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Born 849, died 899
Ruled Wessex from 871
Born at Wantage in Oxfordshire, Alfred was the youngest son of Ethelwulf, king of Wessex, which came to replace Mercia as the dominant English kingdom. Viking raids were a recurrent feature of life at that time, but from the 850s, they turned into large-scale conquests. East Anglia, Northumbria and then Mercia fell to the invaders. (For more about the Viking conquest of Mercia, see In the footsteps of Ivarr the Boneless.)
In 871, Alfred and his brother, King Ethelred, won victories preventing the Danish 'Great Army' from taking over Wessex. When Ethelred died soon after, Alfred became king on the grounds that he was the man best equipped to defend the kingdom.
For a while, Alfred kept the Danes at bay with treaties, payment and hostage exchanges, but when the Viking chief Guthrum led a concerted attack on Wessex in early 878, the 29-year-old king was forced to flee. He hid out in the marshes around Athelney in Somerset and plotted a counter-attack.
By Easter, he had mustered an army and defeated Guthrum at the battle of Edington. As a result of the treaty of Wedmore, a border was drawn between the Anglo-Saxon lands and the Viking-held territory, which the Danes promised not to cross, and Guthrum was obliged to convert to Christianity.
During the next 14 years of peace, Alfred instituted a standing army, created a navy and built a chain of fortified garrisons called burhs (the forerunner of our 'boroughs'). Another wave of Viking invasions in the 890s failed to make further in-roads. In London, which Alfred had captured from Mercia in 886, he was acknowledged as 'sovereign lord of all the English people not under subjection to the Danes'.
Alfred believed his authority rested on justice, and his people went to hear this dispensed at open-air gatherings. He established schools for the nobility, and unusually for a medieval king, he was literate. He learned Latin in middle age and translated texts such as Gregory the Great's Cura Pastoralis (Pastoral Care) into Anglo-Saxon.
Alfred the Great
www.ogdoad.force9.co.uk/alfred/alfredint
ro.htm
An enthusiast's site on all things Alfredian. Parts of it aren't finished yet and the quality is variable, but it does have good discussions on Alfred's towns (the Burghal Hideage) and on Alfred and the cakes.
The Life of King Alfred by Asser, Bishop of Sherborne
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/KingAl
fred/
Published online as part of the excellent Internet Medieval Sourcebook, this historic document is thought to have been composed around 888.
Alfred: Warrior King by John Peddie (Sutton Publishing, 2001)
Examines the scale and intent of the relentless threat of conquest by the Viking sea-raiders, the military and logistical problems that beset both sides, and the strategies devised by the king that led to the reconquest of his Wessex homeland and the creation of England itself.
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Alfred the Great: War, culture and kingship in Anglo-Saxon England by Richard Abels (Longman, 1998)
Biography of Alfred the Great informed by recent research into the history and archaeology of 9th-century England.
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Alfred the Great: Asser's 'Life of King Alfred' and other contemporary sources, edited by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge (Penguin, 1983)
Asser's Life of King Alfred, written in 893, is a revealing account of one of the greatest of medieval kings. Composed by a monk of St David's in Wales who became bishop of Sherborne in Alfred's service and worked with him in his efforts to revive religion and learning, this is an admiring account of Alfred's life, written in absorbing detail. The other contemporary sources include annals from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King Alfred's laws, his will and extracts from his own writings.
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Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PH, tel: 01865 278 000
Here you can see the Alfred Jewel, one of the most famous objects surviving from Anglo-Saxon England.
Found in 1693 at North Petherton, about 3 miles north-west of Athelney, it consists of a gold frame that surrounds an enamel design of a figure, covered by transparent rock crystal. Around the frame are the words: AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN (Alfred ordered me to be made). It is generally assumed that this refers to Alfred the Great. Identifications of the enamelled figure have ranged from Christ, St Cuthbert and St Neot to Alfred himself.
The Jewel has a socketed terminal in the form of an animal head, suggesting that it was originally mounted on a thin rod, presumably of wood or bone. It may have served as a pointer (aestel) for following the lines of a manuscript when reading from it.
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