Other Events and Attributes:

• Nickname: The Great
• Appointments / Titles: Between 23 Apr 871 and 26 Oct 899; King of Wessex

Notes:

Alfred the Great

King of Wessex
Reign 23 April 871 – 26 October 899
Predecessor Æthelred
Successor Edward the Elder
Born 849 Wantage, then in Berkshire, now Oxfordshire
Died 26 October 899 (around 50) Winchester
Burial c. 1100 Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire, now lost
Spouse Ealhswith
Issue
Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians
Edward, King of Wessex
Æthelgifu, abbess of Shaftesbury
Æthelweard of Wessex
Ælfthryth, Countess of Flanders
Full name
Ælfred of Wessex
House Wessex
Father Æthelwulf, King of Wessex
Mother Osburh

Alfred the Great
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alfred the Great (Old English: Ælfrēd[a], Ælfrǣd[b], "elf counsel" or "wise elf"; 849 – 26 October 899) was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.

Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking
attempt at conquest, and by the time of his death had become
the dominant ruler in England.[1] He is one of only two
English monarchs to be given the epithet "the Great", the
other being the Scandinavian Cnut the Great. He was also the
first King of the West Saxons to style himself "King of the
Anglo-Saxons". Details of Alfred's life are described in a
work by the 10th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser.
Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a
gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education,
proposing that primary education be taught in English, and
improved his kingdom's legal system, military structure and
his people's quality of life. In 2002 Alfred was ranked
number 14 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

Childhood
Alfred was born in the village of Wanating, now Wantage, historically in Berkshire but now in Oxfordshire. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex by his first wife, Osburh.[c]

In 853, at the age of four, Alfred is reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have been sent to Rome where he
was confirmed by Pope Leo IV, who "anointed him as king".[3] Victorian writers later interpreted this as an
anticipatory coronation in preparation for his eventual succession to the throne of Wessex. This is unlikely; his
succession could not have been foreseen at the time as Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Leo IV
shows that Alfred was made a "consul"; a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could
explain later confusion.[4] It may also be based on Alfred's later having accompanied his father on a pilgrimage
to Rome where he spent some time at the court of Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, around 854–855.
On their return from Rome in 856 Æthelwulf was deposed by his son Æthelbald. With civil war looming the
magnates of the realm met in council to hammer out a compromise. Æthelbald would retain the western shires
(i.e. historical Wessex), and Æthelwulf would rule in the east. When King Æthelwulf died in 858 Wessex was
ruled by three of Alfred's brothers in succession: Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred.[5]

