18. How Does the King Learn About the Wilks Family?
Everything you need to know about the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Bully (849–899), including facts about his life, accomplishments, his family, his death and his burying place…
Who was Male monarch Alfred?
Alfred was the 5th son of Rex Æthelwulf (839-58), ruler of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex – the area south of the river Thames. When he was built-in at Wantage in 849, it might have seemed unlikely that Alfred would e'er get king, merely in a period of increasing Viking attacks, his 4 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 9 major battles between the Westward 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 near him, including the well-known burning of the cakes.
Notwithstanding, Alfred came back to win a decisive victory in the same year over his Viking opponent Guthrum at Edington (Wiltshire). In that location were further serious Viking attacks in the 890s, but past this fourth dimension Alfred had fabricated military machine improvements and was better able to resist them with the aid of West Mercian [an Anglo-Saxon kingdom n of Wessex] and Welsh allies.
In 868 Alfred had married Ealhswith, a descendant of the Mercian imperial house, probably equally part of a long-term West Saxon program to bring the royal houses of the two provinces closer together.
They had two sons and three daughters, who survived to machismo. The heart girl became abbess of Shaftesbury nunnery, 1 of two religious houses founded by Alfred. The other was at Athelney, perhaps in thanksgiving for his escape in that location 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 Flemish region. Piffling is known of Alfred's 'spare', his 2d son, Æthelweard, but his heir, Edward the Elder, succeeded their father in 899, and continued the family unit success story.
Alfred is well known for his victories against the Vikings. What tin you lot tell us nearly them?
Alfred'southward priority was survival in the face up of Viking attacks. There had been four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms at the time of Alfred'due south nascence, but earlier his death all but Wessex had been overrun by the Vikings, and their kings killed or exiled.
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Having survived by the skin of his teeth all-out Viking attacks in the 870s, when the other provinces fell, Alfred so enacted a series of military reforms to make Wessex less vulnerable in the future. Most of import was a network of fortified and garrisoned sites that created 'fortress Wessex', which the Vikings were unable to penetrate to whatever great extent in the 890s.
Alfred also organised a rota of military service to make keeping forces in the field for whatever length of time more viable; the field ground forces could answer quickly to a request for aid from a local garrison should the Vikings attack. The rex too overhauled his naval forces, bringing in experienced Frisian sailors to help with his new designs for ships.What else is Alfred famous for?
At that place are many Anglo-Saxon kings who were keen military commanders – what makes Alfred stand up out is that he was as well interested in learning, and in the promotion of English as a written linguistic communication.
Here we tin see the impact of the swell religious and cultural movement from beyond the Aqueduct, known as the Carolingian Renaissance, which had also much influenced his father. Alfred recruited Carolingian scholars [from what is at present French republic and western Germany], also as others from within Britain to act equally his advisers on improving educational and religious standards in Wessex.
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He himself studied cardinal works with them, and these seem to take 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 exist more than readily understood within his kingdom.
Alfred's resistance to the Vikings required a major commitment from his subjects, so he may well have been attracted to the Carolingian emphasis on obedience to the rex every bit a religious duty, and perhaps as well sought to reinforce an English language, Christian identity in opposition to a Scandinavian, pagan one.
The championship 'Male monarch of the Anglo-Saxons' was one he used towards the stop of his reign, as he became increasingly influential beyond Wessex itself.
Why is Rex Alfred meaning?
Military machine and intellectual activities were in themselves sufficient to accept established Alfred's reputation, only 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 piece of work undoubtedly contains useful information virtually Alfred and his family, simply it is also based on classical, Biblical and Carolingian ethics of kingship, which tin crusade 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, in that location were no such doubts. Alfred was "the about perfect human being in history", and the famous statue in Winchester was erected in 1901 every bit the climax to international celebrations of the millenary of his decease.
In the December 2013 issue of BBC History Magazine, Alex Burghart asked whether nosotros're guilty of overplaying Alfred's greatness. What do y'all call back?
Alex Burghart was correct to suggest that Alfred'due south reputation is in danger of existence exaggerated. Equally a result of being the only Anglo-Saxon male monarch to have a gimmicky biography, he has been sometimes handed the credit by after writers for everything of notation that happened in the Anglo-Saxon period.
Alfred did non invent Anglo-Saxon law or the navy, though he did write laws and design ships. At that place was also an element of luck in his survival at the outset of his reign, and in the fact that the Vikings were more interested in eastern England that was closer to their homelands.
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Mercian interest 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'south account, for all its problems.
Alfred does seem to have been a rather infrequent ruler, but it seems to take been a case of the right person in the correct place at the correct time.
Where, when and how did Rex Alfred dice, and who was he succeeded by?
Alfred died on 26 October 899. The exact circumstances and the identify of his death are not known.
He was laid to rest at first in the cathedral in Winchester, the Old Minster, merely his elderberry son and successor at once deputed work on a bigger, grander church – the New Minster immediately to the cathedral's north. Information technology seems to have been intended as a burial identify 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 past Edward himself and other members of the imperial family. Edward continued and developed the policies of his father, and used the thought of garrisoned, fortified centres offensively against Viking-settled areas of eastern England.
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By 920 he had extended his dominion to the river Humber, and Edward'southward own son Aethelstan (who reigned from 924–39) gained command of the rest of England to create the country more than or less as we know it today.
What might nosotros 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 northward of Winchester, because of the cramped conditions in the heart, and took with them the bodies of Alfred, Edward and Ealhswith, which were laid in honoured positions in forepart of the High Altar.
It was thought that their bodies had been lost when the site was dug up for a prison in the belatedly 18th century. In the 19th century an apprentice historian claimed he had dug up their basic, simply no one locally believed him, and it appears that he had in any instance been earthworks in the wrong part of the site.
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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 in that location might be other man basic of involvement from the previous excavations at Hyde Abbey.
Part of a male pelvis establish near the High Altar produced a radio-carbon engagement centring on the 10th century, thus raising the possibility that it could be role of the torso 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 concrete 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 Academy 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, organized religion and 19th-century Anglo-Saxonism
This article was first published past HistoryExtra in 2014
Source: https://www.historyextra.com/period/anglo-saxon/king-alfred-great-facts-life-death-famous-buried/
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