HistoryExtra https://www.historyextra.com/people/alfred-the-great Wed, 21 Oct 2026 10:00:08 GMT en hourly 1 How Alfred the Great saved the Anglo-Saxons from the Vikings https://www.historyextra.com/membership/how-alfred-great-saved-anglo-saxons-from-vikings-podcast/ Wed, 21 Oct 2026 10:00:08 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/how-alfred-great-saved-anglo-saxons-from-vikings-podcast/ Dr Eleanor Barraclough tells the story of Alfred the Great's journey from his lowest ebb, to his ascent to reclaim his throne As the Viking Great Heathen Army advanced to the borders of Wessex, the conquest of Anglo-Saxon England appeared all but complete.
In the third episode of this four-part series on the Viking invasion of Anglo-Saxon England in the latter half of the ninth century, James Osborne is joined by historian Dr Eleanor Barraclough to examine how Alfred the Great rose from the cusp of defeat, to a stunning military victory at the battle of Edington.
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Want to know more about the struggle between Alfred and the Vikings? James Osborne rounds up essential reading from the HistoryExtra archive that explores this pivotal moment in Viking and Anglo-Saxon history – including insights into Viking culture, the everyday experience of Anglo-Saxon communities, Alfred’s use of religion and learning as tools of political renewal, and the long legacy of the Danelaw on English identity and culture. Go beyond the podcast
]]> The rise of Alfred the Great https://www.historyextra.com/membership/alfred-vs-vikings-podcast-episode-two/ Wed, 14 Oct 2026 09:00:11 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/alfred-vs-vikings-podcast-episode-two/ Dr Eleanor Barraclough follows the Great Heathen Army on its rampage across Anglo-Saxon England As the Viking Great Heathen Army refused to leave Anglo-Saxon England, the pressure mounted on the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to respond, placing the future of the land in the hands of Alfred the Great.
In this second episode of our four-part HistoryExtra podcast series on the Viking invasion of ninth-century England, James Osborne and historian Dr Eleanor Barraclough explore the regions overrun by Viking forces and the rise of Alfred the Great amid the collapse of Anglo-Saxon resistance.
Watch now or listen ad-free below:
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Want to know more about the struggle between Alfred and the Vikings? James Osborne rounds up essential reading from the HistoryExtra archive that explores this pivotal moment in Viking and Anglo-Saxon history – including insights into Viking culture, the everyday experience of Anglo-Saxon communities, Alfred’s use of religion and learning as tools of political renewal, and the long legacy of the Danelaw on English identity and culture. Go beyond the podcast
]]> Vikings quiz - week two https://www.historyextra.com/membership/vikings-quiz-week-one-2/ Mon, 12 Feb 2024 12:04:20 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/vikings-quiz-week-one-2/ How much have you learned about the Vikings so far? Test your knowledge of your learnings in week two with our HistoryExtra quiz View Riddle on the source website]]> If King Alfred was great, was Æthelstan even greater? https://www.historyextra.com/membership/if-king-alfred-was-great-was-aethelstan-even-greater/ Fri, 14 Apr 2023 17:15:51 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/if-king-alfred-was-great-was-aethelstan-even-greater/ Alfred the Great's achievements are dwarfed by those of his grandson Æthelstan. So why, asks Sarah Foot, is the former still venerated while the latter is overlooked? Was King Alfred (reigned 871–99) really the greatest Anglo-Saxon king? Certainly he remains the best-remembered – even if it’s only for burning the cakes. But should it really be his grandson Æthelstan (reigned 924–39) – now largely forgotten – whom we celebrate as the most significant pre-Conquest monarch?
Alfred was a highly successful military leader who, in a battle at Edington in AD 878, resoundingly defeated the Danish army that had almost conquered Wessex. In the ensuing period of peace he launched a programme of educational reform that transformed the use of English as both a literary and a governmental language. Yet Alfred only ruled the West Saxon people, and those in the western part of the Midland kingdom of Mercia not under subjection to the Danes. When he died (the sole remaining native king in England), the east Midlands, East Anglia and Northumbria all lay in Danish hands.
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Who was Æthelstan?
Æthelstan, on the other hand, was the first king to rule all England and laid claim to an imperial overlordship over the whole of Britain. His military prowess brought him direct authority over not just Wessex and Mercia, but the Danelaw (the name given to the area of northern England where Vikings settled) and the kingdom north of the Humber.
Celtic rulers from elsewhere in the British Isles subsequently submitted to his authority. He crushed a rebellion of the Scots king in AD 934, attacking his realm with a land and sea force and ravaging as far north as Caithness. When Æthelstan defeated a combined Norse-Scots-Northumbrian force at the battle of Brunanburh in AD 937, a contemporary poem entered into the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recalled: "Never yet in this island before this was a greater slaughter of a host made by the edge of the sword since the Angles and Saxons came hither from the east, overcame the Britons and won a country."
- Read more | Why can't we find the battlefield of Brunanburh?
Foreigners also recognised Æthelstan’s status. He played a significant role on a European stage, forging alliances with royal and ducal houses across the territories of the former Carolingian empire through marriage and fostering arrangements. Scholars from Britain and abroad flocked to his court, bringing books, precious gifts and the relics of the saints (to which Æthelstan showed particular devotion).
Alfred founded a dynasty. Æthelstan (who died childless) paved the way for that royal line (through his brothers and nephews) to govern all the English peoples via an effective administrative machine. When he died, an Irish chronicler lamented the demise of the “pillar of the dignity of the western world”. How can so great a king, once celebrated for his achievements, have fallen into such oblivion today?
Æthelstan is a major figure in Netflix film Seven Kings Must Die, the final chapter of The Last Kingdom series, which explores the formation of England through lens of conflicted her Uhtred of Bebbanburg. Discover the real history behind the film:
- Seven Kings Must Die: how close to real history is it?
- Seven Kings Must Die ending explained: who are the seven kings?
- The Last Kingdom: what's the real history and how historically accurate is it?
- The real Uhtred of Bebbanburg: the historical inspirations for The Last Kingdom’s hero
- Bernard Cornwell on The Last Kingdom’s finale
Why don't we remember Æthelstan?
Alfred's posthumous reputation received a substantial boost from the profusion of literature that emanated from his court in the latter years of his reign – including the first version of the collection of year-by-year accounts of early English history we know as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
One of his circle, the Welsh priest Asser, also wrote a life of the king in the 890s, giving an unparalleled insight into his personality, his devotion to the saints, his practical and creative abilities and his attitudes to kingship. Texts translated from Latin into English at his court also included passages attributed to the king himself.
By contrast, the reign of Æthelstan is ill-served with narrative sources; the Chronicle offers the sketchiest narrative of events in his reign, there is no surviving biography, nor any writing attributed to his own authorship. Creating a picture of him as a man as well as a royal figurehead involves piecing together information from a disparate range of sources (and a good deal of imaginative licence).
