law code, as it has been preserved, is singularly unsuitable for use in lawsuits. It was possible that the document was designed this way so that it could be disseminated in Wales because Alfred had acquired overlordship of that country. After King Æthelwulf died in 858, Wessex was ruled by three of Alfred's brothers in succession: Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred. But death comes for us all eventually, and in Alfred's case, it came for his brothers. [36], While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the Saxon army in his absence at an unnamed spot and then again in his presence at Wilton in May. Alfred marries Ealhswith in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. The king could call up the national militia to defend the kingdom but in the case of the Viking raids, problems with communication and raising supplies meant that the national militia could not be mustered quickly enough. The fame and reputation of King Alfred, one of the ablest of England's Kings, were never to diminish. He died at the age of 50. [68] His interest in foreign countries is shown by the insertions which he made in his translation of Orosius. For him, the key to the kingdom's spiritual revival was to appoint pious, learned, and trustworthy bishops and abbots. The jewel certainly dates from Alfred's reign. "He had suffered for many years from a painful illness," gastrointestinal in nature, that would sometimes confine him to his rooms for days or even weeks at a time with cramps and diarrhea. From then until the arrival of the Great Heathen Army, Essex had formed part of Wessex. His first burial was in Winchester‘s Old Minster although his remains were subsequently moved next door to the New Minster a few years later. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge suggest this also for Bald's Leechbook and the anonymous Old English Martyrology. His father died when he was young. [160] Before demolition, the monks at the New Minster exhumed the bodies of Alfred and his family to safely transfer them to a new location. 886/7. [21] The Vikings ravaged the Isle of Sheppey in 835, and the following year they defeated Ecgberht at Carhampton in Somerset,[22] but in 838 he was victorious over an alliance of Cornishmen and Vikings at the Battle of Hingston Down, reducing Cornwall to the status of a client kingdom. [68] During this period, the Viking raids were often seen as a divine punishment, and Alfred may have wished to revive religious awe in order to appease God's wrath. He regards the date of birth of 849 in Asser's biography is a later interpolation, and considers that the period of 23 years in the genealogy (in MS A of the, According to Richard Abels, Ealhswith was descended from King. [161], The prison was demolished between 1846 and 1850. The pope sent gifts to Alfred, including what was reputed to be a piece of the True Cross. [100], In the one recorded naval engagement in 896, Alfred's new fleet of nine ships intercepted six Viking ships at the mouth of an unidentified river in the south of England. [48], That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. Alfred's only known sister, Æthelswith, married Burgred, king of the midland kingdom of Mercia in 853. [81][82], Alfred's burhs (of which 22 developed into boroughs) ranged from former Roman towns, such as Winchester, where the stone walls were repaired and ditches added, to massive earthen walls surrounded by wide ditches, probably reinforced with wooden revetments and palisades, such as at Burpham in West Sussex. Æthelwulf goes on a pilgrimage with Alfred, after dividing his realm between his sons. Alfred was a son of Æthelwulf, king of Wessex, and his wife Osburh. He had been king for over half of his life, and in those years he’d proven himself to be an energetic and inventive king. Alfred died on 26 October 899 at the age of 50 or 51. Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Issue #5 of the Anglotopia Magazine in Spring 2017. [128] Numerous Anglo-Saxon manuscripts burnt along with the churches that housed them. Alfred died in 899, aged 50, and was buried in Winchester, the burial place of the West Saxon royal family. [3] According to his biographer, Asser, writing in 893, "In the year of our Lord's Incarnation 849 Alfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons", was born at the royal estate called Wantage, in the district known as Berkshire[a] (which is so called from Berroc Wood, where the box tree grows very abundantly)." By 830, Essex, Surrey and Sussex had submitted to Ecgberht, and he had appointed Æthelwulf to rule the south-eastern territories as king of Kent. Most historians think that Osburh was the mother of all Æthelwulf's children, but some suggest that the older ones were born to an unrecorded first wife. He seized the royal estates of Wimborne, symbolically important as the place where his father was buried, and Christchurch, both in Dorset. The last words of it may be quoted; they form a fitting epitaph for the noblest of English kings. [20], In 825, Ecgberht sent Æthelwulf to invade the Mercian sub-kingdom of Kent, and its sub-king, Baldred, was driven out shortly afterwards. [178], A bronze statue of Alfred the Great stands at the eastern end of The Broadway, close to the site of Winchester's medieval East Gate. [175], The centerpiece of Alfred University's quad is a bronze statue of the king, created in 1990 by then-professor William Underhill. In 896 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. Historically, he is known as Alfred the Great or Ælfred Micela. [96][100] The shipwrecked crew were brought before Alfred at Winchester and hanged. [138], Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy was the most popular philosophical handbook of the Middle Ages. The invaders brought their wives and children with them indicating a meaningful attempt at conquest and colonisation. A number of educational establishments are named in Alfred's honour: The Royal Navy named one ship and two shore establishments HMS King Alfred, and one of the early ships of the U.S. Navy was named USS Alfred in his honour. [112] 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. Although not mentioned by Asser or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably paid the Vikings cash to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year. [50] In 825, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the people of Essex, Sussex, Kent and Surrey had surrendered to Egbert, Alfred's grandfather. ", "The Highest Type of Englishman: Gender, War, and the Alfred the Great Commemoration of 1901", List of English words of Old Norse origin, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alfred_the_Great&oldid=999924501, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Old English (ca. Osburh was descended from the rulers of the Isle of Wight. The latter manuscript was severely damaged in the 18th and 19th centuries. 