This volume comprises 21 reassessments by distinguished scholars in different fields of the significance of King Alfred of Wessex (ruled 871-99) "in the development of an English kingdom and of an English culture" (vii). The main conference at which the original papers were read was organized by the late Professor Timothy Reuter at the University of Southampton in September 1999 on the 1100th anniversary of the king's death in 899. These papers have been supplemented by a second group given in London a month later. Perhaps the most important general contribution of this collection is to situate Alfred's ambitions and achievements among the activities of other rulers of the ninth century from the Celtic kingdoms in the west through continental Europe to Byzantium in the east. Framed with an introduction by James Campbell, and concluding with one by Barbara Yorke, the essays are sorted among four larger categories: The Sources; Alfredian Literature; Alfredian Government and Society; Alfred and Contemporary Rulership. The volume has a modest but useful index and 42 maps, photos, and other illustrations.
INTRODUCTION
In his introductory essay, "Placing King Alfred" (3-23), James Campbell opens by calling the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, our main historical source for Alfred's reign, "something of an entrancing fraud" (5). In addition, the "unique nature of the Alfredian translations, and the extent to which the narrative sources are concentrated on the king, combine to fox our capacity to place King Alfred at least as much as they do to further it" (33). Campbell then exposes some of the implicit assumptions a less-than-fully critical acceptance of these sources have led to. He humorously imagines a "Curse of King Alfred" which causes "learned scholars of good judgement to lurch occasionally into nonsense" (6). Some of these assumptions have to do as well with the subliminal political associations of scholars working in the 1940s between brave Saxons and modern Britons on the one hand, and rapacious Vikings and modern Germans on the other. Campbell cites among other examples, Dorothy Whitelock's rejection of a post-Viking, possibly Alfredian date for Beowulf because of its favorable depiction of Danes (15). She took this view in spite of the fact that King Alfred himself constructed a genealogy tracing his direct patrilineal descent from the Scyld Scefing of the poem, the founder of the very Danish nation the king and his countrymen are assumed to have despised. Campbell's introduction destabilizes other scholarly commonplaces about King Alfred; it admirably prepares for the more detailed studies to come.
THE SOURCES
In "Asser's Reading" (27-47), Michael Lapidge assesses the education of the former bishop of St. David's in Wales when he came to compose the Vita Aelfredi, one of our most important historical sources for the character of the king and his rule. This reading included the classical Latin poets Lucan and Vergil; the Roman historians Eutropius and Justinus; the Bible in both the Vetus Latina and Jerome's Vulgate versions; Evagrius' Latin translation of Athanasius' life of Antony; Cassian's Consolationes with the desert fathers; the Historiae adversum Paganos of Orosius; the Expositio Psalmorum of Cassiodorus; Gregory the Great's Regula Pastoralis, Dialogi, and Moralia in Iob; Aldhelm's De Virginitate; Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica and De Temporum Ratione; Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum; and miscellaneous patristic texts. All of these presumably influenced Asser's view of history and his characterization of the king's sexuality, physical sufferings, and spiritual ambitions. A good number of these texts may have been part of the younger Asser's training at St. David's, but among them Lapidge can isolate only Orosius as more likely to have been read first there. In fact, he would confirm Janet Bately's suggestion that "recurrent patterns of (mis)spelling of Latin proper names" in the Old English translation of Orosius associated with Alfred "probably derives from dictation by a native Welsh speaker" (Lapidge's formulation, 41). In an appendix, Lapidge undertakes briskly to rebut A. P. Smyth's argument (1995) that the Vita Aelfredi is a late tenth-/early eleventh-century forgery and thus unacceptable as evidence for Alfred's reign and personality.
David Howlett, in "Alfredian Arithmetic--Asserian Architectonics" (49-61), presents an outline of the structure of the Vita Aelfredi summarized from his two previous studies of the subject (1995, 1997). He rearranges the text "to illustrate the chiastic and parallel statement and restatement of words and ideas" according to precisely numbered sequences (58-59). According to Howlett, Asser is imitating a biblical style of verbal and numerical patterning which is further revealed in King Alfred's own sevenfold division of tax revenues in the administration of his realm (cf. Solomon's policy in 1 Kings 5: 13-14) and in the horn lantern with which the king neatly divided the hours of his day between secular and spiritual pursuits.
