Alfred the Great

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great (also Ælfred, from Old English Ælfrēd; * 848 or 849 in Wantage , Oxfordshire ; † October 26, 899 ) was King of the West Saxons ( Wessex ) from 871 and of the Anglo-Saxons from around 886 . He was the youngest of the five sons of the late 858 West Saxon King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburga. Its special significance for English history lies in the fact that, after successfully defending against the Vikings, it laid the foundations for the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms under the hegemony of Wessex and promoted the Old English language and literature.

Life

Early years

King Alfred on a coin minted around 880

Alfred was sent to Rome at a young age , where , according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , he was "anointed king" by Pope Leo IV . This was understood (in the Victorian era at the latest ) as the anticipatory coronation to become King of Wessex. Leo could not have foreseen this coronation, however, as Alfred still had three older brothers alive at the time. A corresponding letter from Leo shows that Alfred was appointed consul , which was later misunderstood (deliberate or not) as a royal investiture .

During the reign of his oldest brothers Æthelbald and Æthelberht , Alfred did not appear, at least the sources do not report anything about it, which is not unusual in the context of early medieval historiography. This changed when Æthelred I ascended the throne. Alfred rose to the position of secundarius , which may have made him a kind of co-regent. An agreement that was probably also requested by the Witan , the council of the great.

Viking attack and the beginning of Alfred's reign

Politically, the situation in England came to a head when Danish Vikings invaded Anglo-Saxon territory in 866 . The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells of a great army of the Vikings, whose most important leader was Ivarr , a hero of Scandinavian saga literature. In fact, the attacking Danes appear to have outnumbered the Anglo-Saxon troops, or at least they posed a serious threat and considerably destabilized the political situation in England. In 868 Alfred tried together with his brother Æthelred to keep the invading Vikings out of Mercia , but failed. In 870/71 the Danes turned to Wessex, the last still intact Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Now followed “Alfred's Year of Battles”: five times there was a fight, three times the Anglo-Saxons were defeated, for example at the siege of Reading . Although the West Saxons won the battles at Englefield and Ashdown , they could not bring about a decision in their favor.

In April 871, Æthelred probably died of an injury sustained at the Battle of Merton. Thereupon Alfred ascended the throne himself, although Æthelred had two sons, but they were considered too young for this office - especially at this critical time. The Viking attacks continued unabated, the Danes advanced into the heartland of Wessex, but then withdrew. Presumably they were satisfied with the outcome of the campaign, because Alfred had not been able to cause them defeat until then.

The following years seem to have brought Wessex to the brink of abyss, while the Danes ruled the other Anglo-Saxon empires. There were always fights in which Alfred allegedly narrowly escaped capture himself. He eventually had to flee to Athelney , where he raised a new army and gathered troops. In 878 he went on the attack and was able to inflict a serious defeat on the Danes at Edington (Wiltshire) . His defeated opponent King Guthrum was then baptized and retired to his kingdom of East Anglia . At least for Wessex, the great period of crisis was over.

Securing rule

There were no further attacks by the Vikings until 892, which gave Alfred time to protect his country with a series of fortresses and thus counteract new attacks by the Vikings. The Burghal Hidage , a document that was created around 910, shows that he had at least 30 places in Wessex fortified. This included prehistoric ramparts and settlements that emerged from old Roman camps as well as cities and towns that emerged later. These (newly) fortified places were financed by hoof taxes and manned by farmers. Henceforth there were two different troops in Wessex: the crews of the permanently manned fortresses and the Fyrd , the contingent of free subjects called up in case of war.

Through his military presence and a clever marriage policy , he extended his influence far into the other English kingdoms. In 886 he moved into London and installed his son-in-law Æthelred as governor there. The empires outside of the Danelag now recognized Alfred as their supreme king, which gave him an undisputed primacy. Taking advantage of this position, he tried around 886 to extend his influence to the Danelag, ruled by King Guthrum, by declaring himself the patron of all Englishmen. In this way he finally succeeded in dividing the Danelag or the former Kingdom of Mercia into a Danish and an "English" part. This created the basis for the unification of all those countries that make up England today. This was realized by his successors, with which the - sometimes so-called - "First Viking Age" came to an end in the areas that make up England today.

Previously, what had been achieved had been called into question again by the Viking attacks that began again since 892. A navy created by Alfred could not stop these attacks at first, which plunged his empire into a short-term economic and military crisis. Ultimately, however, an army of the kingdoms united under his leadership defeated the Vikings.