Bishop Asser tells the story of how as a child Alfred won as a prize a book of Saxon poems, offered by his
mother to the first of her children able to memorize it.[6] Legend also has it that the young Alfred spent time in
Ireland seeking healing. Alfred was troubled by health problems throughout his life. It is thought that he may
have suffered from Crohn's disease.[7] Statues of Alfred in Winchester and Wantage portray him as a great
warrior. Evidence suggests he was not physically strong and, though not lacking in courage, he was noted more
for his intellect than as a warlike character.[8]
Reigns of Alfred's brothers
During the short reigns of the older two of his three elder brothers, Æthelbald of Wessex and Æthelberht of
Wessex, Alfred is not mentioned. An army of Danes which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described as the Great
Heathen Army had landed in East Anglia with the intent of conquering the four kingdoms that constituted
Anglo-Saxon England in 865.[9] It was with the backdrop of a rampaging Viking army that Alfred's public life
began with the accession of his third brother, the 18 year old King Æthelred of Wessex, in 865 when Alfred was
16.
During this period Bishop Asser applied to Alfred the unique title of "secundarius", which may indicate a
position akin to that of the Celtic "tanist", a recognised successor closely associated with the reigning monarch.
This arrangement may have been sanctioned by Alfred's father, or by the Witan, to guard against the danger of
a disputed succession should Æthelred fall in battle. The arrangement of crowning a successor as royal prince
and military commander is well known among other Germanic tribes, such as the Swedes and Franks, to whom
the Anglo-Saxons were closely related.
Fighting the Viking invasion
A map of the route taken by the
Viking Great Heathen Army that
arrived in England from Denmark,
Norway and southern Sweden in 865.
In 868 Alfred is recorded as fighting beside Æthelred in an unsuccessful
attempt to keep the Great Heathen Army, led by Ivar the Boneless, out
of the adjoining Kingdom of Mercia.[10] At the end of 870 the Danes
arrived in his homeland. The year which followed has been called
"Alfred's year of battles". Nine engagements were fought with varying
outcomes, though the places and dates of two of these battles have not
been recorded.
In Berkshire a successful skirmish at the Battle of Englefield on 31
December 870 was followed by a severe defeat at the siege and Battle
of Reading by Ivar's brother Halfdan Ragnarsson on 5 January 871.
Four days later the Anglo-Saxons won a brilliant victory at the Battle of
Ashdown on the Berkshire Downs, possibly near Compton or Aldworth.
Alfred is particularly credited with the success of this last battle.[11]
Later that month, on 22 January, the Saxons were defeated at the Battle
of Basing. They were defeated again on 22 March at the Battle of
Merton (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire or Martin in Dorset).[11] Æthelred
died shortly afterwards on 23 April.
King at war
Early struggles, defeat and flight
In April 871 King Æthelred died and Alfred succeeded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence,
even though Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. This was in accordance with the
agreement that Æthelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at "Swinbeorg". The brothers
had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King Æthelwulf
had left jointly to his sons in his will. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches
their father had settled upon them, and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated
premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the ongoing Danish invasion, and the youth of his
nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested.
While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the Saxon army in his
absence at an unnamed spot, and then again in his presence at Wilton in May.[11] The defeat at Wilton smashed
any remaining hope that Alfred could drive the invaders from his kingdom. He was forced instead to make
peace with them, according to sources that do not tell what the terms of the peace were. Bishop Asser claimed
that the pagans agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise.[12]
Indeed, the Viking army did withdraw from Reading in the autumn of 871 to take up winter quarters in Mercian
London. Although not mentioned by Asser, or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably also paid the
Vikings cash to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year.[12] Hoards dating to the Viking
occupation of London in 871/2 have been excavated at Croydon, Gravesend, and Waterloo Bridge. These finds
hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings. For the next five years the Danes occupied other
parts of England.[13]
In 876 under their new leader, Guthrum, the Danes slipped past the Saxon army and attacked and occupied
Wareham in Dorset. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault.[11] Accordingly he
negotiated a peace which involved an exchange of hostages and oaths, which the Danes swore on a "holy
ring"[14] associated with the worship of Thor.[15] The Danes broke their word and, after killing all the hostages,
slipped away under cover of night to Exeter in Devon.[16]
A Victorian portrayal of the
12th-century legend of
Alfred burning the cakes
King Alfred's Tower (1772) on the
supposed site of "Egbert's Stone", the
mustering place before the Battle of
Edington.[d]
Alfred blockaded the Viking ships in Devon and, with a relief fleet having been
scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. The Danes withdrew to
Mercia. In January 878 the Danes made a sudden attack on Chippenham, a
royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas, "and most of
the people they killed, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made
his way by wood and swamp, and after Easter he made a fort at Athelney in the
marshes of Somerset, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe."[17] From
his fort at Athelney, an island in the marshes near North Petherton, Alfred was
able to mount an effective resistance movement, rallying the local militias from
Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire.[11]
A legend, originating from 12th century chronicles,[2] tells how when he first
fled to the Somerset Levels, Alfred was given shelter by a peasant woman who,
unaware of his identity, left him to watch some wheaten cakes she had left
cooking on the fire. Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom Alfred
accidentally let the cakes burn and was roundly scolded by the woman upon her return.
878 was the low-water mark in the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. With all the other kingdoms having
fallen to the Vikings Wessex alone was still resisting.[18]
Counter-attack and victory
In the seventh week after Easter (4–10 May 878), around Whitsuntide,
Alfred rode to Egbert's Stone east of Selwood where he was met by "all
the people of Somerset and of Wiltshire and of that part of Hampshire
which is on this side of the sea (that is, west of Southampton Water),
and they rejoiced to see him".[17] Alfred's emergence from his
marshland stronghold was part of a carefully planned offensive that
entailed raising the fyrds of three shires. This meant not only that the
king had retained the loyalty of ealdormen, royal reeves and king's
thegns, who were charged with levying and leading these forces, but
that they had maintained their positions of authority in these localities
well enough to answer his summons to war. Alfred's actions also
suggest a system of scouts and messengers.[19]
Alfred won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Edington which
may have been fought near Westbury, Wiltshire.[11] He then pursued the
Danes to their stronghold at Chippenham and starved them into
submission. One of the terms of the surrender was that Guthrum convert
to Christianity. Three weeks later the Danish king and 29 of his chief men were baptised at Alfred's court at
Aller, near Athelney, with Alfred receiving Guthrum as his spiritual son.[11]
According to Asser:
The unbinding of the Chrisom [e] took place with great ceremony eight days later at the royal estate
at Wedmore[21]
While at Wedmore Alfred and Guthrum negotiated what some historians have called the Treaty of Wedmore,
but it was to be some years after the cessation of hostilities that a formal treaty was signed.[22] Under the terms
of the so-called Treaty of Wedmore the converted Guthrum was required to leave Wessex and return to East
Anglia. Consequently in 879 the Viking army left Chippenham and made its way to Cirencester. [21] The formal
A coin of Alfred, king of Wessex,
London, 880 (based upon a Roman
model).
Obv: King with royal band in profile,
with legend: ÆLFRED REX "King
Ælfred"
Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, preserved in Old English in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Manuscript
383), and in a Latin compilation known as "Quadripartitus", was negotiated later, perhaps in 879 or 880, when
King Ceolwulf II of Mercia was deposed.[23]
That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. By its terms the boundary between Alfred's and Guthrum's
kingdoms was to run up the River Thames to the River Lea, follow the Lea to its source (near Luton), from
there extend in a straight line to Bedford, and from Bedford follow the River Ouse to Watling Street.[24]
In other words, Alfred succeeded to Ceolwulf's kingdom consisting of western Mercia, and Guthrum
incorporated the eastern part of Mercia into an enlarged kingdom of East Anglia (henceforward known as the
Danelaw). By terms of the treaty, moreover, Alfred was to have control over the Mercian city of London and its
mints—at least for the time being.[25] The disposition of Essex, held by West Saxon kings since the days of
Egbert, is unclear from the treaty though, given Alfred's political and military superiority, it would have been
surprising if he had conceded any disputed territory to his new godson.
Quiet years, restoration of Lond on (880s)
With the signing of the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, an event most
commonly held to have taken place around 880 when Guthrum's people
began settling East Anglia, Guthrum was neutralised as a threat.[26] The
Viking army, which had stayed at Fulham during the winter of 878-879,
sailed for Ghent and was active on the continent from 879-892.[27][28]
Alfred was still forced to contend with a number of Danish threats. A
year later, in 881, Alfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish
ships "on the high seas",[27] Two of the ships were destroyed and the
others surrendered to Alfred's forces.[29] Similar small skirmishes with
independent Viking raiders would have occurred for much of the period,
as they had for decades.
In 883—though there is some debate over the year—King Alfred,
because of his support and his donation of alms to Rome, received a
number of gifts from Pope Marinus.[30] Among these gifts was reputed
to be a piece of the true cross, a great treasure for the devout Saxon
king. According to Asser, because of Pope Marinus' friendship with
King Alfred, the pope granted an exemption to any Anglo-Saxons
residing within Rome from tax or tribute.[31]
After the signing of the treaty with Guthrum, Alfred was spared any large-scale conflicts for some time.