Even so, after his death, Æthelstan enjoyed considerable fame. The West Saxon Latin chronicler Æthelweard saw Æthelstan as a mighty king and drew attention to his victory at Brunanburh (still remembered in the late tenth century as the ‘Great Battle’). Æthelstan’s submission of the Scots and the Picts brought significant and lasting consequences: “The fields of Britain were consolidated into one, there was peace everywhere and abundance of all things, and [since then] no fleet has remained here having advanced against these shores, except under treaty with the English.”
Æthelred the Unready (reigned 978–1016) called his eldest son Æthelstan – and worked through various Old English royal names before he thought to name his eighth son Alfred.
St Cuthbert and the kings of Wessex
Both Alfred and Æthelstan are associated with legends relating to St Cuthbert (bishop of Lindisfarne, d687). At his time of greatest need, before the battle of Edington, King Alfred supposedly received a night-time visitation from the saint, who promised him victory and a glorious future for his sons. If Alfred would be faithful to Cuthbert and his people, Albion would be given to him and his sons, and he would be chosen king of all Britain. Æthelstan – who claimed that very title: king of all Britain – showed great devotion to the saint’s shrine on a visit to Chester-le-Street in 934. He gave many precious gifts including a book containing Bede’s life of Cuthbert. The frontispiece to that volume depicts a double portrait of the crowned King Æthelstan presenting the manuscript to Cuthbert.
Æthelstan's Norman reputation
After the Norman Conquest, Æthelstan’s reputation remained strong. To Anglo-Norman writers, he stood out as the founder of a united English realm, and – perhaps more significantly in that era – as having successfully asserted his authority over his Celtic neighbours. William, a monk of Malmesbury Abbey where Æthelstan was buried, paid him particular attention, providing insights not found in any other source, possibly drawing on a now-lost tenth-century life of the king. In William’s hands, Æthelstan became not just a king to remember but one about whom there were many stories, even popular songs worth recalling and repeating.
Various factors combined to diminish Æthelstan's standing in the literary imagination during the late Middle Ages. Legends about a heroic British king, Arthur, received a substantial boost from the writing of Geoffrey of Monmouth. While Æthelstan's martial success still gained approval, rumours first reported by William of Malmesbury that Æthelstan's mother had been a concubine and he was therefore illegitimate gained increasing currency. The mysterious circumstances in which his younger brother, Edwin, was drowned at sea in 933 (supposedly in an open boat without an oar), and Æthelstan's foundation of the church at Milton Abbas in reparation did him little good either.
Æthelstan's literary reputation reached its nadir in the 14th-century poem, Æthelston, in which the eponymous hero comes across as a troubled and insecure king, struggling to achieve the moral authority to control his realm.
At the same time, other pre-Conquest kings achieved equal or greater prominence. Attempts to make a saint of Edward the Confessor began soon after his death; he was canonised in 1161. Most problematically for Æthelstan’s cause, Alfred was frequently hailed as the first king to have held sway over all England. Orderic Vitalis, writing in the 12th century, first made that claim, which was energetically promoted by monks at St Albans including Matthew Paris, who went so far as to say that “in view of his merits Alfred was called Great”. King Henry VI even tried in 1441 to get Alfred “the first monarch of the famous kingdom of England” canonised, but without success. No one tried to make a saint of Æthelstan, even though he never married and had such a great reputation for piety in his lifetime.
- Watch | Michael Wood on the astonishing Æthelstan
Neither great nor saint, Æthelstan's place in the popular memory started to slide as the reputation of Alfred increasingly eclipsed that of all Anglo-Saxon kings. Elizabeth I's reign saw an increasing interest in the history of pre-Conquest England; antiquarians collected early English manuscripts and began to publish Anglo-Saxon texts, including Asser's Life of Alfred.
This helped to increase popular understanding of Alfred's qualities as a ruler and build his reputation as a scholar and statesman at the expense not just of Æthelstan but of all other Anglo-Saxon kings for whom no equivalent biographies survive. William Tyndale had claimed that Æthelstan commissioned an early translation of the Bible. But it was Alfred's promotion of English over Latin as the language through which to get closer to God that would resonate in the reformed English church, eager to find the historic roots of the Ecclesia Anglicana in the distant past.
Alfred's reputation flourished further after the publication (in Latin in 1678, and in English in 1709) of John Spelman's Life of King Alfred, which promoted the king as first founder of the English monarchy. Prince Frederick (son of George II) and his circle of patriots enthusiastically evoked Alfred for his protection of English freedoms and his defeat of foreign enemies, on land and sea. Thomas Arne's masque Alfred, first performed for Prince Frederick in 1740, concludes famously with the anthem Rule Britannia.
Thus, gradually during the 18th and 19th centuries, Æthelstan’s memory waned. Only the Freemasons remembered Æthelstan and celebrated him as their mythical founder in England, his ‘son’ (brother) Edwin the first English Grand Master. History books (especially those written for children) found much to celebrate in the deeds for which Alfred was famed, not just his victories over the Danes but his inventions – a candle-clock sheltering inside a horn lantern – and his supposed role in founding the English navy by having ships of a new, longer, design built to try and defeat the enemy at sea.
Æthelstan vs Alfred in the national myth
Æthelstan’s right to be considered the first king of all England seemed long forgotten, that epithet given either to Alfred’s grandfather (Ecgberht, d839) or more often to Alfred. Anglo-Saxon topics were popular among Victorian painters but neither Æthelstan nor his great battle at Brunanburh found visual commemoration in any picture exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1769 and 1904; Alfred was however frequently depicted. It was Alfred who took the central role in the creation of a national myth of English and British origins; he became the archetypal symbol of the nation’s own sense of itself. The beginnings of political stability in Britain (which stood in marked contrast to the upheavals elsewhere in 19th-century Europe) went back to Alfred’s day. As Edward Augustus Freeman argued, Alfred was the most perfect character in history; no other name could compare with his.
Nothing brings out the contrast between the two kings’ reputations better than the marking of the millennial anniversaries of their deaths. Thanks to uncertainty about the precise date of Alfred’s demise, his millennium was celebrated not in 1899 but in 1901. First planned in the aftermath of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897, the celebration was to be a “National commemoration of the king to whom this empire owes so much.”
Crowds travelled to Winchester on Friday 20 September 1901 to watch Lord Rosebery unveil Hamo Thornycroft’s massive statue of the king set in the Broadway, Winchester, before proceeding to Winchester Cathedral for a service with the massed choirs of southern English cathedrals, at which the archbishop of Canterbury preached.
In stark contrast, a single notice in The Times of London for 25 October 1940 (buried under "Ecclesiastical News"), noted the supposed millennium of "Æthelstan the Great" (dating his death to AD 940, in error for AD 939). Lamenting that there might in happier times have been some celebration of this event, the correspondent remembered the king as the greatest and most munificent benefactor to St Paul's Cathedral in London, his donations making that cathedral the richest in England.