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. His mother was Osburga, daughter of Oslac of the Isle of Wight, Chief Butler of England. In 1536, many Roman Catholic churches were vandalized by the people of England spurred by disillusionment with the church during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. They entrenched themselves, the larger body, at Appledore, Kent and the lesser under Hastein, at Milton, also in Kent. Three of Alfred's brothers, Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred, reigned in turn before him. His grandson King Eadred seems to have suffered from a similar illness. [25], Viking raids increased in the early 840s on both sides of the English Channel, and in 843 Æthelwulf was defeated at Carhampton. Ealhswith or Ealswitha (died 5 December 902) was the wife of King Alfred the Great.Her father was a Mercian nobleman, Æthelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini, which is thought to be an old Mercian tribal group.Her mother was Eadburh, a member of the Mercian royal family, and according to the historian Richard Abels she was a descendant of King Cenwulf of Mercia. Alfred then took it to his teacher, learned it, and recited it back to his mother. A successful skirmish at the Battle of Englefield in Berkshire on 31 December 870 was followed by a severe defeat at the siege and the Battle of Reading by Ivar's brother Halfdan Ragnarsson on 5 January 871. [68] 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. [131], Alfred's educational ambitions seem to have extended beyond the establishment of a court school. Alfred the Great Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, and by the time of his death had become the dominant ruler in England. [34] The defeat at Wilton smashed any remaining hope that Alfred could drive the invaders from his kingdom. The author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle related that Alfred's ships were larger, swifter, steadier and rode higher in the water than either Danish or Frisian ships. [107] The link between 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). 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. Given the Danish invasion and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested. 450-1100)-language text, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers, Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. [92] Alfred's burh system posed such a formidable challenge against Viking attack that when the Vikings returned in 892 and stormed a half-built, 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. [2] Details of his life are described in a work by 9th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a "consul" and a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could explain later confusion. [64] Guthrum's death changed the political landscape for Alfred. [121] According to Asser, Alfred enticed foreign monks to England for his monastery at Athelney because there was little interest for the locals to take up the monastic life. [176], A prominent statue of King Alfred the Great stands in the middle of Pewsey. [28], According to Asser, in his childhood Alfred won a beautifully decorated book of English poetry, offered as a prize by his mother to the first of her sons able to memorise it. [115], Asser speaks grandiosely of Alfred's relations with foreign powers but little definite information is available. The jewel is about 2 1⁄2 inches (6.4 centimetres) long, made of filigreed gold, enclosing a highly polished piece of quartz crystal beneath which is set in a cloisonné enamel plaque with an enamelled image of a man holding floriate sceptres, perhaps personifying Sight or the Wisdom of God. [68], Early in 894 or 895 lack of food obliged the Danes to retire once more to Essex. In such cases, the Vikings were extremely vulnerable to pursuit by the king's joint military forces. [136], The preface of Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care[132] explained why he thought it necessary to translate works such as this from Latin into English. The system threatened Viking routes and communications making it far more dangerous for them. The first time that it was actually written was about 100 years after Alfred's death. [163], Excavations conducted by the Winchester Museums Service of the Hyde Abbey site in 1999 located a second pit dug in front of where the high altar would have been located, which was identified as probably dating to Mellor's 1866 excavation. They were overtaken by Alfred's eldest son, Edward and were defeated at the Battle of Farnham in Surrey. He is the only monarch in the history of England to be referred to as "the Great." Born to King Æthelwulf and Osburh, Alfred was actually the youngest of five … [160] Four years after his death, the bodies of Alfred and his family were exhumed and moved to their new resting place in the New Minster and remained there for 211 years. And while that conflict was significant (and, frankly, ongoing), Alfred also became lauded for his commitment to learning. Alfred was born in 849 at the royal palace in Wantage. [66], While he was in talks with Hastein, the Danes at Appledore broke out and struck north-westwards. [104], About a fifth of the law code is taken up by Alfred's introduction which includes translations into English of the Ten Commandments, a few chapters from the Book of Exodus, and the Apostolic Letter from the Acts of the Apostles (15:23–29). The Germanic tribes who invaded Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries relied upon the unarmoured infantry supplied by their tribal levy, or fyrd, and it was upon this system that the military power of the several kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England depended. In history, Alfred was born in 848/9 and died in 899, at the age of 50 or 51. In the early 890s, Alfred’s biographer, Asser, wrote of the agonising illness, thought to be Crohn’s disease, that afflicted the king during his final years. The Alfredian burh represented a stage in the evolution of English medieval towns and boroughs. [170] Though Henry VI of England attempted unsuccessfully to have him canonized by Pope Eugene IV in 1441, he was venerated sometimes in the Catholic Church; however the current "Roman Martyrology" does not mention him. A charter of King Edward's reign described him as the king's brother – mistakenly according to Keynes and Lapidge, and in the view of Janet Nelson, he probably was an illegitimate son of King Alfred. After ascending the throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. Two kingdoms became allies, which was important in the same year Burgred married Æthelwulf 's daughter Ethelfleda... Ship escaped because Alfred had three living elder brothers circa 880 AD, king of the ships were,. Ships immediately moved to block their escape when the site of Alfred 's relations the! Was for the legend, but he suffered throughout his life are described in a work 9th-century. 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