Susan Irvine's "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Idea of Rome in Alfredian Literature" (68-69) explores the way the literary products of the king's reign adduce an implicit parallel "between Anglo-Saxon England invaded by Danes and Rome besieged by barbarians" (74). This interest and even identification with Rome could lead to an active manipulation of the theme of works translated. For instance, the Old English translator modifies the harshness of Orosius' account of the sacking of Rome by Alaric, interpreting this event as "a sign of God's mercy because the Romans' misdeeds are so lightly avenged" (68). In Alfred's translation of Boethius, the sacking of Rome by the Goths is not understood as divine punishment for sin, but rather "the first of a series of violent deeds which culminate in the unjustified imprisonment of Boethius by Theodoric. Alfred...discerned no justification for the presence of Goths in Rome; instead he chose to depict Boethius as an exemplary upholder of Christianity confronting an unrighteous usurper" (68-69). Late in his reign Alfred worked hard to placate some hostility from the papacy for perceived Anglo-Saxon laxness in religious devotion and missionary effort, making clear how vital the king felt Rome's view was in defining his own sense of England's place in history (76).
Moving to the material objects of Alfredian culture, Leslie Webster examines the significance of "Aedificia Nova: Treasures of Alfred's Reign" (79-103). Webster begins by considering four related finds: the Alfred Jewel, the Minster Lovell Jewel, the Bowleaze Jewel, and the "Wessex" Jewel. All seem to be "products of Alfred's court workshops" (86) for use as the handle of manuscript pointers, the aestel referred to in the king's Preface to Gregory's Pastoral Care, though they could also be the terminals of staffs of office. Webster associates the symbolism of these objects with Sight, especially the modes eagan 'eyes of the mind' through which wisdom is attained (87). She examines similar motifs in the Fuller Brooch, the Cranborne Strap-end, the Abingdon Sword-hilt and two royal donative rings associated with Alfred's father and sister. Comparing these to certain Carolingian treasures, Webster concludes that the "grand bibles and psalters made for Charles were unique marvels, which elevated and distanced the king in all his power and glory; while the manuscripts which Alfred engineered were intended for circulation, and to bring his court and clergy nearer to his personal thinking. This is equally evident in the aedificia of both monarchs" (96).
ALFREDIAN LITERATURE
Janet Bately, in "The Alfredian Canon Revisited: One Hundred Years On" (107-20), accepts the king's substantial involvement in the four main works attributed to him: the Old English versions of Orosius, Bede, Boethius and Gregory's Pastoral Care. She believes the prose preface to Boethius could very well have been written by King Alfred, but rejects the prayer at the end of this work as a later addition. The prose preface to Gregory's Dialogues was written not by the king himself, she suggests, but by someone else, possibly a Mercian, working "under the king's instructions" (119).
Allen J. Frantzen, in "The Form and Function of the Preface in the Poetry and Prose of Alfred's Reign" (121-36), searchingly examines what can be learned from studying the preface as a "genre" in both Latin and Old English texts. Frantzen isolates five common features of the Latin preface: 1) a greeting to the work's patron; 2) advice to the reader, sometimes a warning; 3) comment on the author's method; 4) a gesture of modesty; 5) a high degree of rhetorical density with various figures of speech, mainly metaphors. In vernacular prefaces, Frantzen finds a difference between prose and poetry. The former "force the reader to produce explanations and connections not supplied by the author. The verse prefaces address the work's aims more directly" (129). For instance, while the prose preface to Gregory's Pastoral Care "belabours the difficulties of a reform of learning, the verse preface celebrates a direct and seemingly untroubled line of authority from Gregory to Augustine to Alfred" (130). "The prose prefaces ... are complex and require careful reading. The verse prefaces ... are vigorous statements with a public, performative quality" (135). But on Alfred's own direct authorship of both these kinds of preface, Frantzen concludes that they generally reveal "work by a committee, rushed and incomplete, that mixes what might be Alfred's words with words written on his behalf, in his voice and person" (135). This reader also found very useful Frantzen's introductory assessment of the "preface" of Beowulf, the composition of which has yet to be confidently dated. Frantzen argues that the Scylding prologue is "not a prelude leading up to the main matter but instead an overture that introduces a sequence anticipating most of the poem's main ideas. ... Lines 1-52 can, therefore, be said to 'tell the story' of Beowulf before the poem itself speaks" (125).