Despite this relative peace the king was still forced to deal with a number of Danish raids and incursions.
Among these was a raid in Kent, an allied kingdom in South East England, during the year 885, which was
quite possibly the largest raid since the battles with Guthrum. Asser's account of the raid places the Danish
raiders at the Saxon city of Rochester[27] where they built a temporary fortress in order to besiege the city. In
response to this incursion Alfred led an Anglo-Saxon force against the Danes who, instead of engaging the
army of Wessex, fled to their beached ships and sailed to another part of Britain. The retreating Danish force
supposedly left Britain the following summer.[32]
Not long after the failed Danish raid in Kent, Alfred dispatched his fleet to East Anglia. The purpose of this
expedition is debated, though Asser claims that it was for the sake of plunder.[32] After travelling up the River
Stour the fleet was met by Danish vessels that numbered 13 or 16 (sources vary on the number) and a battle
ensued.[32] The Anglo-Saxon fleet emerged victorious and, as Huntingdon accounts, "laden with spoils".[33]
A plaque in the City of London noting
the restoration of the Roman walled
city by Alfred.
Map of Britain in 886
The victorious fleet was then caught unawares when attempting to leave the River Stour and was attacked by a
Danish force at the mouth of the river. The Danish fleet defeated Alfred's fleet, which may have been weakened
in the previous engagement.[34]
A year later, in 886, Alfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to
make it habitable again.[35] Alfred entrusted the city to the care of his
son-in-law Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia. The restoration of London
progressed through the latter half of the 880s and is believed to have
revolved around: a new street plan; added fortifications in addition to
the existing Roman walls; and, some believe, the construction of
matching fortifications on the south bank of the River Thames.[36]
This is also the period in which almost all chroniclers agree that the
Saxon people of pre-unification England submitted to Alfred.[37] This
was not, however, the point at which Alfred came to be known as King
of England; in fact he would never adopt the title for himself.
Between the restoration of London and the resumption of large-scale Danish attacks in the early 890s, Alfred's
reign was rather uneventful. The relative peace of the late 880s was marred by the death of Alfred's sister,
Æthelswith, en route to Rome in 888.[38] In the same year the Archbishop of Canterbury, Æthelred, also died.
One year later Guthrum, or Athelstan by his baptismal name, Alfred's former enemy and king of East Anglia,
died and was buried in Hadleigh, Suffolk.[39]
Guthrum's passing changed the political landscape for Alfred. The resulting
power vacuum stirred up other power–hungry warlords eager to take his
place in the following years. The quiet years of Alfred's life were coming
to a close and war was on the horizon.[40]
Further Viking attacks repelled (890s)
After another lull, in the autumn of 892 or 893, the Danes attacked again.
Finding their position in mainland Europe precarious, they crossed to
England in 330 ships in two divisions. They entrenched themselves, the
larger body, at Appledore, Kent, and the lesser under Hastein, at Milton,
also in Kent. The invaders brought their wives and children with them
indicating a meaningful attempt at conquest and colonisation. Alfred, in
893 or 894, took up a position from which he could observe both forces.[41]
While he was in talks with Hastein the Danes at Appledore broke out and
struck northwestwards. They were overtaken by Alfred's eldest son,
Edward, and were defeated in a general engagement at Farnham in Surrey.
They took refuge on an island at Thorney, on the River Colne between Buckinghamshire and Middlesex, where
they were blockaded and forced to give hostages and promise to leave Wessex.[42][41] They then went to Essex
and, after suffering another defeat at Benfleet, joined with Hastein's force at Shoebury.[42]
Alfred had been on his way to relieve his son at Thorney when he heard that the Northumbrian and East
Anglian Danes were besieging Exeter and an unnamed stronghold on the North Devon shore. Alfred at once
hurried westward and raised the Siege of Exeter. The fate of the other place is not recorded.[43]
Meanwhile the force under Hastein set out to march up the Thames Valley, possibly with the idea of assisting
their friends in the west. They were met by a large force under the three great ealdormen of Mercia, Wiltshire
and Somerset and, forced to head off to the northwest, being finally overtaken and blockaded at Buttington.
(Some identify this with Buttington Tump at the mouth of the River Wye, others with Buttington near
Alfred the Great silver offering penny,
871–899. Legend: AELFRED REX
SAXONUM "Ælfred King of the
Saxons".
Welshpool.) An attempt to break through the English lines was defeated. Those who escaped retreated to
Shoebury. After collecting reinforcements, they made a sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined
Roman walls of Chester. The English did not attempt a winter blockade but contented themselves with
destroying all the supplies in the district.[43]
Early in 894 or 895 lack of food obliged the Danes to retire once more to Essex. At the end of the year the
Danes drew their ships up the River Thames and the River Lea and fortified themselves twenty miles (32 km)
north of London. A direct attack on the Danish lines failed but, later in the year, Alfred saw a means of
obstructing the river so as to prevent the egress of the Danish ships. The Danes realised that they were
outmanoeuvred. They struck off north-westwards and wintered at Cwatbridge near Bridgnorth. The next year,
896 (or 897), they gave up the struggle. Some retired to Northumbria, some to East Anglia. Those who had no
connections in England withdrew back to the continent.[43]
Military reorganisation
The Germanic tribes who invaded Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries
relied upon the unarmoured infantry supplied by their tribal levy, or
fyrd, and it was upon this system that the military power of the several
kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England depended.[44] The fyrd was a
local militia in the Anglo-Saxon shire in which all freemen had to serve;
those who refused military service were subject to fines or loss of their
land.[45] According to the law code of King Ine of Wessex, issued in
about 694:
If a nobleman who holds land neglects military service, he
shall pay 120 shillings and forfeit his land; a nobleman who
holds no land shall pay 60 shillings; a commoner shall pay
a fine of 30 shillings for neglecting military service.[46]
Wessex's history of failures preceding his success in 878 emphasised to
Alfred that the traditional system of battle he had inherited played to the
Danes' advantage. While both the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes attacked settlements to seize wealth and other
resources, they employed very different strategies. In their raids the Anglo-Saxons traditionally preferred to
attack head-on by assembling their forces in a shield wall, advancing against their target and overcoming the
oncoming wall marshaled against them in defence.[47]
In contrast the Danes preferred to choose easy targets, mapping cautious forays designed to avoid risking all
their accumulated plunder with high-stake attacks for more. Alfred determined their strategy was to launch
smaller scaled attacks from a secure and reinforced defensible base to which they could retreat should their
raiders meet strong resistance.[47]
These bases were prepared in advance, often by capturing an estate and augmenting its defences with
surrounding ditches, ramparts and palisades. Once inside the fortification, Alfred realised, the Danes enjoyed
the advantage, better situated to outlast their opponents or crush them with a counter-attack as the provisions
and stamina of the besieging forces waned.[47]
The means by which the Anglo-Saxons marshaled forces to defend against marauders also left them vulnerable
to the Vikings. It was the responsibility of the shire fyrd to deal with local raids. The king could call up the
national militia to defend the kingdom but, in the case of the Viking hit-and-run raids, problems with
communication, and raising supplies meant that the national militia could not be mustered quickly enough. It
was only after the raids were underway that a call went out to landowners to gather their men for battle. Large
A map of burhs named in the Burghal
Hidage.
regions could be devastated before the fyrd could assemble and arrive. And although the landowners were
obliged to the king to supply these men when called, during the attacks in 878 many of them opportunistically
abandoned their king and collaborated with Guthrum.[48][49]
With these lessons in mind Alfred capitalised on the relatively peaceful years immediately following his victory
at Edington by focusing on an ambitious restructuring of his kingdom's military defences. On a trip to Rome
Alfred had stayed with Charles the Bald and it is possible that he may have studied how the Carolingian kings
had dealt with the Viking problem. Learning from their experiences he was able to put together a system of
taxation and defence for his own kingdom. Also there had been a system of fortifications in pre-Viking Mercia
that may have been an influence. So when the Viking raids resumed in 892 Alfred was better prepared to
confront them with a standing, mobile field army, a network of garrisons, and a small fleet of ships navigating
the rivers and estuaries.[50][51][52]
Administration and taxation
Tenants in Anglo-Saxon England had a threefold obligation based on their landholding: the so-called "common
burdens" of military service, fortress work, and bridge repair. This threefold obligation has traditionally been
called "trinoda neccessitas" or "trimoda neccessitas".[53] The Old English name for the fine due for neglecting
military service was "fierdwite" or "fyrdwitee".[46]
To maintain the burhs, and to reorganise the fyrd as a standing army, Alfred expanded the tax and conscription
system based on the productivity of a tenant's landholding. The "hide" was the basic unit of the system on
which the tenant's public obligations were assessed. A "hide" is thought to represent the amount of land
required to support one family. The "hide" would differ in size according to the value and resources of the land,
and the landowner would have to provide service based on how many "hides" he owned.[53][54]
Burghal system
At the centre of Alfred's reformed military defence system was the
network of burhs, distributed at strategic points throughout the
kingdom.[55] There were thirty-three in total, spaced approximately 30
kilometres (19 miles) apart, enabling the military to confront attacks
anywhere in the kingdom within a single day.[56][57]
Alfred's burhs (later termed boroughs) ranged from former Roman
towns, such as Winchester, where the stone walls were repaired and
ditches added, to massive earthen walls surrounded by wide ditches,
probably reinforced with wooden revetments and palisades, such as at
Burpham, Sussex.[58][59] The size of the burhs ranged from tiny
outposts such as Pilton to large fortifications in established towns, the
largest being at Winchester.[60]
A contemporary document now known as the Burghal Hidage provides an insight into how the system worked.
