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A ring that connects into the ‘heart’ of the Scottish and British governments and the Westminster Parliament and involved Dunblane mass child killer, Thomas Hamilton
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King Alfred [c.849-99], the ninth-century warrior-philosopher, is undoubtedly one of the greatest figures to have graced England’s shores. But whilst he is usually remembered for uniting the various regional strands of an often divided country against its persistent Viking adversaries, his many cultural triumphs remain either forgotten or overlooked. In this article I intend to examine Alfred’s military and intellectual achievements to explain precisely why both strategies were fundamentally interdependent in the struggle to save England from certain oblivion.

One distinctive organizational feature which lay at the very root of Alfred’s military success was the division of the fyrd. According to C. Warren Hollister, before the late-ninth century a fyrd was simply “a rude assemblage of all able-bodied freemen who service was based on the old Germanic concept of a nation in arms.”¹

On the other hand, although historians are uncertain whether the fyrd constituted a distinct class in itself or was basically a mixture of thegns, peasants, and mercenaries, Sir Frank Stenton is of the opinion that before the Danish wars the composition of the fyrd was taken very seriously indeed, with kings “attempting to raise its quality by limiting its numbers.”²

So the process of creating an elite force of Anglo-Saxon warriors was already well advanced by the time Alfred came to the throne in 871. In a strategic sense, however, the fyrd only became a real threat to the Viking invaders once Alfred had divided it into two groups “which served alternately so as to provide a continuously existing military force.”³

In the past, the fyrd had symbolized little more than a territorial entity in which men were expected to provide a voluntary service over a specific period of time. But in 893, when Alfred had “divided his levies into two sections, so that there was always half at home and half on active service,”⁴ England received her first standing army.

Indeed, as a direct result of Alfred’s far-sighted innovations the West Saxons went on to defeat their Danish adversaries in two key areas of the country, and his “system of rotating the two groups was still in effect as late as 920, and long afterwards English monarchs seem to have expected almost unlimited service from the select fyrd in times of grave emergency.”⁵

But Alfred did not simply apply his military resourcefulness in order to improve the performance of his forces on dry land. He was also aware that if he was to bring an end to the great mobility of the Viking armies it was necessary to engage them at sea. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that, in 875 and again in 882, Alfred attempted to fight the Danes on their own terms.

On the first occasion, he “sailed out to sea with a fleet, and fought against seven ships’ companies,”⁶ capturing one of them in the process and putting the remainder to flight. On the second, “King Alfred went out to sea with ships and fought against four ships’ companies of Danes,”⁷ with two of them being destroyed and the remaining two “badly cut about and severely wounded before they surrendered.”⁸

But in 896, the Wessex ships were generally regarded as being rather inadequate and “Alfred ordered warships to be built to meet the Danish ships,”⁹ inadvertently creating the first English navy.

Although Alfred’s new fleet was said to have been unique in terms of its design, its established was fundamentally a reaction to the superior quality of the Viking longships rather than something particularly original in itself. Like so many of Alfred’s ideas, however, the revitalised fleet was “only part of a remodelling of the national defences carried through in Alfred’s later years”⁹and was basically tied in with his overall strategy.

But this fact does not diminish the great competence with which the Anglo-Saxons were able to engage the Vikings at sea. Indeed, after England had suffered a devastating attack on the Devon coast, Alfred employed nine of his new ships to form a blockade and prevented the escape of most of those responsible, despite the loss of sixty-two men.

But Alfred’s maritime triumphs were also partly due to his own direct participation. There seems little doubt that the average Anglo-Saxon oarsman would have been significantly impressed by the sight of Alfred himself at the helm and “neither Henry VII or Henry VIII went himself to sea as Alfred did in the shops he built, taking command of them against an Enemy.”¹¹

Among the more important features of Alfred’s military renaissance were his fortifications which, once again, were primarily initiated in order to bring an end to Danish mischief. The main source for the West Saxon defenses is the Burghal Hidage, a document compiled at the end of Alfred’s reign and which takes the form of a detailed list indicating precisely where the Anglo-Saxons created a string of burhs. Each burh, or defensive town, is attributed a specific number of hides, denoting the size of each military district. In all, the Burghal Hidage mentions a total of 31 fortified defenses stretching across most of southern England, although many burhs – among them Canterbury, Dover, and Rochester to the east — were not mentioned in the document.