Only with the revival of Anglo-Saxonism in the latter years of the 20th century, increased scholarly interest in the Latin and vernacular literature of England before the Conquest, and the critical editing of royal administrative documents, has Æthelstan begun to regain something of his former prominence. His reign lay at the source of many developments. First to unite the English peoples under a single authority, Æthelstan also accepted the submission of all the other rulers of Britain. Welsh kings attended regularly at his court, travelling round the kingdom with him.
Æthelstan expressed his claim to hegemony over all Britain in a new language of imperial rulership and in visual symbols, most obviously his decision to wear a crown (shown on his coins and in the surviving portrait of the king giving a book to St Cuthbert). His sway over the whole island brought together under one rule peoples that had previously suffered significant political disruption and consequent social breakdown because of the Danish wars and Scandinavian settlements.
Æthelstan created an efficient administrative machine to govern a dispersed realm, and directed much of his legal He created an efficient administrative machine to govern a dispersed realm BBC History Magazine activity towards the repair and renewal of this fractured and damaged society.
“Very mighty”, “worthy of honour”, “his years filled with glory”, “pillar of the dignity of the western world”, “pious King Æthelstan”: each of these near-contemporary comments reflects aspects of Æthelstan’s achievement and personality. He deserves to be brought out of the shadows that have obscured his memory and celebrated as a key figure in the making of England – and, indeed, the forging of Britain.
Where is Æthelstan remembered?
Æthelstan supposedly visited Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire on his way to fight a major battle in the north and paused to pray for victory at the shrine of St John of Beverley (a prominent figure in Bede's History, and an early bishop of Hexham). On his return south, victorious, he refounded Beverley church as a collegiate community of canons and granted it land and a number of privileges including the right of sanctuary. Three monuments in the minster recall the king, including a life-size statue cast in lead in 1781 added to the screen at the entrance to the choir. Æthelstan stands holding a sword in one hand, and in the other the charter of privileges he had given to the town of Beverley. On the opposite side of the archway leading into the choir is a similar statue of Bishop John of Beverley.
Outside the guildhall at Kingston upon Thames in Surrey stands a piece of grey-wether sandstone, believed to be the Anglo-Saxon coronation stone on which Æthelstan was crowned in September 925. The stone once lay in St Mary’s chapel in the town; when that was destroyed, it was moved to the market place, where it served as a mounting block. The Masonic order of Surrey led a campaign in the 1850s to re-situate the relic in a more formal setting, arranging for it to be moved in 1854 to its current location, mounted on a heptagonal base and surrounded by railings. Re-laying the stone involved appropriate Masonic ceremonies, including the sprinkling of the monument with corn, oil and wine.
Where is Æthelstan buried?
In the restored Norman abbey church at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, Æthelstan is commemorated by a late medieval tomb chest in perpendicular style, now in the north aisle. The king’s recumbent, full-length effigy lies beneath a heavy traced canopy. The original head has been removed and replaced with another of unknown date. Æthelstan was a generous patron of Malmesbury in life and chose to be buried there, near the tomb of St Aldhelm. In the 12th century, William of Malmesbury saw the king’s remains and remarked on his fair hair. During the Reformation his bones were lost and the tomb is now empty.
Sarah Foot is Regius Professor of ecclesiastical history at Christ Church, Oxford. She is the author of Æthelstan: The First King of England.
This article was first published in the July 2011 issue of BBC History Magazine
]]> How to survive the Dark Ages in Britain: 6 crucial tips https://www.historyextra.com/membership/survival-guide-tips-dark-ages-kingdom-britain/ Mon, 28 Nov 2022 09:16:43 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/survival-guide-tips-dark-ages-kingdom-britain/ The collapse of Roman rule in Britain left a vacuum that numerous powers competed to fill, but only a few realms endured. How did some thrive while others vanished or were vanquished? Thomas Williams offers six survival tips for would-be rulers of early medieval kingdoms...
Go big or go home
After Roman rule collapsed at the start of the fifth century, everything changed in Britain – politically, socially, culturally and economically. Migration from northern Europe and around the Irish Sea contributed to the development of new kingdoms across the island that competed for power, or just for survival, until the advent of the Vikings marked a watershed at the end of the eighth century. Some of these kingdoms – Wessex in south-west England; Mercia in the Midlands; Northumbria in the north-east; East Anglia; and Gwynedd in north-west Wales – left an enduring legacy. Others sank with barely a trace.
So what factors brought long-term success? Growth was one key strategy. It wasn’t a universal prerequisite – East Anglia, for example, remained largely static in size and shape until the Viking Great Army conquered it in AD 869. But most of the big beasts of early medieval Britain were realms that pursued aggressive, expansionist policies.
Take Northumbria, itself formed from the merger of two smaller kingdoms, Bernicia and Deira. It swallowed up several near neighbours, and had a crack at others. Mercia was the midland realm with perhaps the greatest ambitions of all – particularly during the reign of Offa (ruled 757–796) and his successor Coenwulf (r796–821). In the eighth century, it controlled an empire that extended from the Welsh borders to the Wash and south to the Channel. At its height, Mercia could claim overlordship of Sussex and Kent, Hwicce, Lindsey and parts of Wales.
Wessex, the south-western realm that was later the only survivor of the Viking cataclysm, entered the mid-ninth century in control of all of Britain south of the Thames. Not all of the unsuccessful kingdoms lacked ambition, but all failed to capitalise on it. Some, such as Essex, were unable to press their advantages when they had them – or, as the next section shows, to hold on to their gains when they had made them.
Keep it together
One thing that pretty much guarantees political instability is division over major cultural issues. Being at loggerheads with yourself for a prolonged period of time offers opportunities for malign outside powers to twist the chisel and split the wood.
Take, for example, the kingdom of Essex that coalesced in the late sixth century. On paper, by the early seventh century its people, the East Saxons, had it all. Theirs was a solid chunk of contiguous territory between the Thames and the Stour encompassing the modern counties of Essex and Middlesex and much of Hertfordshire. That included a long stretch of coastline with easy access to continental imports and ideas. They also had some control of the lower Thames and its estuary, and riverine access into the heart of southern Britain.
And they had the walled city of Londinium – largely defunct, true, but still strategically vital and symbolically valuable as the former capital of Roman Britannia. Yet by the ninth century, the East Saxon kingdom was a shadow of its former self. Confined to Essex, its kings were bit players on the political stage, subject to the whims of others and on the verge of losing their independence.
- On the podcast | Max Adams pieces together the evidence to uncover what happened after the fall of Roman Britain
So what went wrong? In a word, religion. The first king we know anything about – Sæberht (reigned c604– c616) – was pressured by his uncle, King Æthelberht of Kent, to convert to Christianity and allow the first church of St Paul’s to be built in London. His three sons were less enthusiastic. On their father’s death, they reverted to pagan ways and sent the bishop, Mellitus, packing. This pattern was repeated more than once: Christianity introduced with the backing of outside kingdoms was overturned by a pagan backlash.
Tension between Christian and pagan factions persisted, their leaders supported at different times by asymmetrical alliances with more powerful foreign allies: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Wessex. It was a trend exacerbated by a habit of joint but uncooperative kingship exercised by the East Saxon royal family.