It lists the "hidage" for each of the fortified towns contained in the document. For example, Wallingford had a
"hidage" of 2400, which meant that the landowners there were responsible for supplying and feeding 2,400
men, the number sufficient for maintaining 9,900 feet (3.0 kilometres) of wall.[61] A total of 27,071 soldiers
were needed system-wide, or approximately one in four of all the free men in Wessex.[62]
Many of the burhs were twin towns that straddled a river and were connected by a fortified bridge, like those
built by Charles the Bald a generation before.[51] The double-burh blocked passage on the river, forcing Viking
ships to navigate under a garrisoned bridge lined with men armed with stones, spears, or arrows. Other burhs
were sited near fortified royal villas, allowing the king better control over his strongholds.[63] The burhs were
also interconnected by a road system maintained for army use (known as "herepaths"). These roads would
allow an army to be quickly assembled, sometimes from more than one burh, to confront the Viking invader.[64]
This network posed significant obstacles to Viking invaders, especially those laden with booty. The system
threatened Viking routes and communications making it far more dangerous for the Viking raiders. The Vikings
lacked both the equipment necessary to undertake a siege against a burh and a developed doctrine of siegecraft,
having tailored their methods of fighting to rapid strikes and unimpeded retreats to well-defended fortifications.
The only means left to them was to starve the burh into submission, but this gave the king time to send his
mobile field army or garrisons from neighbouring burhs along the well-maintained army roads. In such cases
the Vikings were extremely vulnerable to pursuit by the king's joint military forces.[65] Alfred's burh system
posed such a formidable challenge against Viking attack that when the Vikings returned in 892, and
successfully stormed a half-made, poorly garrisoned fortress up the Lympne estuary in Kent, the Anglo-Saxons
were able to limit their penetration to the outer frontiers of Wessex and Mercia.[66]
Alfred's burghal system was revolutionary in its strategic conception and potentially expensive in its execution.
His contemporary biographer Asser wrote that many nobles balked at the new demands placed upon them even
though they were for "the common needs of the kingdom".[67][68]
English navy
Alfred also tried his hand at naval design. In 896[69] he ordered the construction of a small fleet, perhaps a
dozen or so longships that, at 60 oars, were twice the size of Viking warships. This was not, as the Victorians
asserted, the birth of the English Navy. Wessex had possessed a royal fleet before this. King Athelstan of Kent
and Ealdorman Ealhhere had defeated a Viking fleet in 851 capturing nine ships,[70] and Alfred himself had
conducted naval actions in 882.[71]
But, clearly, the author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and probably Alfred himself regarded 897 as marking an
important development in the naval power of Wessex. The chronicler flattered his royal patron by boasting that
Alfred's ships were not only larger, but swifter, steadier and rode higher in the water than either Danish or
Frisian ships. It is probable that, under the classical tutelage of Asser, Alfred utilised the design of Greek and
Roman warships, with high sides, designed for fighting rather than for navigation.[72]
Alfred had seapower in mind—if he could intercept raiding fleets before they landed, he could spare his
kingdom from being ravaged. Alfred's ships may have been superior in conception. In practice they proved to
be too large to manoeuvre well in the close waters of estuaries and rivers, the only places in which a naval
battle could occur.[73]
The warships of the time were not designed to be ship killers but rather troop carriers. It has been suggested
that, like sea battles in late Viking age Scandinavia, these battles may have entailed a ship coming alongside an
enemy vessel, lashing the two ships together and then boarding the enemy craft. The result was effectively a
land battle involving hand-to-hand fighting on board the two lashed vessels.[74]
In the one recorded naval engagement in 896[75][69] Alfred's new fleet of nine ships intercepted six Viking
ships in the mouth of an unidentified river along the south of England. The Danes had beached half their ships
and gone inland, either to rest their rowers or to forage for food. Alfred's ships immediately moved to block
their escape to the sea. The three Viking ships afloat attempted to break through the English lines. Only one
made it; Alfred's ships intercepted the other two.[69]
Lashing the Viking boats to their own the English crew boarded the enemy's vessels and proceeded to kill
everyone on board. The one ship that escaped managed to do so only because all of Alfred's heavy ships
became grounded when the tide went out.[74] What ensued was a land battle between the crews of the grounded
ships. The Danes, heavily outnumbered, would have been wiped out if the tide had not risen. When that
occurred the Danes rushed back to their boats which, being lighter with shallower drafts, were freed before
A silver coin of Alfred.
Alfred's ships. Helplessly the English watched as the Vikings rowed past them.[74] The pirates had suffered so
many casualties (120 Danes dead against 62 Frisians and English) that they had difficulty putting out to sea. All
were too damaged to row around Sussex and two were driven against the Sussex coast (possibly at Selsey
Bill).[69][74] The shipwrecked sailors were brought before Alfred at Winchester and hanged.[69]
Legal reform
In the late 880s or early 890s Alfred issued a long domboc or law code
consisting of his "own" laws, followed by a code issued by his late
seventh-century predecessor King Ine of Wessex.[76] Together these
laws are arranged into 120 chapters. In his introduction Alfred explains
that he gathered together the laws he found in many "synod-books" and
"ordered to be written many of the ones that our forefathers observed—
those that pleased me; and many of the ones that did not please me, I
rejected with the advice of my councillors, and commanded them to be
observed in a different way".[77]
Alfred singled out in particular the laws that he "found in the days of
Ine, my kinsman, or Offa, king of the Mercians, or King Æthelberht of
Kent who first among the English people received baptism". He
appended, rather than integrated, the laws of Ine into his code and,
although he included, as had Æthelbert, a scale of payments in compensation for injuries to various body parts
the two injury tariffs are not aligned. Offa is not known to have issued a law code leading historian Patrick
Wormald to speculate that Alfred had in mind the legatine capitulary of 786 that was presented to Offa by two
papal legates.[78]
About a fifth of the law code is taken up by Alfred's introduction which includes translations into English of the
Ten Commandments, a few chapters from the Book of Exodus, and the "Apostolic Letter" from the Acts of the
Apostles (15:23–29). The Introduction may best be understood as Alfred's meditation upon the meaning of
Christian law.[79] It traces the continuity between God's gift of law to Moses to Alfred's own issuance of law to
the West Saxon people. By doing so,it linked the holy past to the historical present and represented Alfred's
law-giving as a type of divine legislation.[80]
Similarly Alfred divided his code into 120 chapters because 120 was the age at which Moses died and, in the
number-symbolism of early medieval biblical exegetes, 120 stood for law.[81] The link between the Mosaic
Law and Alfred's code is the "Apostolic Letter" which explained that Christ "had come not to shatter or annul
the commandments but to fulfill them; and he taught mercy and meekness". (Intro, 49.1) The mercy that Christ
infused into Mosaic Law underlies the injury tariffs that figure so prominently in barbarian law codes since
Christian synods "established, through that mercy which Christ taught, that for almost every misdeed at the first
offence secular lords might with their permission receive without sin the monetary compensation which they
then fixed".[82]
The only crime that could not be compensated with a payment of money was treachery to a lord "since
Almighty God adjudged none for those who despised Him, nor did Christ, the Son of God, adjudge any for the
one who betrayed Him to death; and He commanded everyone to love his lord as Himself".[82] Alfred's
transformation of Christ's commandment, from "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Matt. 22:39–40) to love
your secular lord as you would love the Lord Christ himself, underscores the importance that Alfred placed
upon lordship which he understood as a sacred bond instituted by God for the governance of man.[83]
When one turns from the domboc's introduction to the laws themselves it is difficult to uncover any logical
arrangement. The impression one receives is of a hodgepodge of miscellaneous laws. The law code, as it has
been preserved, is singularly unsuitable for use in lawsuits. In fact several of Alfred's laws contradicted the
laws of Ine that form an integral part of the code. Patrick Wormald's explanation is that Alfred's law code
should be understood not as a legal manual but as an ideological manifesto of kingship "designed more for
symbolic impact than for practical direction".[84] In practical terms the most important law in the code may
well have been the very first: "We enjoin, what is most necessary, that each man keep carefully his oath and his
pledge" which expresses a fundamental tenet of Anglo-Saxon law.[85]
Alfred devoted considerable attention and thought to judicial matters. Asser underscores his concern for
judicial fairness. Alfred, according to Asser, insisted upon reviewing contested judgments made by his
ealdormen and reeves and "would carefully look into nearly all the judgements which were passed [issued] in
his absence anywhere in the realm to see whether they were just or unjust".[86] A charter from the reign of his
son Edward the Elder depicts Alfred as hearing one such appeal in his chamber while washing his hands.[87]
Asser represents Alfred as a Solomonic judge, painstaking in his own judicial investigations and critical of
royal officials who rendered unjust or unwise judgments. Although Asser never mentions Alfred's law code he
does say that Alfred insisted that his judges be literate so that they could apply themselves "to the pursuit of
wisdom". The failure to comply with this royal order was to be punished by loss of office.[88]
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, commissioned at the time of Alfred, was probably written to promote unification
of England,[89] whereas Asser's The Life of King Alfred promoted Alfred's achievements and personal qualities.
It was possible that the document was designed this way so that it could be disseminated in Wales, as Alfred
had recently acquired overlordship of that country.[89]
Foreign relations
Asser speaks grandiosely of Alfred's relations with foreign powers but little definite information is
available.[43] His interest in foreign countries is shown by the insertions which he made in his translation of
Orosius. He corresponded with Elias III, the Patriarch of Jerusalem,[43] and embassies to Rome conveying the
English alms to the Pope were fairly frequent.[51][f] Around 890 Wulfstan of Hedeby undertook a journey from