What is certain, however, is that Alfred’s fortifications were based on similar networks elsewhere in Europe and that “the Franks and migratory Danes made greater use of fortifications in warfare than the English of the ninth century.”¹² In addition, although the distribution of burhs was extremely well-planned, “it had been partly evolved during the stress of war.”¹³ Indeed, the fact that the defenses were constructed over a number of years is reflected in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 892, which reveals how the Vikings attacked a “half-built”¹⁴ fort on the Weald. But regardless of where Alfred received his inspiration for the burhs and how long it took for them to be constructed, it remains that the decision to implement such a system conveys the great urgency of the times.

The fourth important military achievement of the late-ninth century, was the conversion of Guthrum at Eddington in 878. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, after his crushing defeat Guthrum and thirty of his men went to meet Alfred at Allure, “where the king stood sponsor to him at baptism.”¹⁵ On the face of it, that Alfred had managed to suppress the pagan inclinations of a leading Viking representative may only seem important to those of a decidedly Christian outlook, but this development had far more significance than that.

More importantly, perhaps, it symbolised England’s growing ascendancy over its heathen adversaries and, in 886, Alfred and Guthrum prepared to agree the terms of a treaty concerning a rather complex and artificial north-south divide running “up the Thames, and then up the Lea, and along the Lea to its source, and then in a straight line to Bedford, then up the Ouse to Watling Street.”¹⁶ The objectives of such a treaty were fairly honourable, in that the two leaders seemed poised to consolidate a plan based on mutual respect and equality in the eyes of the law. The fact that the treaty was never implemented, however, does not undermine or detract from the great statesmanship and diplomacy of the West Saxon king himself. Indeed, for Alfred to have reached such a unique position whereby he had the upper hand in a conference between England’s indigenous home guard on the one hand and a colonial force of hostile immigrants on the other, is significant in itself.

I have now examined Alfred’s military achievements, but what of his intellectual triumphs?

According to Alfred’s semi-residential biographer, a Welsh bishop by the name of Asser, we learn how the king developed a keen interest in literature from a very young age.¹⁷ It seems fairly certain that his desire to revive the art of learning amongst his contemporaries was due to the decline of English education and scholarship in general.¹⁸

Prior to the second half of the ninth century, education had been reserved for the privileged intellectuals of the Christian monasteries, but due in part to the continuing activities of the Danish marauders, it soon began to decline to the point where monastic life in general had completely disappeared from western Mercia and southern England.¹⁹

By the time Alfred came to the throne in 871, learning in general had deteriorated so thoroughly that few people were able to converse in Latin as their predecessors had done before them.²⁰ This state of affairs eventually caused Alfred to take matters into his own hands.

One of Alfred’s earliest attempts to initiate a literary revival was the translation of Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis into English, although Stenton has suggested that “it is not mentioned by Asser and therefore most scholars are inclined to attribute it to the year 894.”²¹

In his prose Preface to Gregory’s work, Alfred explains why he decided to circulate the text in the first place. He refers to happier times when when letters flourished. This reference is indicative of the admiration Alfred had for the culture of the seventh century, something he would have read about in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica.

Alfred notes that if one wanted to find literature and learning in the ninth century, one had to seek them elsewhere. Indeed, in his own words, “learning had declined so thoroughly in England that there were very few men on this side of the Humber who could . . . even translate a single letter from Latin into English.”²²

Alfred goes on to warn of the spiritual chastisement which he felt had been forced upon his people, whilst historians like Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge maintain that “in common with many Christian authors before him and after him, Alfred regarded the invasion of hostile peoples as a form of divine punishment for decadence and decay.”²³

Meanwhile, in the English Historical Review, T. A. Shippey has suggested that Alfred is contrasting the happiness of old with the misery of his own age, but whilst this is obviously the result of the constant battles which he himself was forced to wage against the Danes, Alfred is careful to note that even “before everything was ransacked and burned — the churches throughout England stood filled with treasures and books”²⁵ which were never used.

