Alfred Daniel Williams King

Alfred the Great (849–899) united much of England during his reign and was also the only English monarch to play a decisive role in the literary history of the nation. Beginning as the ruler (871–899) of the kingdom of Wessex (the territory of southern and western England), Alfred unified a collection of independent territories in the face of their common enemy and forged the beginnings of the Anglo-Saxon state. He also expected his nobles to be educated and to educate their sons. With pardonable exaggeration, he is known both as “the father of the English nation” and “the father of English prose.” No literary history of England is complete without an account of Alfred's reign and his influence. 0195169212.King-Alfred.1.jpgKing Alfred the Great Silver penny, c. 880 National Portrait Gallery, London Political and Military Achievements
Alfred was born in 849 in Berkshire, the youngest of the five sons of King Æthelwulf (died 858) and a grandson of King Egbert (died 839). The Vikings had begun invading Britain's northern territories in the late eighth century, and during Egbert's reign they reached the southern parts of the island. (“Viking” serves as a term of convenience for the medieval inhabitants of what are now Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; the Anglo-Saxons knew their enemies variously as “northmen,” “Vikings,” and “heathens.”) Egbert checked the invaders’ progress and extended his authority into Mercia, Northumbria, Wales, and East Anglia. Egbert appointed Æthelwulf, his son, to rule Kent. When Æthelwulf succeeded Egbert, he appointed his own eldest son, Æthelstan, to rule the eastern part of the kingdom. Æthelstan died early in the 850s, leaving his father for a time as sole ruler of all the territories conquered by Egbert. Following a struggle for power among his remaining brothers, Alfred became king in 871.

Alfred's first year in power was dominated by battles with Viking armies. The king achieved peace within theyear, probably by paying tribute to the attackers; he appears to have lost most of his battles with them. In 878, however, Alfred achieved a significant victory over the Danish chief Guthrum, who accepted Christian baptism and withdrew his forces. Alfred used the ensuing period of peace to create permanent defenses that could be used as administrative and military centers and to set up a system that rotated fighting forces between military duties and the care of their homes. When Viking attacks resumed in 892, Alfred was far better prepared to ward them off than he had been twenty years earlier.

Alfred understood the value of propaganda and paid close attention to the trappings of kingship. His understanding of Christian kingship was inspired by Charlemagne (died 814) and was developed with the assistance of learned priests and bishops. Beginning in the mid-880s, Alfred appointed as his assistants several scholars, including bishops who numbered among his thegns (landholding retainers). Four of them—Plegmund, Wærferth, Æthelstan, and Werwulf—came from the kingdom of Mercia in central England, where the learned tradition was stronger than it was elsewhere in Alfred's time. A priest named John came from the eastern Frankish region, and another, Grimbald, from a monastery in Flanders. Asser, who was Alfred's biographer, came from the monastery of Saint David's in Wales. With the assistance of these scholars, Alfred began translating Latin texts into English in the early 890s. Works said to have been written by Alfred should be understood as having been produced by the king in close consultation with these and other learned men. The Literary Alfred
The king's educational program was aimed, at least in part, at transforming his nobles into followers who shared the king's intellectual as well as political goals. The most important Anglo-Saxon texts of the late ninth century are associated with Alfred and his court. These texts fall into three categories.

First are the four texts translated under Alfred's direction. The translations began with the Pastoral Care of Pope Gregory the Great (died 604), accompanied by two prefaces—a letter addressed to Alfred's bishops and a poem. Next came The Consolation of Philosophy, a work of late Roman philosophy written by Boethius (died 524), and then the Soliloquies of Saint Augustine of Hippo (died 430). The last translation was probably that of the first fifty Psalms, a work now known as the Paris Psalter. Several of these works include prefaces, original works that comment on the circumstances of translation and Alfred's understanding of the text. Of these works, the first, the Pastoral Care, is most securely associated with the king and his efforts at reform; evidence of the king's association with the others is circumstantial.

The second group of texts consists of original works in Old English and Latin. Alfred's law code contains a preface adapting biblical themes of governance and Alfred's own and earlier laws. Another vernacular text, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was begun at this time; its early sections contributed to a worldview that supported Alfred's political and intellectual ambitions. Alfred probably commissioned the Vita Alfredi by Asser, the biography that was to become the fullest record of the king's reign. Bishop Wærferth's translation of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great was made at Alfred's direction and includes a preface attributed to the king.

The third group includes translations undertaken before Alfred's reign or by translators working outside his immediate influence. They include the Old English version of the Ecclesiastical History of the Venerable Bede (died 735) and a translation of the World History of Orosius (died 420). Both texts fit England into a cosmic spiritual and political history that can be seen as reinforcing the king's ambitions and vision, but their language departs from the idiom and style of texts associated with Alfred and his circle.

The most important of the translations is the Pastoral Care, a fascinating book that advises priests on how to adapt their work as preachers and confessors to the circumstances—and the wiles—of the laity. Alfred did not simply render Gregory's words into English but made many revealing original contributions. For example, Gregory declared that “the government of souls is the art of arts,” but Alfred altered this to say that “teaching is the art of arts” (p. 24; references are to Sweet's translation). This change, one of many, shows how Alfred boldly and self-reflexively adapted a text written for priests as a manual for secular leaders. In his version of The Consolation of Philosophy, Alfred followed a statement about the need to develop one's natural gifts with a list of all that a king needed to rule: a well-peopled land, men of prayer, men of war, and men of work, as well as weapons, meat, and ale (book 2, chap. 17); the list reveals, as if in miniature, how close the king's practical concerns were to his philosophy.

The preface to the Pastoral Care is the most frequently anthologized of all Alfred's writing. It describes the decline of learning in the ninth century and positions the king and his followers at the leading edge of a restoration of ideals of learning and service. The preface claims that the state of learning was severely depressed when Alfred ascended the throne; churches were filled with books that “a great number of God's servants” could not read because the books were in Latin (p. 3). Alfred reported that he could find no learned men south of the Thames River, while to the north, in Mercia, there were few priests who could translate Latin into English. Many scholars see the preface as Alfred's attempt to position himself as a leader in social and moral reform at the expense of his predecessors. The claims of the preface conform closely to the views offered in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Vita Alfredi, and elsewhere, that seem to form part of a systematic attempt to glorify and preserve the king's achievements. The Legendary Alfred
The chief instrument of this propagandizing was the monk Asser, whose biography is responsible for many legends that became staples of Alfred's reputation in subsequent centuries. Asser claimed, for example, that the king began to read and translate Latin in a single day. Asser also described a contest among Alfred and his brothers to memorize poetry and win a prize offered by their mother, a contest that the king of course won. Alfred Smyth has pointed out that only one brother, Æthelred, was available to compete with Alfred, the others being either dead or busy fighting.

Many other, grander legends about Alfred are to be found in works of literature (including operas, plays, and novels) and art (drawings, paintings, and statues) representing him through the centuries. The king's modern fame reached its highest point in 1901, on the death of Queen Victoria. At that time Alfred was believed to have died in 901, so the queen's death coincided with the millenary observance of Alfred's own. Alfred's demonstrable achievements in warfare, politics, and learning are sufficient to make such enhancement superfluous, however. The eleven-hundredth anniversary of his death in 1999 was marked by a wealth of new scholarship that attests to the merits of his work and to the vitality of his reputation.