Malcolm Godden demonstrates Alfred's love of dialogue as a literary form in "The Player King: Identification and Self-Representation in King Alfred's Writings" (137-50). In his translations of Boethius and Augustine's Soliloquies, "Alfred takes a literary dialogue from the late antique world of the Roman Empire and appropriates it to his own ninth-century concerns, language and world-picture; but at the same time he develops the personae of the authors within those works in ways which emphasize at times to the reader their otherness, their subjecthood, their sheer historical rootedness in their own times and experience" (149-50). Godden also finds certain inflections on the part of the translator which smack more of the courtier than the king, "a mind that is familiar with how it feels to be favoured or not favoured by the whim of a king, or to be dependent upon a superior, or to be the subject of a tyrant king flattered by his favorites ... . If we did not know already that a king was the author we might well suppose that it was one of his associates at court" (150). Godden thus confirms Frantzen's sense of committee work mentioned above. He suggests three possibilities: 1) that Alfred discussed his work so often with his subordinates that he internalized their perspective; 2) that he was recalling his own experience of serving "a series of rather daunting kings from his own family"; or 3) "the works were largely conceived and written by one of his courtiers" (150). And of course, the king's own lively and sympathetic imagination may very easily have entered into the experience of the authors he translated, especially the suffering of Boethius at the hands of Theodoric.
ALFREDIAN GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY
In "Alfredian Government: the West Saxon Inheritance" (153-73), Nicholas Brooks follows the traces of ancient boundaries found in ecclesiastical, manorial, topographical, and documentary sources which imply "governmental continuities from the 'middle Saxon' period and in some respects from a far more distant past, perhaps from the Celtic Iron Age" (173). He concludes that there is no evidence that King Alfred is responsible for creating the hundreds and tithings, for reshaping the West Saxon shires or for reforming "the ancient hidage assessment that formed the basis of public obligations" (173). Instead, the king simply used an existing administrative framework to get more service and work than did his predecessors from the nobles and peasants. Earlier rulers, too, had built and fortified boroughs, but Alfred made sure these could be regularly garrisoned and supplied as well. Alfred thus took "the first tentative steps...towards an urban future" and gave "a twist to the rachet to the developing feudal regime of manors, boroughs, nucleated settlements and open-fields" (173).
In spite of King Alfred's own suggestion to the contrary, Simon Keynes, in "The Power of the Written Word: Alfredian England 871-899" (175-97), produces evidence for "pragmatic" literacy in both Latin and the vernacular in ninth-century Wessex. Keynes suggests that this tradition gave a leg up to Alfred's new program of learning in the 880s, though the handful of scribes who were reasonably competent at producing charters found themselves rather challenged when asked to produce books on the scale of the king's ambition.
Mark Blackburn, in "Alfred's Coinage Reforms in Context" (199-217), describes the two recoinages undertaken by Alfred in terms of what came before and went after. He concludes: "Alfred implemented some important monetary reforms during the first decades of his reign. In doing so he was building on developments in mint administration that had been overseen by his father and brothers--Aethelwulf, Aethelberht and Aethelred. Together they had achieved a uniform currency for all Wessex and Mercia, that was being struck by an increased number of moneyers in both kingdoms. However, they had allowed the intrinsic value of the penny to decline, probably because of an international shortage of silver....[I]n a bold reform [Alfred] restored the weight and fineness to the levels set by Offa, and then raised the weight further to establish a new standard for the English penny. Alfred's other major contribution to the development of the monetary system was to extend the mint network, a policy continued by his successors--particularly Edward the Elder and Athelstan. This gave people greater access to mints and exchanges, while also providing an income to support the fortified boroughs" (214).