Hedeby on Jutland along the Baltic Sea to the Prussian trading town of Truso. Alfred personally collected
details of this trip.[90]
Alfred's relations with the Celtic princes in the western half of Britain are clearer. Comparatively early in his
reign, according to Asser, the southern Welsh princes, owing to the pressure on them from North Wales and
Mercia, commended themselves to Alfred. Later in his reign the North Welsh followed their example and the
latter cooperated with the English in the campaign of 893 (or 894). That Alfred sent alms to Irish and
Continental monasteries may be taken on Asser's authority. The visit of the three pilgrim "Scots" (i.e. Irish) to
Alfred in 891 is undoubtedly authentic. The story that he himself in his childhood was sent to Ireland to be
healed by Saint Modwenna, though mythical, may show Alfred's interest in that island.[43]
Religion and culture
In the 880s, at the same time that he was "cajoling and threatening" his nobles to build and man the burhs,
Alfred, perhaps inspired by the example of Charlemagne almost a century before, undertook an equally
ambitious effort to revive learning.[43] During this time period the Viking raids were often seen as a divine
punishment and Alfred may have wished to revive religious awe in order to appease God's wrath.[91] This
revival entailed the recruitment of clerical scholars from Mercia, Wales and abroad to enhance the tenor of the
court and of the episcopacy; the establishment of a court school to educate his own children, the sons of his
nobles, and intellectually promising boys of lesser birth; an attempt to require literacy in those who held offices
of authority; a series of translations into the vernacular of Latin works the king deemed "most necessary for all
men to know";[92] the compilation of a chronicle detailing the rise of Alfred's kingdom and house, with a
genealogy that stretched back to Adam, thus giving the West Saxon kings a biblical ancestry.[93]
King Alfred the Great pictured in a
stained glass window in the West
Window of the South Transept of
Bristol Cathedral.
Very little is known of the church under Alfred. The Danish attacks had
been particularly damaging to the monasteries. Although Alfred
founded monasteries at Athelney and Shaftesbury, these were the first
new monastic houses in Wessex since the beginning of the eighth
century.[94] According to Asser, Alfred enticed foreign monks to
England for his monastery at Athelney as there was little interest for the
locals to take up the monastic life.[95]
Alfred undertook no systematic reform of ecclesiastical institutions or
religious practices in Wessex. For him the key to the kingdom's spiritual
revival was to appoint pious, learned, and trustworthy bishops and
abbots. As king he saw himself as responsible for both the temporal and
spiritual welfare of his subjects. Secular and spiritual authority were not
distinct categories for Alfred.[96][97]
He was equally comfortable distributing his translation of Gregory the
Great's Pastoral Care to his bishops so that they might better train and
supervise priests and using those same bishops as royal officials and
judges. Nor did his piety prevent him from expropriating strategically
sited church lands, especially estates along the border with the Danelaw,
and transferring them to royal thegns and officials who could better
defend them against Viking attacks.[97][98]
Impact of Danish raids on education
The Danish raids had a devastating effect on learning in England. Alfred lamented in the preface to his
translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care that "learning had declined so thoroughly in England that there were
very few men on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English or even
translate a single letter from Latin into English: and I suppose that there were not many beyond the Humber
either".[99] Alfred undoubtedly exaggerated, for dramatic effect, the abysmal state of learning in England
during his youth.[100] That Latin learning had not been obliterated is evidenced by the presence in his court of
learned Mercian and West Saxon clerics such as Plegmund, Wæferth, and Wulfsige.[101]
Manuscript production in England dropped off precipitously around the 860s when the Viking invasions began
in earnest, not to be revived until the end of the century.[102] Numerous Anglo-Saxon manuscripts burnt up
along with the churches that housed them. And a solemn diploma from Christ Church, Canterbury, dated 873,
is so poorly constructed and written that historian Nicholas Brooks posited a scribe who was either so blind he
could not read what he wrote or who knew little or no Latin. "It is clear", Brooks concludes, "that the
metropolitan church [of Canterbury] must have been quite unable to provide any effective training in the
scriptures or in Christian worship".[103]
Establishment of a court school
Following the example of Charlemagne Alfred established a court school for the education of his own children,
those of the nobility, and "a good many of lesser birth".[92] There they studied books in both English and Latin
and "devoted themselves to writing, to such an extent ... they were seen to be devoted and intelligent students of
the liberal arts".[104] He recruited scholars from the Continent and from Britain to aid in the revival of Christian
learning in Wessex and to provide the king personal instruction. Grimbald and John the Saxon came from
Francia; Plegmund (whom Alfred appointed archbishop of Canterbury in 890), Bishop Werferth of Worcester,
Æthelstan, and the royal chaplains Werwulf, from Mercia; and Asser, from St David's in southwestern
Wales.[105]
Advocacy of education in the English language
Alfred's educational ambitions seem to have extended beyond the establishment of a court school. Believing
that without Christian wisdom there can be neither prosperity nor success in war, Alfred aimed "to set to
learning (as long as they are not useful for some other employment) all the free-born young men now in
England who have the means to apply themselves to it".[106] Conscious of the decay of Latin literacy in his
realm Alfred proposed that primary education be taught in English, with those wishing to advance to holy
orders to continue their studies in Latin.[107]
There were few "books of wisdom" written in English. Alfred sought to remedy this through an ambitious
court-centred programme of translating into English the books he deemed "most necessary for all men to
know".[107] It is unknown when Alfred launched this programme but it may have been during the 880s when
Wessex was enjoying a respite from Viking attacks. Alfred was, until recently, often considered to have been
the author of many of the translations but this is now considered doubtful in almost all cases. Scholars more
often refer to translations as "Alfredian" indicating that they probably had something to do with his patronage
but are unlikely to be his own work.[108]
Apart from the lost Handboc or Encheiridio, which seems to have been a commonplace book kept by the king,
the earliest work to be translated was the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, a book greatly popular in the Middle
Ages. The translation was undertaken at Alfred's command by Werferth, Bishop of Worcester, with the king
merely furnishing a preface.[43] Remarkably Alfred, undoubtedly with the advice and aid of his court scholars,
translated four works himself: Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy", St.
Augustine's Soliloquies and the first fifty psalms of the Psalter.[109]
One might add to this list the translation, in Alfred's law code, of excerpts from the Vulgate Book of Exodus.
The Old English versions of Orosius's Histories against the Pagans and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the
English People are no longer accepted by scholars as Alfred's own translations because of lexical and stylistic
differences.[109] Nonetheless the consensus remains that they were part of the Alfredian programme of
translation. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge suggest this also for Bald's Leechbook and the anonymous Old
English Martyrology.[110]
The preface of Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care explained why he thought it
necessary to translate works such as this from Latin into English. Although he described his method as
translating "sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense", the translation actually keeps very close to
the original although, through his choice of language, he blurred throughout the distinction between spiritual
and secular authority. Alfred meant the translation to be used, and circulated it to all his bishops.[111] Interest in
Alfred's translation of Pastoral Care was so enduring that copies were still being made in the 11th century.[112]
Boethius'Consolation of Philosophy was the most popular philosophical handbook of the Middle Ages. Unlike
the translation of the Pastoral Care the Alfredian text deals very freely with the original and, though the late
Dr. G. Schepss showed that many of the additions to the text are to be traced not to the translator himself[113]
but to the glosses and commentaries which he used, still there is much in the work which is distinctive to the
translation and has been taken to reflect philosophies of kingship in Alfred's milieu. It is in the Boethius that the
oft-quoted sentence occurs: "To speak briefly: I desired 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."[114] The book has come down to us in two
manuscripts only. In one of these[115] the writing is prose, in the other[116] a combination of prose and
alliterating verse. The latter manuscript was severely damaged in the 18th and 19th centuries.[117]
The last of the Alfredian works is one which bears the name Blostman, i.e. "Blooms" or Anthology. The first
half is based mainly on the Soliloquies of St Augustine of Hippo, the remainder is drawn from various sources.
The material has traditionally been thought to contain 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.
2A drawing of the Alfred Jewel.
The Alfred Jewel, in the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, commissioned by
Alfred.
"Therefore, he seems to me a very foolish man, and truly 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."[111]
Alfred appears as a character in the twelfth- or thirteenth-century poem The Owl and the Nightingale where his
wisdom and skill with proverbs is praised. The Proverbs of Alfred, a thirteenth-century work, contains sayings
that are not likely to have originated with Alfred but attest to his posthumous medieval reputation for
wisdom.[118]
The Alfred jewel, discovered in Somerset in 1693, has long been
associated with King Alfred because of its Old English inscription
AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN (Alfred ordered me to be
made). The jewel is about 21⁄2 inches (6.4 centimetres) long, made of
filigreed gold, enclosing a highly polished piece of quartz crystal
beneath which is set in a cloisonné enamel plaque with an enamelled
image of a man holding floriate sceptres, perhaps personifying Sight or
the Wisdom of God.[119]
It was at one time attached to a thin rod or stick based on the hollow
socket at its base. The jewel certainly dates from Alfred's reign.
Although its function is unknown it has been often suggested that the
jewel was one of the "æstels"—pointers for reading—that Alfred