These political fault lines were ripe for exploitation, and the senior partners in these alliances gained ever greater power. The main beneficiaries were the Mercians who, by the mid-eighth century, were effectively in control of London and Middlesex. By the time Essex fell under the sway of Wessex in the ninth century, its kings must have long given up hope of returning to the big league.
The kingdoms of the Dark Ages, c600
East Anglia Settled by northern European migrants from the fifth century, this kingdom comprising the “northern folk” (Norfolk) and “southern folk” (Suffolk) survived until Vikings invaded in the second half of the ninth century. Kent Founded in folklore by fifth-century Jutish adventurers Hengist and Horsa, Kent entered history as a Christian kingdom in the late sixth century. By the eighth century it became dominated by Mercia, and was subsequently absorbed into Wessex after 825. Essex The realm of the East Saxons – at one time spanning what’s now Essex, Middlesex and southern Hertfordshire – was annexed by Wessex in the ninth century. Wessex Probably based originally in the Thames Valley, the kingdom of the Gewissæ shifted to Hampshire and Dorset, rebranding as Wessex. The West Saxons harried Sussex during the seventh and eighth centuries, and in 825 conclusively wrested dominance of southern Britain from Mercia. Dumnonia This long-lasting kingdom, in what is now Cornwall and Devon, had its origins in the pre-Roman Iron Age but was crushed by Wessex in the ninth century. Mercia From its heartland in the upper west Midlands, Mercia grew to encompass much of central, eastern and southern Britain. During the eighth century, notably under King Offa (r757–796), Mercia controlled Lindsey, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Hwicce and Sussex, but declined in the ninth century after defeat to Wessex. Gwynedd The kingdom of Gwynedd was the longest-lasting and most politically important realm of the British west until England finally gained control in the 13th century. Dyfed Based on the Iron Age tribal territory of the Demetae, Dyfed was absorbed into the larger realm of Deheubarth in the tenth century, then invaded by the Normans following the Norman Conquest. Northumbria The land of the people “north of the Humber” was the product of a seventh-century merger between Deira and Bernicia, and extended as far north as the Firth of Forth. In the mid-860s it was settled and ruled by Vikings until it became part of the kingdom of England in 954. Dál Riata This Gaelic-speaking kingdom covered most of Scotland’s Atlantic fringe. It disappeared from history in the mid-ninth century, and parts of its former territory were incorporated into the kingdom of Alba. Alt Clut This kingdom was centred on Dumbarton Rock in the Clyde until the fortress there was destroyed in 870. Rebranded as Strathclyde, the kingdom staggered on into the 11th century.
Get religion, keep the faith
Though religion could be the undoing of a kingdom, it could also be instrumental in a realm’s survival. In the early stages of its spread across Britain, Christianity was not essential to the success of a kingdom.
The seventh-century pagan kings Æthelfrith of Northumbria and Penda of Mercia set the stage for the later dominance of their respective kingdoms with exceptionally aggressive careers. Æthelfrith was remembered by the early eighth-century scholar Bede (with some approval, it has to be said) for slaughtering 1,200 monks at the battle of Chester in c613–16. Penda, meanwhile, defeated the army of the saintly King Oswald of Northumbria at the battle of Maserfelth in c642 – then nailed the vanquished leader’s head and severed limbs to wooden stakes. Neither Æthelfrith nor Penda appear to have been held back by their heathenry.
- Read more | When did Christianity first arrive in Britain?
Yet it is also true that no kingdom survived to face the Viking Age with its pagan beliefs intact – and those that held out the longest eventually came to notable grief in one way or another.
The South Saxons (the people of Sussex) kept up pagan practices longer than most. According to Bede, as late as the 660s they were still throwing themselves from cliffs in response to famine – in despair, perhaps, or as an auto-sacrifice to some bloodthirsty deity. When Saint Wilfrid washed up there in the portentous year 666, he is said to have encountered a sorcerer standing “on a high mound like Balaam” [a Biblical prophet], cursing Wilfrid’s crew and “trying to bind their hands with his magical art”.
The enduring paganism of the South Saxons made them vulnerable in a number of ways. First, it provided neighbouring kings (specifically, of Mercia) with a ready-made tool – sponsored baptism with diplomatic strings attached – by which they could formalise their position as overlords. Second, it opened the door to missionaries from elsewhere who could seed cultural – and, subsequently, political – influence at court and in the wider populace. In this way, older values and traditions were progressively overwritten until they were forgotten.
Third, failure to adopt Christianity on their own terms denied to the South Saxons the vital technology of remembering – writing – that might have helped to preserve and foster a sense of idiosyncrasy and communal solidarity in the face of outside pressures. As it was, however, whatever it was that made the South Saxons unique was lost through their conversion by outsiders. Almost all of the known history of the kingdom of Sussex is preserved only in the biography of a Northumbrian missionary, Wilfrid, and the second-hand testimony of a West Saxon bishop, Daniel of Winchester.
Don’t forget where you came from (but if you do, make something up)
Everyone needs to feel like they belong in some way, and the sense of a shared heritage and common values can be a potent means for communities to feel confident and empowered. It can also provide an ambitious ruler with a compelling means of mobilising people in pursuit of some goal or other. At the same time, it can offer kings the sort of glamorous backstory that emphasises a right to rule, inherited qualities and the imprimatur of deep-rooted tradition.
Most of the nascent kingdoms of early medieval Britain understood this. It underpinned the endemic habit, prevalent until the seventh century, of burying the dead in the environs of (or sometimes inside) the monuments raised by prehistoric people millennia-dead. It’s also the reason for the production of royal genealogies peopled with the gods and heroes of a mythical age – a trend that lasted much longer.
One very physical example of how this was utilised is the Pillar of Eliseg, a large stone memorial raised on top of a Bronze Age cairn by the rulers of Powys in the early ninth century. The pillar (which still stands, north of Llangollen) was erected specifically to emphasise the contemporary achievements of King Cyngen. Importantly, it also compared them to those of his great-grandfather Eliseg and an impressive cast of heroic ancestors including the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus and the famous British warlord Vortigern.
It didn’t do Powys much good in the long run: the kingdom vanished for centuries as an independent realm after Cyngen’s death in 854 or 855. However, it was clearly thought essential, probably because his family were relative newcomers to the Powysian throne. At least it meant that he and his kin were remembered. The same wasn’t true of all other kings and kingdoms of the age.
Write it down…
There are many realms about which very little is known. Then there are those about which nothing is known beyond a name – otherwise obscure tribes such as the Sweordora and the Unecungaga, for example. And there are the unknown unknowns: the kingdoms that we don’t even know that we don’t know about. The factor that makes the difference is the survival of the written word.
