Alfred the Great was king of Wessex from 871 to
899, and was successful in defending his kingdom
from Danish invaders and even in expanding his
holdings at the expense of the Danes. But beyond
preserving an independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom,
Alfred was also responsible for an OLD ENGLISH
cultural renaissance through his support of learning, and, more specifically, through his own English translations of important Latin texts.
Alfred was born in Wantage in Oxfordshire, the
youngest son of Wessex king Æthelwulf. His young
adult life, from 865 onwards, was spent constantly
embattled by Viking armies. Upon the death of his
brother Æthelred in 871, Alfred ascended to the
throne. When the Danish chieftain Guthrum invaded Wessex in 878, Alfred was forced to flee to
the Athelney marshes in Somerset. One of Alfred’s
most remarkable accomplishments was being able
to rebound from this low point. Within seven
weeks he had raised enough of a force to defeat
Guthrum decisively at the Battle of Eddington. He
subsequently forced Guthrum to accept Christian
baptism and to agree to withdraw all his forces
from Wessex into East Anglia and Mercia. An official boundary, called Danelaw, was eventually recognized between the Danish and English forces by
a treaty in 886. But in 892, a new army of Danes invaded England, and Alfred spent four years fighting them off. He was successful partly because of
his institution of the first English navy, and partly
because of his establishment of permanent fortifications around his territory. Finally, in 896, a temporary peace was achieved.
Alfred, however, was not content with merely
preserving his country. He also wanted to restore
it to the heights it had achieved prior to the
Viking invasions. He gave the country its first new
law code in a century, basing his system on Mosaic law and on previous codes of Wessex, Mercia,
and Kent. The law code emphasized protection
for the weak, loyalty to one’s lord, and restraint
of blood-feuds. He also wanted to restore the
churches of England to their former glory, and
he established a nunnery at Shaftesbury (where
his daughter was to become prioress) and a
monastery at Athelney. Ambitious, as well, to
make his new monastery a true center of learning to help revive letters in his kingdom, Alfred
imported scholars from other parts of Europe—
from Gaul, Saxony, and Wales. One of the first
tasks he set these scholars was the education of
the royal household, including the king himself,
who began studying Latin in 887.
Alfred’s contributions to English literature take
the form largely of translations. He believed that
the reeducation of his people must begin with
books in the vernacular. In addition to encouraging other scholars to translate Latin texts into English—he clearly was behind the translation of
BEDE’s Ecclesiastical History into English—Alfred
made several translations of his own, beginning
with his rendition of GREGORY THE GREAT’s Cura
pastoralis (Pastoral care). This text, a manual for
the spiritual education of the clergy, contained a
preface composed by Alfred decrying the decay of
English scholarship and expressing his determination to improve that situation. He sent a copy of
his translation to every bishop in his kingdom.
Later, he translated Historia adversus pagonos by
Paulus Orosius. This text, a history of the world
structured as a series of annals, was expanded by
Alfred with up-to-date accounts drawn from contemporary voyages into the far north by Wulstan
and by the Norwegian Ohthere. It is possible that
the structure of this history influenced the
ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLES, which were begun
during Alfred’s reign, and certainly with his encouragement. Alfred’s final literary effort was
probably a loose translation of Saint AUGUSTINE’s
Soliloquia (Soliloquies), a kind of commonplace
book with quotations about mortality, and a
number of everyday examples added by Alfred
himself.
Alfred’s best-known translation is of BOETHIUS’s
CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY, that vastly popular
argument for the uses of adversity in human life.
Here and in all of his translations, Alfred used a
style of “idiomatic translation,” by which he tried
to render the sense of his source into idiomatic and
vivid English, rather than aiming for a word-forword imitation of his original.
Much of our knowledge of Alfred’s life is contained in De rebus gestis Aelfredi Magni (Life of Alfred the Great), a contemporary account by the
Welsh monk John Asser, one of the scholars Alfred
had brought to Wessex. The biography’s objectiv-
16 Alfred the Great
ity is questionable, effusive as it is in its praise of
Alfred, but it would have been difficult not to
praise him. An effective and inspirational war
leader, as well as a builder, a lawgiver, a supporter
of education and the arts and a scholar himself, Alfred is the only English monarch ever given the
title “Great.”
Bibliography
Abels, Richard Philip. Alfred the Great: War, Kingship,
and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. Harlow,
U.K.: Longman, 1998.
Asser, John. The Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great:
A Translation and Commentary on the Text Attributed to Asser. Edited and translated by Alfred P.
Smyth. Houndmills, Hampshire, U.K.: 2002.
Duckett, Eleanor Shipley. Alfred the Great and His England. London: Collins, 1957.
Sturdy, David. Alfred the Great. London: Constable,
1995.