Alfred the Great

Ælfrēd or Alfred the Great (849–26 October 899), king of Wessex from 871 to 899, was responsible for turning back the Danish invasion of Wessex and for promoting a revival of education, scholarship, law and administration. His translations of theological and philosophical works into Old English are sometimes said to have laid the foundations of English prose.

All quotations in Modern English are cited from Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge (trans.) Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983), to which page-numbers also refer.

• Þæt is nū hraðost to seċġenne þæt iċ wilnode weorðfullīċe to libbenne þā hwīle þe iċ lifde, and æfter mīnum līfe þām mannum tō lǣfanne þe æfter mē wǣren mīn ġemynd on gōdum weorcum.
  • In short, I wanted to live honorably as long as I lived, and leave behind, for the people who would come after me, the memory of me in good works.
    • In his translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, ch. 17, p. 133.

• Doom very evenly! Do not doom one doom to the rich; another to the poor! Nor doom one doom to your friend; another to your foe!
  • The Doom Book (c. 893 AD).

• He seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear.
  • Last words in Blostman [Blooms] (c. 895 AD) an anthology, based largely on the Soliloquies of Augustine of Hippo.

• Me com swiðe oft on gemynd, hwelce wiotan iu wæron giond Angelcynn, ægðer ge godcundra hada ge woruldcundra; ond hu gesæliglica tida ða wæron giond Angelcynn; ond hu ða kyningas ðe ðone onwald hæfdon ðæs folces Gode ond his ærendwrecum hiersumedon; ond hie ægðer ge hiora sibbe ge hiora siodu ge hiora onweald innanbordes gehioldon, ond eac ut hiora eðel rymdon; ond hu him ða speow ægðer ge mid wige ge mid wisdome; ond eac ða godcundan hadas, hu giorne hie wæron ægðer ge ymb lare ge ymb liornunga, ge ymb ealle ða ðiowotdomas ðe hie Gode don scoldon; ond hu man utanbordes wisdom ond lare hieder on lond sohte; ond hu we hie nu sceoldon ute begietan, gif we hie habban sceoldon.
  • Very often it has come to my mind what men of learning there were formerly throughout England, both in religious and secular orders; and how there were happy times then throughout England; and how the kings, who had authority over this people, obeyed God and his messengers; and how they not only maintained their peace, morality and authority at home but also extended their territory outside; and how they succeeded both in warfare and in wisdom; and also how eager were the religious orders both in teaching and in learning as well as in all the holy services which it was their duty to perform for God; and how people from abroad sought wisdom and instruction in this country; and how nowadays, if we wished to acquire these things, we would have to seek them outside.
  • p. 124.

• Geðenc hwelc witu us ða becomon for ðisse worulde, ða ða we hit nohwæðer ne selfe ne lufodon ne eac oðrum monnum ne lefdon!
  • Remember what punishments befell us in this world when we ourselves did not cherish learning nor transmit it to other men.
  • p. 125.

• Ða ic ða gemunde hu sio Lar Lædengeðiodes ær ðissum afeallen wæs giond Angelcynn, ond ðeah monige cuðon Englisc gewrit arædan, ða ongan ic on gemang oðrum mislicum ond manigfealdum bisgum ðisses kynerices ða boc on Englisc ðe is genemned on Læden Pastoralis, ond on Englisc "Hierdeboc", hwilum word be worde, hwilum andgit of andgite.
  • When I recalled how knowledge of Latin had previously decayed throughout England, and yet many could still read things written in English, I then began, amidst the various and multifarious afflictions of this kingdom, to translate into English the book which in Latin is called Pastoralis, in English "Shepherd-book", sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense.
  • p. 126

• ALFRED The Light of a Benighted Age
  Was a Philosopher and a Christian
  The Father of his People
  The Founder of the English
  MONARCHY and LIBERTY.
  • Anonymous dedication on King Alfred's Tower (1772).

• Cui ab incunabulis ante omnia et cum omnibus praesentis vitae studiis, sapientiae desiderium cum nobilitate generis, nobilis mentis ingenium supplevit.
  • From the cradle onwards, in spite of all the demands of the present life, it has been the desire for wisdom, more than anything else, together with the nobility of his birth, which have characterized the nature of his noble mind.
    • Asser, De Rebus Gestis Aelfredi, ch. 22; Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge (trans.) Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983) pp. 74-5.

• Englene derling.
  • England's darling.
    • The Proverbs of Alfred, st. 1; John Mitchell Kemble (ed.) The Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus (London: The Aelfric Society, 1848) p. 226.