In British history, the period from c400 to c800 is not distinguished by the quantity or the reliability of its surviving written sources. No contemporary written texts survive at all for large areas of the island, over very long periods of time. Those that do survive have particular regional and ethnic biases or are largely products of a later period. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (c731), for example, is a history framed deliberately to the advantage of English-speaking communities, Roman forms of Christianity and Bede’s own kingdom of Northumbria.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle assumed its original form in the 890s at the court of Alfred the Great, king of Wessex. At the time of its creation it represented a sophisticated tissue of favourable reportage, propaganda and tendentious lore designed to bolster the reputation and ambitions of the West Saxon royal dynasty. In this respect, it did a remarkably thorough job. Likewise, the early ninth-century Historia Brittonum was compiled to the benefit of the kings of Gwynedd.
There is, it must be admitted, a certain circularity here: the most successful kingdoms survived the longest, and the longest lasting were the most likely to produce written chronicles, charters and histories. Those that failed are the most likely to have seen their records lost or destroyed. Still, the point remains: if you don’t want your reign or your kingdom to be forgotten, the key strategy for ensuring a long-lasting legacy is simple: write it down.
...but don’t sign up to anything
Much of what is known about the detailed political history of smaller early medieval kingdoms comes from legal documents. In particular, we learn a lot from the appearance in such records of rulers and churchmen as witnesses to land transactions enacted by the kings of larger realms. Their supporting presence in such contexts demonstrates close political relationships, but it also indicates a subordinate role.
Likewise, there are reports of ceremonies in which a king accepted baptism with a more powerful ruler as “godfather”. For example, Æthelwealh of Sussex was baptised in Mercia in 681, in the presence of King Wulfhere. The deal included an arranged marriage to Eafe of the Hwicce – another small kingdom under Mercian “protection” – and a chunk of territory around the River Meon.
Entering into arrangements like these may have seemed expedient at the time: insecure kings might seek to shore up their own position – perhaps in opposition to a rival internal faction or another predatory neighbour. And by accepting a degree of subordination to an “overking”, a smaller realm could gain a great deal of diplomatic leverage and military advantage; this happened repeatedly in Essex.
But the longer-term implications of such deals were rarely positive. Consider the kings of Hwicce. Osric, the first to appear (in charters of the late-seventh century) was styled unambiguously as rex – full king. However, in similar circumstances his successors suffered a demotion, appearing as subreguli – the slightly humiliating “under-kinglets” – or as comites (“counts” – literally, “companions”). One of the last kings of that realm, Uhtred, was afforded by King Offa of Mercia a grudging and limited “degree of rule over his own people”. He was the last to be granted even that.
By the ninth century, Hwicce had entirely lost its independence – not through war and conquest but through bureaucracy. Like many smaller kingdoms, Hwicce was managed out of existence.
Thomas Williams is a historian of the early Middle Ages and a former curator at the British Museum. His latest book is Lost Realms: Histories of Britain from the Romans to the Vikings (William Collins, 2022)
This article was first published in the October 2022 issue of BBC History Magazine
]]> Alternate history: what if Alfred the Great lost to the Vikings at the battle of Edington? https://www.historyextra.com/membership/what-if-alfred-the-great-lost-battle-edington-vikings/ Thu, 17 Nov 2022 10:36:18 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/what-if-alfred-the-great-lost-battle-edington-vikings/ Professor Ryan Lavelle and Nige Tassell consider the future shape and make-up of England had the revered king of Wessex lost a crucial battle to the Vikings in AD 878 King Alfred was far from successful in his early battles against the Danes. Shortly after succeeding his brother Æthelred as ruler of Wessex in AD 871, he was forced to make a fragile peace by paying the invaders to leave the kingdom, only to suffer further incursions over the next few years.
But by AD 878 and the battle of Edington, Alfred was sufficiently powerful to be able to force the Danes, led by the future king of East Anglia, Guthrum, into a modest retreat across the border into neighbouring Mercia. In the process, Alfred regained the stronghold of Chippenham, and a subsequent programme of fortress building managed to keep future Danish aggression at bay. These were tactics that would come to influence later Saxon leaders, including his children Edward the Elder and Æthelflæd, ‘Lady of the Mercians’.
Whether a different Wessex king could have achieved this success is up for scrutiny. Ryan Lavelle – professor of early medieval history at the University of Winchester and the author of Alfred’s Wars: Sources and Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the Viking Age (Boydell, 2010) – suggests that “perhaps Alfred had more drive than other rulers at this point in his life, but we don’t know if another ruler in the same position would have done better.”
“Perhaps he had skills as a negotiator. The peace in AD 871 was bought with money, and knowing when to purchase peace and how it could be negotiated was an important thing. Any ruler could buy peace if they had the wealth, but I suppose the thing here might be that Alfred knew it was a good time to do so in AD 871 and to regroup.”
In context: the aftermath of Edington
Seven years into his rule as king of Wessex, during which he suffered frequent Viking incursions, Alfred’s troops met the forces of the Danish leader Guthrum at the battle of Edington. His victory was highly significant, not least because Wessex was the only Saxon kingdom that hadn’t succumbed to Viking control. Furthermore, not only did it mark the beginning of Wessex’s heavy fortification, protecting Alfred’s subjects from future invasions, but it also fostered peaceful relations due to Alfred’s insistence that Guthrum’s Christian baptism be a key clause of the post-battle Treaty of Wedmore. Overall Scandinavian control of each and every Saxon kingdom had been averted.
That regrouping, during which time Alfred probably recruited more warriors, laid the foundations of the victory at Edington. Were he not so organised, Guthrum’s westward expansion may have met little resistance. Had the Danes taken control of all of Wessex, would there have been much opposition from the West Saxons or other Anglo-Saxons? Might they have organised to repel these interlopers?
“Some sort of national uprising would have been unlikely,” explains Professor Lavelle. “The English after 1066 didn’t manage this when there had been decades of nominally national rule, so I don’t think we can expect groups of people who weren’t bound in any political fashion to have managed it in the circumstances of Alfred having been hammered at the battle of Edington.”
Watch: Michael Wood on Alfred the Great's remarkable grandson, Æthelstan
View Green Video on the source website
Religious coexistence?
By the same token, a unified ‘Daneland’, whereby the regions under Danish control forged a federation or even a single state, was unlikely. “Although the Viking ‘Great Army’ is given a sense of unity by the West Saxons’ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was a diverse bunch with different leaders and different interests, so the possibility exists that the ‘heptarchy’ of pre-Viking England could have continued for much longer, with a patchwork of territories.”
“Different Viking leaders might have disposed of the puppet leaders they’d installed, but I don’t think they would have done it with the greater aim of creating some kind of ‘Daneland’. However, this possibility would have been in the minds of the West Saxons and the Mercians in AD 878.”
Even if a post-Edington control of Wessex by the Danes was unlikely to lead to the unification of various kingdoms, Viking culture would nonetheless have come to bear on the West Saxons. One clear cultural difference concerns religion, with the Scandinavians’ paganism seemingly at odds with the Christianity of the natives. Certainly the outlawing of the latter belief would have profoundly altered the course of English history.