David Hill, in "The Origin of Alfred's Urban Policies" (219-33), cites eighth- and early ninth-century precursors of Alfred's "burghal system" in Mercia: towns laid out on a rectilinear plan with wall, mint and market. Hill also notes the reemergence of towns across Europe at the time from the Pont de l'Arche on the Seine to the walls and gates of the Leonine City in Rome, which were partly built by the Saxon School there and completed in 852. King Alfred as a boy would have seen this construction.
In "Alfred and London" (235-49), Derek Keene believes the king initiated "what we can now see as one of the defining episodes in London's history" (235). He concludes that a "disrupted and contracting trading settlement was relocated or re-established within the walls, which had hitherto contained, so far as we can tell, only seats of episcopal, royal and perhaps other authorities. The outlines of the commercial infrastructure (markets, streets and landing-places) which shaped the city's later growth were laid out" (248). Still, Keene cautions, Winchester remained the royal seat in the late ninth century, while London retained much of its "enduring Mercian character" (249).
Pauline Stafford, in "Succession and Inheritance: a Gendered Perspective on Alfred's Family History" (257-64), explores the West Saxon tradition of not having a queen. King Alfred seems to have approved of this practice, but his view may have changed toward the end of his life as the issue of his successor arose. "Where did the status of [the king's wife] Ealhswith leave the claims of her and Alfred's son, Edward, especially vis-a-vis his cousin Aethelwold, whose mother had been recognized as queen in 868?" (264).
Richard Abels, "Alfred the Great, the micel haeþen here and the Viking Threat" (265-79), argues that the "great heathen army" of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is something of a misnomer, a political construct designed to heroicize the king's efforts and to objectify as a single unified menace the shifting alliances of different raiding pirate bands. Abels decapitalizes the term "viking" itself to mitigate the false impression of a single identity to these raiders (265, n. 1). Abels admits, however, that some of these raiders achieved a more coherent identity as they managed "to conquer and control territories" of their own in England, producing "a new and different society and culture...in what came to be known as the Danelaw" (279).
In a succinct but remarkably full study, Edwin and Joyce Gifford, analyze the description of "Alfred's New Longships" (281-89) in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's entry for the year 896. They base their interpretation upon "the characteristics of Saxon ships, including...the magnificent 27-metre Anglian ship found in Mound One at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk built about 600 [38 oars, 10 knots sailing, 6 rowing] and the modest 14-metre Graveney trader from Kent of c. 900 [38 oars, 7 knots sailing]" (281). Although 350 years separate them, the construction method and the characteristic shapes of the hull cross-sections of these two ships are so alike ... that we can assume a continuous tradition of ship-building throughout this period in southeast England" (281). The virtues of these vessels are lovingly described, their speeds having been determined through experimentation with half-scale models: the "combination of high speed, shallow draft and surf beach-landing would have made the Sutton Hoo ship safe for the waters of the east coast of England, the southern North Sea and the north-west coasts of Europe, all of which are bordered by creeks, sand banks and beaches to which she could safely run before a rising gale" (282). These ships represent "fully resolved designs, difficult to improve upon even with today's knowledge." However, King Alfred managed to do so simply by lengthening the traditional Sutton Hoo vessel, keeping the narrow width and shallow draft, but raising the sides and using oar-ports rather than gunwale tholes for increased oar-power against the water and better protection of the crew from missiles. Also, direction of the new ship could be reversed with equal speed or the vessel turned in its own length. The authors conclude that Alfred's new ships "could carry 140 men at 12 knots under sail and 7 under oar. Such speeds would have enabled the English ships, if stationed at 20-mile intervals, to reach the stricken beach well within two hours of the alarm, either to catch the raiders ashore or to run them down as they were leaving. With the speed and capacity of Alfred's new ships, combined with the strengthening of fortifications and signalling systems along the coast, is it surprising that the Danish raids dwindled for so many years?" (285-87).