Alfred’s intellectual revival was also designed to be permanent, and the Regula Pastoralis was simply the first stage in a more detailed and long-sighted plan of action. According to Shippey, Alfred’s prose Preface was written by “a man who knew his own mind and the extent of probable opposition to it, and a man who knew how to wheedle and when to command, like a brilliant public speaker.”²⁶ Indeed, the success of Alfred’s plan has since been vindicated by the fact that no less than six manuscripts of the book still survive today.

Another of his intellectual achievements was the prose Preface to Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, which later became one of the most widely read books of the Middle Ages. The text relates to a conversation between Boethius — the central character — and Lady Philosophy. Alfred’s Preface describes how he was able to translate the book in the midst of “various and multifarious worldly distractions which frequently occupied him in either mind or body,”²⁷ an obvious reference to his ongoing struggle against the Danish menace. The reader can also detect a slight tinge of sadness in Alfred’s words, which can be attributed to the fact that his lifelong pursuit of learning was constantly interrupted by the call to arms.

As for Alfred’s own romantic conception of the defense and propagation of the intellectual arts was concerned, his translation of Augustine’s Soliloquies is probably the best source available to us. Alfred’s own Preface employs a key metaphor with which to describe the crucial role that he has undertaken personally, and the part of the woodcutter is superbly likened to that of the cultural renovator. Just as a forest provides man with the essential materials for construction, so too the works of great thinkers such as Augustine served to “illuminate the eyes of my mind”²⁸ and bring forth a brighter future.

Another of Alfred’s literary triumphs was the translation of the first 50 psalms of the Psalter, and there were also several other examples of the manner in which the king inspired others to translate Latin texts into English; among them the Leechbook of Bald, Werferth of Worcester’s translation of Gregory’s Dialogi and, possibly, even Orosius’s Histories Against the Pagans. So even when Alfred was not directly involved in the propagation of learning himself, he was still inspiring others to do likewise.

Alfred’s determination to create an intellectual revival even extended to the judicial sphere. As a firm believer in social justice, Alfred took it upon himself to investigate those court proceedings which had taken place in his absence, in order to ensure that the ruling officials in any given case had arrived at a just decision in the sentencing of an individual. Whenever Alfred found a discrepancy, however, he attacked his noble contemporaries for what Asser describes as having “assumed the duties and rank of wise men [whilst having] neglected the study and exercise of wisdom.”²⁹

In fact Alfred even ordered the West Saxon judiciary to “either lay down here that exercise of earthly power which you enjoy, or to take care to apply yourselves with much greater zeal to the study of wisdom.”³⁰ At this time, nearly all of the presiding ealdormen, reeves, and thegns had been illiterate since childhood, but to please Alfred and his growing concern for intellectual competence, they were forced to learn “an unwonted discipline”³¹ if they truly sought to retain their respective offices of power and influence. Asser tells us that if any man was unable to learn due to the “great slowness of an unaccustomed mind,”³² his son would be expected to read aloud to him both day and night. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Alfred’s men suddenly acquired a mysterious penchant for books and thus regretted being unable to have pursued a similar form of education in their own youth.³³

But Alfred was not alone in his attempts to encourage learning and literacy in England and he was ably assisted by several leading scholastic figures of the period, including Plegmund, Werferth, Asser, and Grimbald. Alfred drew his inspiration from the European mainland, where Charlemagne — despite being unable to read — had also commissioned people to translate certain works for him, among them Alcuin of Northumbria.³⁴

In addition, D.A. Bullough has pointed out that “the use of Latin commentaries is evidence that the extant manuscripts understate the extent to which recent Continental scholarship was available in England in the late ninth century.”³⁵ In other words, Alfred’s educational regeneration program must, at least to some degree, have been influenced by the literary works which found their way across the English Channel. The availability of such works would have indicated to him that his foreign contemporaries had reached a superior level of ability. So whilst Alfred was genuinely concerned about the educational deprivation of his own people, he was also aware that England was lagging behind somewhat.