But Professor Lavelle sees less conflict here than might be imagined. “Vikings very quickly adopted Christianity in the places in which they settled. It suited Danish rulers to cooperate with existing networks of Christian authority, and while some of the Vikings may have been explicit in their hostility to Christianity, the variety of gods worshipped by Scandinavian pagans at this time would have meant that there was room for Christ among those gods. Also, I suspect that the networks of trade on which many Vikings relied would have meant that absolute hostility to Christianity was off the cards.”
More from our alternate history series
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Other Viking cultural influences might have included how life subsequently looked. For instance, Professor Lavelle imagines “the building of Viking great halls in the downlands of the English countryside”. Indeed, with Alfred’s programme of fortress construction only taking effect post-Edington, “perhaps the shape of English towns would have looked different as a result”.
That said, the core purpose of human interaction and society would have survived, even between Dane and Saxon. “The needs of towns as places for people to gather, to exchange news, to trade and sometimes to worship would have been the same, and to be part of a network linked to the sea was also important during the early medieval period. We can surely expect the Vikings to have shared the same interests.”
Ryan Lavelle is the historical advisor for 878 AD, a visitor attraction in Winchester inspired by the story of King Alfred’s victory at Edington
This article was first published in the December 2022 edition of BBC History Revealed
]]> Alfred the Great: "He was an excellent king, but that's not the whole story" https://www.historyextra.com/membership/alfred-the-great-a-reappraisal/ Thu, 13 Jan 2022 11:08:16 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/alfred-the-great-a-reappraisal/ In the popular imagination, Alfred the Great is the man who single-handedly forged the English nation while saving it from the Vikings. But in the rush to acclaim an Anglo-Saxon superhero, are we whitewashing the truth? Max Adams investigates... Imagine the perfect Anglo-Saxon king. A man of intellect, a philosophical warrior-king who is devastating in battle yet magnanimous in victory. In the popular imagination, that man is King Alfred the Great. He shines like a beacon out of the ninth century: a kind of Anglo-Saxon superhero, who single-handedly defeated the Vikings and united England under his rule (871–99).
But there’s a problem: this sounds too good to be true. And as a historian, when something sounds too good to be true, I want to take a closer look.
Alfred is, of course, remembered as ‘the Great’. Yet despite what you might think, he was only given this epithet in the 16th century. Alfred suited the tastes of the time – as a scholar, philosopher and statesman he looked very much like a textbook Renaissance man. As one of the few early Christian English kings who wasn’t a Catholic saint, he could also be co-opted for Henry VIII’s Protestant cause – echoing back to a lost form of Christianity uncorrupted by papal influence. That may be total nonsense, but it suited Henry’s needs at the time.
How much do you know about Alfred the Great?
Barbara Yorke, professor emerita of early medieval history at the University of Winchester, brings you the facts about the Anglo-Saxon king– including the major events of his life, his accomplishments, his family, his death and his burial place... | Read more
A century later, Oliver Cromwell’s republicans were hailing Alfred as a man who promoted democracy through his council. This also wasn’t true, but it was a convenient rewrite. Fast-forward to the 18th century, and the Germanic Alfred was even handier to Britain’s Hanoverian kings. Later still, the Victorians – who were attracted by a narrative that advocated benign patriarchal influence – adopted him as the perfect avatar of the English imperial state.
Alfred has been reinterpreted for every age, but if we strip away all of these retrofitted myths, what remains?
Most of what we know about Alfred comes from his own pen, or from people he commissioned to write. Rather like Winston Churchill centuries later, Alfred managed to ensure history’s enduring affection by making sure that he wrote it himself. The most detailed source we have on his reign is the Life of King Alfred, written by the king’s own bishop, Asser, a Welshman and zealous convert to the Wessex cause. Alfred commissioned Asser to write his history during a brief period of peace in Wessex in around 890. Much of it is copied directly out of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, another manuscript Alfred was having compiled at the same time.
On the podcast: The Welsh churchman Asser is in large part responsible for how the early medieval king was viewed, and the fact that he eventually got the moniker ‘the Great’. SDr Robert Gallagher tells us about a new discovery he’s made about this monastic wordsmith
You wouldn’t expect Alfred to come out of these sources badly. Both texts are propagandist narratives from the Wessex court, so it’s a historian’s obligation to scrutinise more carefully what they tell us. And that scrutiny reveals some sizeable cracks in the heroic narrative that Alfred was trying to project about himself. I don’t want to lower Alfred in anyone’s estimation – he was an excellent king. But even if he was brilliant, that’s not the whole story.
Money talks
One of the most dispassionate sources we have on Alfred’s rule is coinage. Archaeologists trust coins because they tend not to lie about the reality of things. They carry all sorts of clues and hints about the state of affairs, and can reveal how realistic a king’s ideas of grandeur were.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Asser’s Life of King Alfred, Alfred was combatting the Viking threat alone. At the battle of Edington (fought in May AD 878), he reportedly crushed the Norse pretty much single-handedly. However, a set of coins called the ‘two emperors’ coinage series (one of which is pictured left) gives a different version of events. Minted in Wessex and Mercia, they show not one but two faces in profile. We see Alfred facing another king – Ceolwulf II of Mercia. Issued jointly by Alfred and Ceolwulf, the coins suggest that Wessex had a key ally in the king of Mercia, and that Alfred was far from the lone defender of England. Ceolwulf’s role has been demoted in other documentation – and we can’t be sure that he fought at Edington – but it seems he made a significant contribution to the resistance to the Vikings.
If you read between the lines of Alfred’s own sources, it also becomes apparent that he faced massive amounts of opposition – even rebellions – from within Wessex. This was partly due to the internal politics of the Wessex state. Alfred had four older brothers, all of whom died before him. Some of those brothers had sons who believed that they had a right to the Wessex throne, so there was a continual undercurrent of potential rebellion. One of Alfred’s key generals betrayed him, and in at least two cases, his brothers' sons sided with Vikings or other enemies in the north to try to overthrow him.
Asser also lets us into a few secrets that suggest Alfred’s policies triggered resentment among his people. He was running what we would now call an austerity government, and the rulers of those regimes don’t tend to be too popular. Asser admits that at times Alfred had to “chastise his nobles”. You can guess what that means: he did some strong-arm stuff (one rebel lord was stripped of his estates). In the decade after Alfred, Wessex was in desperate poverty, and some of the disloyalty shown by his nobles surely came down to the fact that they didn’t like him imposing a command-economy on countryside already devastated by raids. Taxes were an imposition that his subjects bitterly resented, and sometimes they must have thought that living under the Vikings would have been a better option.
A disunited kingdom
We’re often told that Alfred was the ‘founder of England’. If you look at a historical atlas of Anglo-Saxon Britain, as soon as Alfred arrives on the scene, you tend to see all the small kingdoms amalgamated into Wessex, and then England. But in reality that’s nonsense. If Alfred really was the founder of England, we should find his coins all over the place. But we don’t; they don’t go beyond Wessex. Alfred’s rule didn’t extend beyond the Thames. He couldn’t even build forts in Kent or Cornwall.