Cultural promotion

Following the example of Charlemagne , Alfred founded numerous monasteries . By creating new schools, he promoted the cultural and intellectual life of his empire. At the age of 36 he learned Latin himself and invited numerous scholars from the Frankish Empire to come to England; he himself translated Boethius ' Consolation of Philosophy . The Franconian and Anglo-Saxon lawyers began writing common law under his rule in a set of laws called the Domboc .

Death and aftermath

High medieval depiction of Alfred the Great

Alfred was only called "the great" during the Reformation in the 16th century. He is the only king in English history to have received this nickname. He was never officially canonized, but many people soon venerated him, and a cult of saints, which has been handed down to this day, arose around his burial place in Swithun Cathedral , since 1110 in the Benedictine monastery of Hyde Abbey in Hyde Head . The Benedictine monastery was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536. In 1788 prisoners built a prison here and came across a royal coffin, the contents of which they looted and the bones of which they threw away. Between 1995 and 1998, a local group of archaeologists excavated near the former high altar and discovered bones that came into the Winchester Museum . C14 examinations on these showed that a third of a pelvic bone found could be dated between 895 and 1017. Anthropological research showed that the person concerned was male and between 26 and 45 years old. Since no burials from the Angel-Saxon period are known in this area , it is assumed that the remains of the pelvis found are a bone of Alfred the Great or his son.

Alfred is one of the few Anglo-Saxon kings for whom at least a fragmentary contemporary biography exists: the only manuscript of the life of Alfred survived until 1731. The biographer was a Welshman named Asser , whose text is clearly based on Einhard's biography of Charlemagne.

A memorial plaque was placed in the Walhalla near Regensburg . In addition, Mount Alfred , a mountain in the Antarctic, bears his name.

family

The table of the times and descent of the English kings from Alfred the Great to William the Conqueror
Statue of Alfred in Wantage
  • Wife: Ealhswith (* around 852, † in Winchester December 5, 902), daughter Æthelred von Gainas and his wife Eadburg
  • Children:

See also House of Wessex and Family Tree of English Kings .

reception

Movie and TV

Fiction

Poetry

swell

The two most important sources on Alfred's life are Asser's biography and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle . Added to this are, among other things, his code of law and Alfred's own writings (the translations he made).

  • Simon Keynes, Michael Lapidge: Asser's Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources. London u. a. 1983. [Collection of the most important sources in English translation]
  • Dorothy Whitelock (Ed.): English Historical Documents. Volume 1. London 1955 (2nd edition 1979).

literature

  • Richard Abels : Alfred the Great. War, Culture and Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (The Medieval World). Longman, London 1998. [excellent biographical representation]
  • Nicole Guenther Discenza, Paul E. Szarmach (Eds.): A Companion to Alfred the Great. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2015, ISBN 978-90-04-27484-6 .
  • Timothy Reuter (Ed.): Alfred the Great. Ashgate, Aldershot 2003. [Collection of scientific articles on important individual topics]
  • C. Patrick Wormald: Alfred (848 / 9-899). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 1 (2004), pp. 716-725. [with further literature]
  • C. Patrick Wormald, PE Szarmach: Alfred the Great . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 1, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7608-8901-8 , column 409 f.

Web links

Commons : Alfred the Great  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Alfred the Great  - Quotes

Remarks

  1. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 853 (Manuscript C). Chronicle information is based on Dorothy Whitelock (Ed.): English Historical Documents. Volume 1. London 1955 (see there for the various manuscripts of the Chronicle).
  2. ↑ Janet Bately: King Alfred and the Old English Translation of Orosius. In: Anglia, 88, pp. 433-460 (1970); also: 'Those books that are most necessary for all men to know.' The Classics and late ninth-century England: a reappraisal. In: The Classics in the Middle Ages. Edited by Aldo S. Bernardo, Saul Levin (1990), pp. 45-78.
  3. ↑ Michael Holden: Rediscovered pelvis traced to King Alfred the Great ... or his son. NBC News as received from Reuters January 17, 2014, archived from the original on January 18, 2014 ; accessed on January 18, 2014 .
predecessor Office successor
Æthelred I. King of Wessex
871-899 		Edward the Elder
Æthelred I. Bretwalda
871-899 		replaced by " King of England "
The rulers of the individual
kingdoms of the heptarchy 		King of England
886–899 		Edward the Elder
personal data
SURNAME Alfred the Great
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of the West Saxons (Wessex)
DATE OF BIRTH 848 or 849
PLACE OF BIRTH Wantage (Berkshire)
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 899