Thus far I have attempted to identify the main military and intellectual achievements of Alfred the Great, but which of these were most significant?

Firstly, it has to be said that Alfred was deeply concerned with the propagation and maintenance of English culture and, indeed, English life in general. During his reign the Vikings were causing a tremendous amount of damage to Anglo-Saxon settlements and, by fortifying such sites against potential attack, Alfred sought to create a long-term strategy which would finally deter the Danes once and for all.

This strategy is best illustrated by Nicholas Brooks, who regards such a development as being in the interests of everyone. In short, if England was to remain secure against Viking attacks in the future, the whole of Anglo-Saxon society “had every reason to assist Alfred as best they could in creating effective burghal defenses.”³⁶

Similarly, an existing or prospective form of culture cannot flourish or, indeed, develop if it is constantly impeded by invading armies with little of no respect for its spiritual or temporal achievements. It was therefore necessary to halt the process of cultural destruction, before attempting to concentrate on the nation’s educational infrastructure.

But whilst Alfred’s military achievements were simply a prerequisite to a more permanent intellectual revival, neither sphere must take precedence over the other. Both aspects of King Alfred’s two-pronged attack upon crass ignorance and foreign barbarism were part of an overall strategy; a strategy which, due to the shortcomings of his closest advisers, meant that the destiny of England “must therefore be initiated by the king and the king alone.”³⁷

Alfred was undoubtedly the right man for the job and managed to strike an important balance between the revival of the old and the defense of the new. It remains a fortunate paradox, therefore, that King Alfred was “one of the men of genius who discovered the obvious, and so changed the fate of mankind.”³⁸

As far as the cultural guardians and renovators of today are concerned, this statement makes clear the contemporary significance of King Alfred the Great and puts his immense contribution towards English culture into its full perspective. In short, he understood the relationship between intelligent thought and constructive action and was, without any doubt, a true Political Soldier.

Notes:

1. C. Warren Hollister, Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions (Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 2.

2. Sir Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 291.

3. Hollister, op.cit., p. 85.

4. G.N. Garmonsway (Ed.), Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Everyman, 1994), p. 84.

5. Hollister, op.cit., p. 86.

6. Garmonsway, op.cit, p. 74.

7. Ibid., pp. 77-8.

8. Ibid., p. 78.

9. Ibid., p. 90.

10. Stenton, op.cit., p. 264.

11. R. H. Hodgkin, A History of the Anglo-Saxons: Volume II (Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 585.

12. Alfred P. Smyth, King Alfred the Great (Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 138.

13. Hodgkin, op.cit., p. 586.

14. Garmonsway, op.cit., p. 85.

15. Ibid., p. 76.

16. Simon Keynes & Michael Lapidge (Ed.), Alfred the Great (Penguin, 1985), p. 171.

17. L. C. Jane (Ed.), Asser’s Life of King Alfred (Chatto & Windus, 1908), p. 20.

18. Ibid.

19. Peter Hunter Blair, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge University Press, 1962), p. 172.

20. Ibid., p. 173.

21. Stenton, op.cit., p. 273.

22. Keynes & Lapidge, op.cit., p. 125.

23. Ibid., p. 275.

24. T. A. Shippey, English Historical Review (1979), Volume 94, pp. 346-55.

25. Keynes & Lapidge, op.cit., p.125.

26. Shippey, op.cit.

27. Keynes & Lapidge, op.cit., p. 131.

28. Ibid., p. 139.

29. L.C. Jane, op.cit., p. 89.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid., p. 90.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid., pp. 90-1.

34. Douglas Woodruff, The Life and Times of Alfred the Great (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 1974), p. 140.

35. D.A. Bullough, Carolingian Renewal: Sources and Heritage (Manchester University Press, 1991), p. 301.

36. Nicholas Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester University Press, 1984), p. 154.

37. Hodgkin, op.cit., p.6.