ordered sent to every bishopric accompanying a copy of his translation
of the Pastoral Care. Each "æstel" was worth the princely sum of 50
mancuses which fits in well with the quality workmanship and
expensive materials of the Alfred jewel".[120]
Historian Richard Abels sees Alfred's educational and military reforms
as complementary. Restoring religion and learning in Wessex, Abels
contends, was to Alfred's mind as essential to the defence of his realm
as the building of the burhs.[121] As Alfred observed in the preface to
his English translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, kings who
fail to obey their divine duty to promote learning can expect earthly
punishments to befall their people.[122] The pursuit of wisdom, he
assured his readers of the Boethius, was the surest path to power:
"Study Wisdom, then, and, when you have learned it, condemn it not,
for I tell you that by its means you may without fail attain to power, yea,
even though not desiring it".[123]
The portrayal of the West-Saxon resistance to the Vikings by Asser and
the chronicler as a Christian holy war was more than mere rhetoric or
'propaganda'. It reflected Alfred's own belief in a doctrine of divine
rewards and punishments rooted in a vision of a hierarchical Christian
world order in which God is the Lord to whom kings owe obedience
and through whom they derive their authority over their followers. The
need to persuade his nobles to undertake work for the 'common good'
led Alfred and his court scholars to strengthen and deepen the
conception of Christian kingship that he had inherited by building upon
the legacy of earlier kings such as Offa as well as clerical writers such
as Bede, Alcuin and the other luminaries of the Carolingian renaissance.
This was not a cynical use of religion to manipulate his subjects into
obedience but an intrinsic element in Alfred's worldview. He believed,
as did other kings in ninth-century England and Francia, that God had
entrusted him with the spiritual as well as physical welfare of his
people. If the Christian faith fell into ruin in his kingdom, if the clergy were too ignorant to understand the
Latin words they butchered in their offices and liturgies, if the ancient monasteries and collegiate churches lay
deserted out of indifference, he was answerable before God, as Josiah had been. Alfred's ultimate responsibility
was the pastoral care of his people.[121]
Appearance and character
Asser wrote of Alfred in his Life of King Alfred:
Now, he was greatly loved, more than all his brothers, by his father and mother—indeed, by
everybody—with a universal and profound love, and he was always brought up in the royal court
and nowhere else. ... [He] was seen to be more comely in appearance than his other brothers, and
more pleasing in manner, speech and behaviour ... [and] 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.[124]
It is also written by Asser that Alfred did not learn to read until he was twelve years old or later, which is
described as "shameful negligence" of his parents and tutors. Alfred was an excellent listener and had an
incredible memory and he retained poetry and psalms very well. A story is told by Asser about how his mother
held up a book of Saxon poetry to him and his brothers, and said; "I shall give this book to whichever one of
you can learn it the fastest." After excitedly asking, "Will you really give this book to the one of us who can
understand it the soonest and recite it to you?" Alfred then took it to his teacher, learned it, and recited it back
to his mother.[125]
Alfred is also noted as carrying around a small book, probably a medieval version of a small pocket notebook,
which contained psalms and many prayers that he often collected. Asser writes: these "he collected in a single
book, as I have seen for myself; amid all the affairs of the present life he took it around with him everywhere
for the sake of prayer, and was inseparable from it."[125]
An excellent hunter in every branch of the sport, Alfred is remembered as an enthusiastic huntsman against
whom nobody’s skills could compare.[125]
Although he was the youngest of his brothers, he was probably the most open-minded. He was an early
advocate for education. His desire for learning could have come from his early love of English poetry and
inability to read or physically record it until later in life. Asser writes that Alfred "could not satisfy his craving
for what he desired the most, namely the liberal arts; for, as he used to say, there were no good scholars in the
entire kingdom of the West Saxons at that time".[125]
Family
In 868 Alfred married Ealhswith, daughter of a Mercian nobleman, Æthelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini.
The Gaini were probably one of the tribal groups of the Mercians. Ealhswith's mother, Eadburh, was a member
of the Mercian royal family.[126]
They had five or six children together including: Edward the Elder who succeeded his father as king; Æthelflæd
who became Lady (ruler) of the Mercians in her own right; and Ælfthryth who married Baldwin II the Count of
Flanders. His mother was Osburga, daughter of Oslac of the Isle of Wight, Chief Butler of England. Asser, in
his Vita Ælfredi asserts that this shows his lineage from the Jutes of the Isle of Wight. This is unlikely as Bede
tells us that they were all slaughtered by the Saxons under Cædwalla. In 2008 the skeleton of Queen Eadgyth,
granddaughter of Alfred the Great was found in Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany. It was confirmed in 2010
that these remains belong to her—one of the earliest members of the English royal family.[127]
Osferth was described as a relative in King Alfred's will and he attested charters in a high position until 934. A
charter of King Edward's reign described him as the king's brother, "mistakenly" according to Keynes and
Lapidge, but in the view of Janet Nelson he probably was an illegitimate son of King Alfred.[128][129]
Name Birth Death Notes
Æthelflæd 12 June 918 Married c 886, Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians d. 911; had
issue
Edward c. 874 17 July 924 Married (1) Ecgwynn, (2) Ælfflæd, (3) 919 Eadgifu
Æthelgifu Abbess of Shaftesbury
Æthelweard 16 October
922(?) Married and had issue
Ælfthryth 929 Married Baldwin II d. 918; had issue
Ancestry
Ancestors of Alfred the Great
8. Ealhmund of Kent
4. Egbert of Wessex
2. Æthelwulf of Wessex
1. Alfred the Great
6. Oslac
3. Osburga
Source: Abels. Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England.[130]
Death, burial and fate of remains
Alfred died on 26 October 899. How he died is unknown, although he suffered throughout his life with a
painful and unpleasant illness. His biographer Asser gave a detailed description of Alfred's symptoms and this
has allowed modern doctors to provide a possible diagnosis. It is thought that he had either Crohn's disease or
haemorrhoidal disease.[7][131] His grandson King Eadred seems to have suffered from a similar illness.[132][g]
Alfred was originally buried temporarily in the Old Minster in Winchester. Four years after his death he was
moved to the New Minster (perhaps built especially to receive his body). When the New Minster moved to
Hyde, a little north of the city, in 1110, the monks were transferred to Hyde Abbey along with Alfred's body
and those of his wife and children, which were presumably interred before the high altar. Soon after the
dissolution of the abbey in 1539, during the reign of Henry VIII, the church was demolished, leaving the graves
intact.[134]
Alfred's will
Statue of Alfred the Great at
Wantage, Oxfordshire
The royal graves and many others were probably rediscovered by chance in
1788 when a prison was being constructed by convicts on the site. Prisoners dug
across the width of the altar area in order to dispose of rubble left at the
dissolution. Coffins were stripped of lead, and bones were scattered and lost.
The prison was demolished between 1846 and 1850.[135] Further excavations in
1866 and 1897 were inconclusive.[134][136] In 1866 amateur antiquarian John
Mellor claimed to have recovered a number of bones from the site which he
said were those of Alfred. These later came into the possession of the vicar of
nearby St Bartholomew's Church who reburied them in an unmarked grave in
the church graveyard.[135]
Excavations conducted by the Winchester Museums Service of the Hyde Abbey
site in 1999 located a second pit dug in front of where the high altar would have
been located, which was identified as probably dating to Mellor's 1886
excavation.[134] The 1999 archeological excavation uncovered the foundations
of the abbey buildings and some bones. Bones suggested at the time to be those
of Alfred proved instead to belong to an elderly woman.[137]
In March 2013 the Diocese of Winchester exhumed the bones from the
unmarked grave at St Bartholomew's and placed them in secure storage. The diocese made no claim they were
the bones of Alfred, but intended to secure them for later analysis, and from the attentions of people whose
interest may have been sparked by the recent identification of the remains of King Richard III.[137][138] The
bones were radiocarbon-dated but the results showed that they were from the 1300s and therefore unrelated to
Alfred. In January 2014, a fragment of pelvis unearthed in the 1999 excavation of the Hyde site, which had
subsequently lain in a Winchester museum store room, was radiocarbon-dated to the correct period. It has been
suggested that this bone may belong to either Alfred or his son Edward, but this remains unproven.[139][140]
Legacy
Alfred is venerated as a saint by some Christian traditions, but an attempt by
Henry VI of England in 1441 to have him canonized by the pope was
unsuccessful.[141][h] The Anglican Communion venerates him as a Christian
hero, with a feast day or commemoration on 26 October, and he may often be
found depicted in stained glass in Church of England parish churches.[142]
Alfred commissioned Bishop Asser to write his biography, which inevitably
emphasised Alfred's positive aspects. Later medieval historians, such as
Geoffrey of Monmouth, also reinforced Alfred's favourable image. By the time
of the Reformation Alfred was seen as being a pious Christian ruler who
promoted the use of English rather than Latin, and so the translations that he
commissioned were viewed as untainted by the later Roman Catholic influences
of the Normans. Consequently it was writers of the sixteenth century who gave
Alfred his epithet as 'the Great' rather than any of Alfred's contemporaries.[143]
The epithet was retained by succeeding generations of Parliamentarians and
empire-builders who saw Alfred's patriotism, success against barbarism,
promotion of education and establishment of the rule of law as supporting their
own ideals.[143]
A number of educational establishments are named in Alfred's honour. These include:
The University of Winchester created from the former 'King Alfred's College, Winchester' (1928 to
2004).
Alfred University and Alfred State College in Alfred, New York. The local telephone exchange for
Alfred University is 871 in commemoration of Alfred's ascension to the throne.
In honour of Alfred, the University of Liverpool created a King Alfred Chair of English Literature.
King Alfred's Academy, a secondary school in Wantage, Oxfordshire, the birthplace of Alfred.
King's Lodge School in Chippenham, Wiltshire is so named because King Alfred's hunting lodge is
reputed to have stood on or near the site of the school.