ALFRED AND CONTEMPORARY RULERSHIP
Janet L. Nelson, in "Alfred's Carolingian Contemporaries" (293-310), believes that the West Saxon royal family may well have "envied the time-depth of the Carolingian dynasty, and the Carolingians' success in representing their dynasty's rule as divinely authorized" (303). In addition, "Charles the Bald, and other Carolingians of his generation and the next, preferred high seats and splendid crown-wearings, the exclusive signs and symbols of a monarchic style on the way to becoming Ottonian" (308). Alfred's "political style," on the other hand, "was one of intimacy and directness....This king honoured his leading men, lay and ecclesiastical alike, with aestels, that is, with precious book-markers, precise symbols of a shared learning enterprise and of royal encouragement to success therein. Alfred wished to represent himself not only as a lord with intent, but as a student among students of wisdom, as a learner of Latin for translation purposes, a user of the vernacular in order to communicate widely with free-born men....He knew what the Carolingians of his own time did, and chose, nevertheless, a distinctive style and vision of rulership. If he had a Carolingian model, it was perhaps, rather than any contemporary, an imagined Charlemagne" (309-10).
Anton Scharer undertakes a point by point survey of the reigns of "Alfred the Great and Arnulf of Carinthia: a Comparison" (311-21). Both kings were born within about a year of each other in the middle of the ninth century and died six weeks apart in 899. Both suffered mysterious illnesses and grew up in "a climate of fear and suspicion at court" (313). Both established strong and effective relations with their secular and ecclesiastical magnates--one in England, the other in East Francia--but Alfred managed to continue his dynasty through a mature son, while Arnulf's legacy reverted to a more traditional pattern of collateral succession. Like Alfred, Arnulf seems to have aspired to spiritual leadership and patronage, but has left no recorded interest in learning or writing himself, or in undertaking the broader education of his people.
Wendy Davies, in "Alfred's Contemporaries: Irish, Welsh, Scots and Breton" (323-37), surveys parallel developments in the several Celtic polities which had relations with King Alfred's Wessex. In each of these countries national leaders similarly arose in the ninth century. Davies understands this phenomenon as a response to two primary factors: 1) the inspiring example of the Franks under Charlemagne earlier in the century, and 2) the unifying effect of Viking attacks.
In "The Ruler as Instructor, Pastor and Wise: Leo VI of Byzantium and Symeon of Bulgaria" (339-58), Jonathan Shepard also sees a Frankish model inspiring rulers across Europe. The "pursuit of wisdom proclaimed assiduously and more or less simultaneously by Alfred, Symeon and Leo were not sheer coincidence," but part of a wider movement "whose most vigorous impulses probably emanated from the Carolingian courts, above all Charles the Bald's" (357).
ALFRED AS ICON
Barbara Yorke's concluding essay, "Alfredism: the Use and Abuse of King Alfred's Reputation in Later Centuries" (361-80), returns to the theme of James Campbell's introduction. She traces many of the idealizations projected upon Alfred and his reign through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, using the term "Alfredism" on the model of "Anglo-Saxonism" to describe a sense of English national identity and character originating with the king. What was believed to have constituted the essence of King Alfred, the Anglo-Saxons or a broader Germanic identity varied widely from period to period, but all these constructions were thought to demonstrate that certain cherished principles or institutions were "deeply embedded in the English past and basic to the English character" (375). By the end of the nineteenth century, King Alfred had become the key legitimating progenitor of the English nation. Yorke sees the First World War as the beginning of a changing view: "Germanic connections became suspect after 1914, and subsequent Nazi misuse of the early medieval past to support a Germanic racial identity discredited the type of racial Anglo-Saxonism with which Alfred has sometimes been associated" (379).
CONCLUSION
In almost any area of historical inquiry, these studies are remarkable for the precision and thoughtfulness with which they clarify our basic understanding of the significance of King Alfred's reign. The reader can turn to this volume, almost as a specialized encyclopedia, to find the most detailed, up-to-date and nuanced evaluation of Alfred's debt to his predecessors, his relation to his contemporaries and his own innovations and special achievements.