• In the parts of Mercia acquired by Alfred, the shire system seems now to have been introduced for the first time. This is the one grain of truth in the legend that Alfred was the inventor of shires, hundreds and tithings. … The Celtic principality in Cornwall, which seems to have survived at least till 926, must long have been practically dependent on Wessex. … We come now to what is in many ways the most interesting of Alfred’s works, his translation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, the most popular philosophical manual of the middle ages. Here again Alfred deals very freely with his original and though the late Dr G. Schepss showed that many of the additions to the text are to be traced not to Alfred himself, but to the glosses and commentaries which he used, still there is much in the work which is solely Alfred’s and highly characteristic of his genius. It is in the Boethius that the oft-quoted sentence occurs: “My will was to live worthily as long as I lived, and after my life to leave to them that should come after, my memory in good works.” … The last of Alfred’s works is one to which he gave the title Blostman, i.e. “Blooms” or Anthology. The first half is based mainly on the Soliloquies of St Augustine, the remainder is drawn from various sources, and contains much that is Alfred’s own and highly characteristic of him. The last words of it may be quoted; they form a fitting epitaph for the noblest of English kings. “Therefore he seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear.” … How Alfred passed to “the life where all things are made clear” we do not know. The very year is uncertain. The arguments on the whole are in favour of 900. The day was the 26th of October. Alike for what he did and for what he was, there is none to equal Alfred in the whole line of English sovereigns; and no monarch in history ever deserved more truly the epithet of Great.
  • "Alfred the Great" in the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911), Volume 1

• Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
  His days as our days ran,
  He also looked forth for an hour
  On peopled plains and skies that lower,
  From those few windows in the tower
  That is the head of a man.
  • G. K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse (1911), Dedication.

• Lady, by one light only
  We look from Alfred's eyes,
  We know he saw athwart the wreck
  The sign that hangs about your neck,
  Where One more than Melchizedek
  Is dead and never dies.
  • G. K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse (1911), Dedication.

• By the yawning tree in the twilight
  The King unbound his sword,
  Severed the harp of all his goods,
  And there in the cool and soundless woods
  Sounded a single chord.

  Then laughed; and watched the finches flash,
  The sullen flies in swarm,
  And went unarmed over the hills,
  With the harp upon his arm...

  • G. K. Chesterton, describing Alfred going incognito about England as a harpist, in The Ballad of the White Horse (1911), Book III : The Harp of Alfred.

• When Alfred's word was ended
  Stood firm that feeble line,
  Each in his place with club or spear,
  And fury deeper than deep fear,
  And smiles as sour as brine.
  • G. K. Chesterton, describing Alfred rallying his men for a final charge after apparent defeat in The Ballad of the White Horse (1911), Book VII : Ethandune: The Last Charge; (an account of the Battle of Ethandun).

• "The high tide!" King Alfred cried.
  "The high tide and the turn!
  As a tide turns on the tall grey seas,
  See how they waver in the trees,
  How stray their spears, how knock their knees,
  How wild their watchfires burn!
  • G. K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse (1911), Book VII : Ethandune: The Last Charge.

• For dire was Alfred in his hour
  The pale scribe witnesseth,
  More mighty in defeat was he
  Than all men else in victory,
  And behind, his men came murderously,
  Dry-throated, drinking death.
  • G. K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse (1911), Book VII : Ethandune: The Last Charge.

• We discern across the centuries a commanding and versatile intelligence, wielding with equal force the sword of war and of justice; using in defence arms and policy; cherishing religion, learning, and art in the midst of adversity and danger; welding together a nation, and seeking always across the feuds and hatreds of the age a peace which would smile upon the land.
  • Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Vol. 1: The Birth of Britain (1956), p. 122.

• No other man on record has ever so thoroughly united all the virtues both of the ruler and of the private man. In no other man on record were so many virtues disfigured by so little alloy. A saint without superstition, a scholar without ostentation, a warrior all whose wars were fought in the defence of his country, a conqueror whose laurels were never stained by cruelty, a prince never cast down by adversity, never lifted up to insolence in the day of triumph – there is no other name in history to compare with his.
  • Edward A. Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England (1867-76) Vol. 1, pp. 51-2.

• I could see how "democracy" might do very well in a society of saints and sages led by an Alfred or an Antoninus Pius. Short of that, I was unable to see how it could come to anything but an ochlocracy of mass-men led by a sagacious knave.
  • Albert Jay Nock, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943).

• His unique importance in the history of English letters comes from his conviction that a life without knowledge or reflection was unworthy of respect, and his determination to bring the thought of the past within the range of his subjects' understanding. The translations of ancient books by which he tried to reach this end form the beginning of English prose literature.
  • Sir Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (1943),1975 edition, pp. 269-70.

• It grounds secular law upon Scripture, especially upon the principle of mercy. Alfred thus located his law code in a biblical lineage. His historical anthology of legal texts explains that the nature of Christian law is a system of justice in which mercy subsists.
  • Michael Treschow, on Alfred's Prologue to his Doom Book in "The Prologue to Alfred’s Law Code: Instruction in the Spirit of Mercy", in Florilegium 13, (1994) p. 82.

• King Alfred's Preface to his translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care
• Medieval Sourcebook: The Anglo-Saxon Dooms, 560-975, with a partial translation of the Dooms of Alfred
• Ancient Laws and Institutes of England : Comprising Laws Enacted Under the Anglo-Saxon Kings from Æthelbirht to Cnut (1840) Vol. II printed by G. E. Eyre and A. Spottiswoode, printers to the Queen 's Most Excellent Majesty
• VI. Alfred and the Old English Prose of his Reign. § 4. Codes of Law
• Laws of Alfred and Ine (Original with preface, without translation)