The King Alfred School & Specialist Sports Academy, Burnham Road, Highbridge is so named due to its
rough proximity to Brent Knoll (a Beacon site) and Athelney.
The King Alfred School in Barnet, North London, UK.
King Alfred's Middle School, Shaftesbury, Dorset [Now defunct after reorganisation]
King's College, Taunton, Somerset. (The king in question is King Alfred).
King Alfred's house in Bishop Stopford's School at Enfield.
Saxonwold Primary School in Gauteng, South Africa names one of its houses after King Alfred. The
others being Bede, Caedmon, and Dunston.
The Royal Navy has named one ship and two shore establishments HMS King Alfred, and one of the first ships
of the US Navy was named USS Alfred in his honour. In 2002, Alfred was ranked number 14 in the BBC's list
of the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote.[144]
Statues
Pewsey
A prominent statue of King Alfred the Great stands in the middle of Pewsey. It was unveiled in June 1913 to
commemorate the coronation of King George V.[145]
Wantage
A statue of Alfred the Great, situated in the Wantage market place, was sculpted by Count Gleichen, a relative
of Queen Victoria, and unveiled on 14 July 1877 by the Prince and Princess of Wales.[146] The statue was
vandalised on New Year's Eve 2007, losing part of its right arm and axe. After the arm and axe were replaced
the statue was again vandalised on Christmas Eve 2008, losing its axe.[146]
Winchester
A bronze statue of Alfred the Great stands at the eastern end of The Broadway, close to the site of Winchester's
medieval East Gate. The statue was designed by Hamo Thornycroft, and erected in 1899 to mark one thousand
years since Alfred's death.[147][148] The statue is placed on a pedestal consisting of two immense blocks of gray
Cornish granite.[149]
See also
Cultural depictions of Alfred the Great
Notes
a. Pronounced [ælfreːd]
b. Pronounced [ælfræːd]
c. Alfred was the youngest of either four (Weir, Alison, Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealog y(1989), p.5) or
five brothers,[2] the primary record conflicting regarding whetherÆ thelstan of Wessex was a brother or uncle.
d. The inscription reads "ALFRED THE GREAT AD 879 on this Summit Erected his Standard Against Danish Invaders
To him We owe The Origin of Juries The Establishment of a Militia The Creation of a Naval Force 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" (Horspool 2006, pp. 173)
e. A "Chrisom" was the face-cloth or piece of linen laid over a child's head when he or she wabsa ptised or christened.
Originally the purpose of the chrisom-cloth was to keep the "chrism", a consecrated oil, from accidentally rubbing
off.[20]
f. Some versions of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" reported that Alfred sent a delegation to India, although this could just
mean Asia as other versions say "Iudea".A( bels 1998, pp. 190–192)
g. According to St Dunstan's apprentice "...poor King Eadred would suck the juice out of the food, chew what remained for
a little while and spit it out: a nasty practice that often turned the stomachs of the thegns who dined with him[1.3"3]
h. Some Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that Alfred should be recognised as a saint. SeCe ase for (http://www.orthodo
xengland.org.uk/athlifea.htm) and Case against (http://sarisburium.blogspot.com/2008/1/king-alfred-of-england-orthod
ox-saint.html)
Citations
1. Yorke 2001, pp. 27–28.
2. Crown staff 2011.
3. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 853.
4. Wormald 2006.
5. Crofton 2006, p. 8.
6. Asser & 866, paragraph 23.
7. Craig 1991, p. 303–305.
8. Cornwell 2009, "Historical Note" (p. 385 and following).
9. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 16–17.
10. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 868.
11. Plummer 1911, p. 582.
12. Abels 1998, pp. 140–141.
13. Brooks & Graham-Campbell 1986, pp. 91–110.
14. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 876.
15. Arnold 2011, p. 37.
16. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 877.
17. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 878.
18. Savage 1988, p. 101.
19. Lavelle 2010, pp. 187–191.
20. Nares 1859, p. 160.
21. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, Ch. 60.
22. Horspool 2006, pp. 123–124.
23. Abels 1998, p. 163.
24. Attenborough 1922, pp. 98–101, Treaty of Alfred and Gunthrum (https://archive.org/stream/lawsofearliesten00grea#pag
e/98/mode/2up).
25. Blackburn 1998, pp. 105–24.
26. Pratt 2007, p. 94.
27. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 86.
28. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 250–251.
29. Alfred 1969, p. 76.
30. Asser 1969, p. 78.
31. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 88.
32. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 87.
33. Huntingdon 1969, p. 81.
34. Woodruff 1993, p. 86.
35. Keynes 1998, p. 24.
36. Keynes 1998, p. 23.
37. Pratt 2007, p. 106.
38. Asser 1969, p. 114.
39. Woodruff 1993, p. 89.
40. "A History of King Alfred The Great and the Danes "(http://www.localhistories.org/alfred.html). Local Histories.
Retrieved 5 September 2016.
41. Merkle 2009, p. 220.
42. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 115–6, 286.
43. Plummer 1911, p. 583.
44. Preston, Wise & Werner 1956, p. 70.
45. Hollister 1962, pp. 59–60.
46. Attenborough 1922, pp. 52–53.
47. Abels 1998, pp. 194–195.
48. Abels 1998, pp. 139, 152.
49. Cannon 1997, p. 398.
50. Abels 1998, p. 194.
51. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 14.
52. Lavelle 2010, p. 212
53. Lavelle 2010, pp. 70–73.
54. Lapidge 2001.
55. Pratt 2007, p. 95.
56. Hull 2006, p. xx.
57. Abels 1998, p. 203.
58. Welch 1992, p. 127.
59. Abels 1998, p. 304.
60. Bradshaw 1999, which is referenced in Hull 2006, p. xx
61. Hill & Rumble 1996, p. 5.
62. Abels 1998, pp. 204–7.
63. Abels 1998, pp. 198–202.
64. Lavelle 2003, p. 26.
65. Abels 1988, pp. 204, 304.
66. Abels 1998, pp. 287,304.
67. Asser, translated by Keynes & Lapidge 1983
68. Abels 1998, p. 206.
69. Savage 1988, p. 111.
70. Savage 1988, pp. 86–88.
71. Savage 1988, p. 97.
72. Abels 1998, pp. 305–307 Cf. the much more positive view of the capabilities of these ships iGn ifford & Gifford 2003,
pp. 281–289
73. Abels 1998, pp. 305–307.
74. Lavelle 2010, pp. 286–297.
75. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 896.
76. Attenborough 1922, pp. 62–93.
77. "Alfred" Int. 49.9, trans. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 164.
78. Wormald 2001, pp. 280–281.
79. Pratt 2007, p. 215.
80. Abels 1998, p. 248.
81. Wormald 2001, p. 417.
82. "Alfred" Intro, 49.7, trans. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 164–165
83. Abels 1998, p. 250 cites "Alfred's Pastoral Care" ch. 28
84. Wormald 2001, p. 427.
85. "Alfred" 2, in Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 164.
86. Asser chap. 106, in Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 109
87. The charter is Sawyer 1445 and is printed inW hitelock 1996, pp. 544–546.
88. Asser, chap. 106, in Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 109–10.
89. Parker 2007, pp. 48–50.
90. Orosius & Hampson 1855, p. 16.
91. Studies in the Early History of Shaftesbury Abbe.y "King Alfred the Great and ShaftesburyA bbey"- Simon Keynes.
Dorset County Council 1999
92. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 28–29.
93. Gransden 1996, pp. 34–35.
94. Yorke 1995, p. 201.
95. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 101–102.
96. Ranft 2012, pp. 78–79.
97. Sweet 1871, pp. 1–9.
98. Fleming 1985.
99. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 125.
100. Abels 1998, p. 55.
101. Abels 1998, pp. 265–268.
102. Dumville 1992, p. 190.
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901).
Wikisource has the text of
A Short Biographical
Dictionary of English
Literature's article about
Ælfred.
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membership required.)
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Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Plummer, Charles (1911).
"Alfred the Great". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University
Press. pp. 582–584.
Further reading
Discenza, Nicole Guenther; Szarmach, Paul E., eds. (2015). A
Companion to Alfred the Great. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
ISBN 978-90-04-27484-6.
Frantzen, Allen J. King Alfred the Great. Twayne's English
Authors Series. ISBN 978-0805769180.
Fry, Fred (2006). Patterns of Power: The Military Campaigns of
Alfred the Great. ISBN 978-1-905226-93-1.
Giles, J. A., ed. (1858). The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great
(Jubileein 3 vols ed.). Oxford and Cambridge.
Gross, Ernie (1990). This Day In Religion. New York: Neal-
Schuman Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-1-55570-045-4.
Heathorn, Stephen (December 2002). "The Highest Type of
Englishman: Gender, War, and the Alfred the Great Commemoration of 1901". Canadian Journal of
History: 459–84.
Irvine, Susan (2006). "Beginnings and Transitions: Old English". In Mugglestone, Lynda. The Oxford
History of English. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-954439-4.
Pollard, Justin (2006). Alfred the Great: the man who made England. ISBN 0-7195-6666-5.
Reuter, Timothy, ed. (2003). Alfred the Great. Studies in early medieval Britain. ISBN 978-0-7546-0957-
5.
The whole works of King Alfred the Great, with preliminary essays, illustrative of the history, arts, and
manners, of the ninth century. 1969. OCLC 28387.
External links
Alfred 8 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Works by or about Alfred the Great at Internet Archive
Works by Alfred the Great at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
BBC article on Alfred
The full text of Lays of Boethius at Wikisource
Orosius (c. 417). Alfred the Great; Barrington, Daines, eds. The Anglo-Saxon Version, from the Historian
Orosius. London: Printed by W. Bowyer and J. Nichols and sold by S. Baker (published 1773).
Alfred the Great
House of Wessex
Born: 849 Died: 26 October 899
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Æthelred
Bretwalda
871–899 Last holder
King of Wessex
871–899
Succeeded by
Edward the Elder
New title
King of the Anglo-
Saxons
878–899
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alfred_the_Great&oldid=786406714"
Categories: Alfred the Great 849 births 899 deaths 9th-century English monarchs 9th-century Christians
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West Saxon monarchs House of Wessex
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Alfred married of Mercia, Queen Eathswith in 868 in Kingdom of Wessex (England). Eathswith (daughter of of Mercia, Earl Æthelred and of Mercia, Eadburh) was born in 852 in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England; died on 5 Dec 902 in St Mary's Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in 1110 in Hyde Abbey (now lost), Winchester, Hampshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. of Wessex, King Edward was born in 874 in Wantage, Oxfordshire, England; was christened on 31 May 900 in Kingdom of Wessex (England); died on 17 Jul 924 in Farndon, Cheshire, England; was buried after 17 Jul 924 in New Minster, Winchester, Hampshire, England.
2. of Flanders, Princess Ælfthryth was born in 877 in Kingdom of Wessex (England); died on 7 Jun 929 in Gent, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium; was buried on 7 Jun 929 in St Peter's Abbey, Gent, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Appointments / Titles: Between 839 and 858; King of Wessex