The British Isles were heavily regional at the time and the majority of people didn’t like the idea of a ‘united kingdom’. In fact, the concept of a ‘nation’ was pretty incongruous – it was really an imposition of the church, resented by the general population. Several ancient territories such as Hwicce (later known as Worcester) had strong regional identities that survived well into Alfred’s period and beyond. Mercia maintained at least three regional identities, none of which got on with one another.
Many other kingdoms and regions also regarded themselves as distinct and therefore actively disliked Alfred’s Wessex project. Northumbria didn’t like it, nor did Cornwall. The Welsh hated it and the Scots had nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, Kent regarded itself as superior to all other kingdoms, and East Anglia rejected Wessex coinage. Asser informs us that that Alfred introduced a system of burhs – a defence and administration network of 33 fortified towns. However, he also admits that, in order to pursue such state-building schemes, the king had to “persuade and cajole his people, who were unwilling to do these things”.
Centuries after Alfred’s time, early medieval Britain remained a highly regional hodge-podge of competing, sometimes incompatible interests. So this attempt to write a unification project over the whole of what we now call England just doesn’t wash. It really is a retrofitted idea that suited the interests of later kings. Alfred didn’t found England, and that wasn’t his ambition. He was content to be an overlord, meaning that those under him were obliged to fight in his wars and follow his political line. Other than that, he more or less left them alone.
Life beyond Wessex
Alfred was a leading figure in a successful dynasty, and it’s this dynastic success that is key. Just as his grandfather, father and brothers laid the foundations for his reign, Alfred left his descendants an idea about the professionalisation of kingship that they were hugely adept at building upon. It was his son, daughter and grandson who rolled out the Wessex state, spreading Alfred’s idea of statehood – supported by administrators, bureaucrats, coinage, efficiency and learning – across England.
In short, we should give Alfred the credit he deserves, but we should also acknowledge that his power was confined to a specific part of England. We need to remember what else was happening at this time – in Wales, Scotland and the huge swathes of England north of Watling Street (which ran from Dover to Wroxeter in Shropshire). These were places that we have little narrative history for in this period. A lack of sources mean it’s much more difficult to reconstruct what was going on in the five boroughs of the Vikings (Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, Lincoln and Stamford) in the ninth century than in Wessex.
There are, of course, many other significant figures from this period – it’s just that we don’t have as much documentation for them as we do for Alfred. One generation later, a kingdom was emerging in Wales under a brilliant man named Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good), who promulgated an enlightened law code. In Scotland, a king called Constantín mac Áeda ruled for well over 40 years and established a pretty sophisticated state. These are figures that we don’t learn about at school. It’s high time we understood what people other than Alfred were up to at the time because, between them, the Welsh, Scots, Norse and the Irish helped to create a British identity that would become one of the most powerful in Europe.
So, while we shouldn’t denigrate Alfred’s achievements, problems arise when we fall into the trap of assuming that he was the only leader worth our attention in the ninth century. He may have been an unusually gifted and talented man – perhaps even the right man in the right place at the right time – but he was also just one part of a much bigger and more complicated story.
**Max Adams is the author of Aelfred’s Britain: War and Peace in the Viking Age (Head of Zeus, 2017)
This article was first published in the Christmas 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine
]]> The man who made King Alfred great https://www.historyextra.com/membership/asser-biographer-king-alfred-great-podcast-robert-gallagher/ Mon, 15 Nov 2021 12:57:42 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/asser-biographer-king-alfred-great-podcast-robert-gallagher/ Robert Gallagher brings to light newly discovered evidence about Asser, the biographer of King Alfred As the author of the Life of King Alfred, the Welsh churchman Asser is in large part responsible for how the early medieval king was viewed, and the fact that he eventually got the moniker ‘the Great’. Speaking with our content director David Musgrove, Dr Robert Gallagher tells us about a new discovery he’s made about this monastic wordsmith.
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]]> Who was King Alfred the Great? https://www.historyextra.com/period/anglo-saxon/king-alfred-great-facts-life-death-famous-buried/ Tue, 26 Oct 2021 16:01:25 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/period/anglo-saxon/king-alfred-great-facts-life-death-famous-buried/ Alfred the Great is famous for his victories against the Vikings, and is the only English monarch known as 'the Great'. But how much do you know about him? Barbara Yorke, professor emerita of early medieval history at the University of Winchester, brings you the facts about the Anglo-Saxon king Everything you need to know about the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great (849–899), including facts about his life, accomplishments, his family, his death and his burial place...
Who was King Alfred?
Alfred was the fifth son of King Æthelwulf (839-58), ruler of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex – the area south of the river Thames. When he was born at Wantage in 849, it might have seemed unlikely that Alfred would ever become king, but in a period of increasing Viking attacks, his four brothers all died as young adults.
Alfred took over as king of Wessex in 871 (bypassing his nephew Aethelwold, son of the late king Aethelred) in the middle of a year of nine major battles between the West Saxons and Vikings, which the former were lucky to survive. Alfred was also tested in 878 when he was forced to retreat to the marshes of Athelney (Somerset), scene of some of the legendary stories about him, including the well-known burning of the cakes.
However, Alfred came back to win a decisive victory in the same year over his Viking opponent Guthrum at Edington (Wiltshire). There were further serious Viking attacks in the 890s, but by this time Alfred had made military improvements and was better able to resist them with the help of West Mercian [an Anglo-Saxon kingdom north of Wessex] and Welsh allies.
In 868 Alfred had married Ealhswith, a descendant of the Mercian royal house, probably as part of a long-term West Saxon plan to bring the royal houses of the two provinces closer together.
They had two sons and three daughters, who survived to adulthood. The middle daughter became abbess of Shaftesbury nunnery, one of two religious houses founded by Alfred. The other was at Athelney, perhaps in thanksgiving for his escape there from the Vikings.
The other two daughters entered into diplomatic marriages to the ruler of Mercia (this was Aethelflaed, who became the 'Lady of the Mercians') and the Count of Flanders. Little is known of Alfred’s ‘spare’, his second son, Æthelweard, but his heir, Edward the Elder, succeeded their father in 899, and continued the family success story.
Alfred is well known for his victories against the Vikings. What can you tell us about them?
Alfred’s priority was survival in the face of Viking attacks. There had been four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms at the time of Alfred’s birth, but before his death all but Wessex had been overrun by the Vikings, and their kings killed or exiled.
- Read more about Ragnar Lothbrok, the immortal Viking
Having survived by the skin of his teeth all-out Viking attacks in the 870s, when the other provinces fell, Alfred then enacted a series of military reforms to make Wessex less vulnerable in the future. Most important was a network of fortified and garrisoned sites that created ‘fortress Wessex’, which the Vikings were unable to penetrate to any great extent in the 890s.
Alfred also organised a rota of military service to make keeping forces in the field for any length of time more viable; the field army could respond quickly to a request for aid from a local garrison should the Vikings attack. The king also overhauled his naval forces, bringing in experienced Frisian sailors to help with his new designs for ships.What else is Alfred famous for?
There are many Anglo-Saxon kings who were great military commanders – what makes Alfred stand out is that he was also interested in learning, and in the promotion of English as a written language.
Here we can see the impact of the great religious and cultural movement from across the Channel, known as the Carolingian Renaissance, which had also much influenced his father. Alfred recruited Carolingian scholars [from what is now France and western Germany], as well as others from within Britain to act as his advisers on improving educational and religious standards in Wessex.
He himself studied key works with them, and these seem to have had a profound effect on his own understanding and concept of duty, which he felt others at his court should share. He assisted in the translation of some of these works from Latin into Old English, so that they could be more readily understood within his kingdom.
Alfred’s resistance to the Vikings required a major commitment from his subjects, and so he may well have been attracted to the Carolingian emphasis on obedience to the king as a religious duty, and perhaps also sought to reinforce an English, Christian identity in opposition to a Scandinavian, pagan one.
The title ‘King of the Anglo-Saxons’ was one he used towards the end of his reign, as he became increasingly influential beyond Wessex itself.
- Listen | Sam Willis and James Daybell take a sideways look at the Viking era, exploring how things like keys, butter and haircuts fit into their story
Why is King Alfred significant?
Military and intellectual activities were in themselves sufficient to have established Alfred’s reputation, but what really made him stand out to succeeding generations was the fact that his Welsh adviser Asser wrote a biography of the king in 893.
This work undoubtedly contains useful information about Alfred and his family, but it is also based on classical, Biblical and Carolingian ideals of kingship, which can cause a difficulty in distinguishing idealisation from fact.
It may be significant that Alfred is not known to have endorsed the work or ordered its circulation. It may not be how he thought of himself or how he wanted to be remembered.
But in the 19th century, when there was great interest in Anglo-Saxon origins of the English state and character, there were no such doubts. Alfred was “the most perfect man in history”, and the famous statue in Winchester was erected in 1901 as the climax to international celebrations of the millenary of his death.
In the December 2013 issue of BBC History Magazine, Alex Burghart asked whether we're guilty of overplaying Alfred's greatness. What do you think?
Alex Burghart was right to suggest that Alfred’s reputation is in danger of being exaggerated. As a result of being the only Anglo-Saxon king to have a contemporary biography, he has been sometimes handed the credit by later writers for everything of note that happened in the Anglo-Saxon period.
Alfred did not invent Anglo-Saxon law or the navy, though he did write laws and design ships. There was also an element of luck in his survival at the beginning of his reign, and in the fact that the Vikings were more interested in eastern England that was closer to their homelands.
- The truth about Viking berserkers
Mercian involvement was crucial to his success in defeating the Vikings in the 890s. But to a certain extent Alfred made his own ‘luck’, a quality much prized in Anglo-Saxon leaders, and the qualities of intellectual curiosity, inventiveness and an essential attention to detail come through in Asser’s account, for all its problems.
Alfred does seem to have been a rather exceptional ruler, but it seems to have been a case of the right person in the right place at the right time.
Where, when and how did King Alfred die, and who was he succeeded by?
Alfred died on 26 October 899. The exact circumstances and the place of his death are not known.
He was laid to rest at first in the cathedral in Winchester, the Old Minster, but his elder son and successor at once commissioned work on a bigger, grander church – the New Minster immediately to the cathedral’s north. It seems to have been intended as a burial place for the new dynasty of English kings founded by Alfred.
The bodies of Alfred and Ealhswith were transferred to New Minster, to be joined eventually by Edward himself and other members of the royal family. Edward continued and developed the policies of his father, and used the idea of garrisoned, fortified centres offensively against Viking-settled areas of eastern England.
By 920 he had extended his rule to the river Humber, and Edward’s own son Aethelstan (who reigned from 924–39) gained control of the rest of England to create the country more or less as we know it today.
What might we learn from the discovery of a piece of pelvic bone, most likely belonging to King Alfred or to his son, Edward?
In 1110 the monks of New Minster relocated to the suburb of Hyde in the north of Winchester, because of the cramped conditions in the centre, and took with them the bodies of Alfred, Edward and Ealhswith, which were laid in honoured positions in front of the High Altar.
It was thought that their bodies had been lost when the site was dug up for a prison in the late 18th century. In the 19th century an amateur historian claimed he had dug up their bones, but no one locally believed him, and it appears that he had in any case been digging in the wrong part of the site.
These bones were the ones buried in an unmarked grave in St Bartholmew’s graveyard in Hyde. Radio-carbon testing established once and for all that they were later medieval in date.
However, Dr Katie Tucker, the osteoarchaeologist from the University of Winchester who led investigations, checked whether there might be other human bones of interest from the previous excavations at Hyde Abbey.
Part of a male pelvis found near the High Altar produced a radio-carbon date centring on the 10th century, thus raising the possibility that it could be part of the body of either Alfred or his son, Edward. This leaves us with the exciting possibility that further remains of them might be recovered.
Asser provides no physical descriptions of either Alfred or Edward, so the thought that we might one day be able to rediscover their appearance and give them a proper reburial is an enticing prospect.
Barbara Yorke is professor emerita of early medieval history at the University of Winchester, from which she has recently retired after a long career. Her research interests lie with early medieval British history, with special interests in kingship, conversion, Wessex, women, religion and 19th-century Anglo-Saxonism
This article was first published by HistoryExtra in 2014
]]> What’s the oldest statue in London? https://www.historyextra.com/period/anglo-saxon/what-oldest-statue-london-alfred-great-where/ Thu, 12 Nov 2020 13:00:14 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/period/anglo-saxon/what-oldest-statue-london-alfred-great-where/ The oldest freestanding statue in London is thought to be of a certain mighty monarch who defeated the Vikings The oldest freestanding statue in London is thought to be of King Alfred the Great – the mighty monarch who defeated the Vikings.
It now resides in leafy Trinity Church Square, Southwark.
Most theories date the figure to the late 14th century, where it was one of a group of eight ordered by Richard II for Westminster Hall in 1395 – five of which were rather inconveniently lost by Sir John Soane whilst clearing the front in 1825.
- Michael Wood | "These ‘history wars’ over statues are really about something bigger: about different views of the past, and who controls it"
If, as some scholars claim, Alfred dates only to the 18th century, the crown goes to a round-faced, sweetly-smiling Queen Elizabeth I, erected outside St Dunstan-in-the-West on Fleet Street, which was removed from the City’s old Lud Gate in 1760. With ‘1586’ carved into the base, it is the only remaining statue of the Queen carved in her lifetime.
London does, however, have sculptures dating much further back. At the entrance to Sotheby’s auction house in New Bond Street, the Ancient Egyptian Sekhmet surveys all who enter.
Sold in the 1880s for £40 but never collected, the bust, carved in black basalt and depicting the goddess as a lioness, dates to around 1320 BC.
This article was answered by one of our Q&A experts, Sandra Lawrence.
This article was taken from BBC History Revealed magazine
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