Notes:

Æthelwulf

King of Wessex
Reign 839–858
Predecessor Egbert
Successor Æthelbald
Died 13 January 858
Burial Steyning then Old Minster, Winchester; remains may now be in Winchester Cathedral[1]
Spouse Osburh
Judith
Issue
Æthelstan, King of Kent
Æthelswith, Queen of Mercia
Æthelbald, King of Wessex
Æthelberht, King of Wessex
Æthelred, King of Wessex
Alfred, King of Wessex
House House of Wessex
Father Egbert

Æthelwulf
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Æthelwulf (Old English for "Noble Wolf";[2] died 13 January 858) was King of Wessex from 839 to 858.[a] In 825, his father, King Egbert, defeated King Beornwulf of Mercia, ending a long Mercian dominance over Anglo-Saxon England south of the Humber. Egbert sent Æthelwulf with an army to Kent, where he expelled the Mercian sub-king and was himself appointed sub-king. After 830, Egbert maintained good relations with Mercia, and this was continued by Æthelwulf when he became king in 839, the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641. The Vikings were not a major threat to Wessex during Æthelwulf's reign. In 843, he was defeated in a battle against the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset, but he achieved a major victory at the Battle of Aclea in 851. In 853 he joined a successful Mercian expedition to Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony, and in the same year his daughter Æthelswith married King Burgred of Mercia. In 855 Æthelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome. In preparation he gave a "decimation", donating a tenth of his personal property to his subjects; he appointed his eldest surviving son Æthelbald to act as King of Wessex in his absence, and his next son Æthelberht to rule Kent and the south-east. Æthelwulf spent a year in Rome, and on his way back he married Judith, the daughter of the West Frankish King Charles the Bald.

When Æthelwulf returned to England, Æthelbald refused to surrender the West Saxon throne, and Æthelwulf agreed to divide the kingdom, taking the east and leaving the west in Æthelbald's hands. On Æthelwulf's death in 858 he left Wessex to Æthelbald and Kent to Æthelberht, but Æthelbald's death only two years later led to the reunification of the kingdom.

In the 20th century Æthelwulf's reputation among historians was poor: he was seen as excessively pious and impractical, and his pilgrimage was viewed as a desertion of his duties. Historians in the 21st century see him very differently, as a king who consolidated and extended the power of his dynasty, commanded respect on the continent, and dealt more effectively than most of his contemporaries with Viking attacks. He is regarded as one of the most successful West Saxon kings, who laid the foundations for the success of his son, Alfred the Great.

Background
At the beginning of the 9th century, England was almost completely under the control of the Anglo-Saxons, with Mercia and Wessex the most important southern kingdoms. Mercia was dominant until the 820s, and it exercised overlordship over East Anglia and Kent, but Wessex was able to maintain its independence from its more powerful neighbour. Offa, King of Mercia from 757 to 796, was the dominant figure of the second half of the 8th century. King Beorhtric of Wessex (786–802), married Offa's daughter in 789. Beorhtric and Offa drove Æthelwulf's father Egbert into exile, and he spent several years at the court of Charlemagne in Francia. Egbert was the son of Ealhmund, who had briefly been King of Kent in 784. Following Offa's death, King Coenwulf of Mercia (796–821) maintained Mercian dominance, but it is uncertain whether Beorhtric ever accepted political subordination, and when he died in 802 Egbert became king, perhaps with the support of Charlemagne.[5] For two hundred years three kindreds had fought for the West Saxon throne, and no son had followed his father as king. Egbert's best claim was that he was the great-great-grandson of Ingild, brother of King Ine (688–726), and in 802 it would have seemed very unlikely that he would establish a lasting dynasty.[6] Almost nothing is recorded of the first twenty years of Egbert's reign, apart from campaigns against the Cornish in the 810s.[7] The historian Richard Abels argues that the silence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was probably intentional, concealing Egbert's purge of Beorhtric's magnates and suppression of rival royal lines.[8] Relations between Mercian kings and their Kentish subjects were distant. Kentish ealdormen did not attend the court of King Coenwulf, who quarrelled with Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury (805–832) over the control of Kentish monasteries; Coenwulf's primary concern seems to have been to gain access to the wealth of Kent. His successors Ceolwulf I (821–23) and Beornwulf (823–26) restored relations with Archbishop Wulfred, and Beornwulf appointed a sub-king of Kent, Baldred.[9]

England had suffered Viking raids in the late 8th century, but no attacks are recorded between 794 and 835, when the Isle of Sheppey in Kent was ravaged.[10] In 836 Egbert was defeated by the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset,[7] but in 838 he was victorious over an alliance of Cornishmen and Vikings at the Battle of Hingston Down, reducing Cornwall to the status of a client kingdom.[11]

Family
Æthelwulf was the son of Egbert, King of Wessex from 802 to 839. His mother's name is unknown, and he had no recorded siblings. He is known to have had two wives in succession, and so far as is known, Osburh, the senior of the two, was the mother of all his children. She was the daughter of Oslac, described by Asser, biographer of their son Alfred the Great, as "King Æthelwulf's famous butler",[b] a man who was descended from Jutes who had ruled the Isle of Wight.[13][14] Æthelwulf had six known children. His eldest son, Æthelstan, was old enough to be appointed King of Kent in 839, so he must have been born by the early 820s, and he died in the early 850s.[c] The second son, Æthelbald, is first recorded as a charter witness in 841, and if, like Alfred, he began to attest when he was around six, he would have been born around 835; he was King of Wessex from 858 to 860. Æthelwulf's third son, Æthelberht, was probably born around 839 and was king from 860 to 865. The only daughter, Æthelswith, married Burgred, King of Mercia, in 853.[16] The other two sons were much younger: Æthelred was born around 848 and was king from 865 to 871, and Alfred was born around 849 and was king from 871 to 899.[17] In 856 Æthelwulf married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, King of West Francia and future Holy Roman Emperor, and his wife Ermentrude. Osburh had probably died, although it is possible that she had been repudiated.[d] There were no children from Æthelwulf's marriage to Judith, and after his death she married his eldest surviving son and successor, Æthelbald.[13]

Early life
Æthelwulf was first recorded in 825, when Egbert won the crucial Battle of Ellandun against King Beornwulf of Mercia, ending the long Mercian ascendancy over southern England. Egbert followed it up by sending Æthelwulf with Eahlstan, Bishop of Sherborne, and Wulfheard, Ealdorman of Hampshire, with a large army into Kent to expel sub-king Baldred.[e] Æthelwulf was descended from kings of Kent, and he was sub-king of Kent, and of Surrey, Sussex and Essex, which were then included in the sub-kingdom, until he inherited the throne of Wessex in 839.[22] His sub-kingship is recorded in charters, in some of which King Egbert acted with his son's permission,[13] such as a grant in 838 to Bishop Beornmod of Rochester, and Æthelwulf himself issued a charter as King of Kent in the same year.[23] Unlike their Mercian predecessors, who alienated the Kentish people by ruling from a distance, Æthelwulf and his father successfully cultivated local support by governing through Kentish ealdormen and promoting their interests.[24] In Abels' view, Egbert and Æthelwulf rewarded their friends and purged Mercian supporters.[25][f] Historians take differing views on the attitude of the new regime to the Kentish church. At Canterbury in 828 Egbert granted privileges to the bishopric of Rochester, and according to the historian of Anglo-Saxon England Simon Keynes, Egbert and Æthelwulf took steps to secure the support of Archbishop Wulfred.[27] However, the medievalist Nicholas Brooks argues that Wulfred's Mercian origin and connections proved a liability. Æthelwulf seized an estate in East Malling from the Canterbury church on the ground that it had only been granted by Baldred when he was in flight from the West Saxon forces; the issue of archiepiscopal coinage was suspended for several years; and the only estate Wulfred was granted after 825 he received from King Wiglaf of Mercia.[28]

In 829 Egbert conquered Mercia, only for Wiglaf to recover his kingdom a year later.[29] The scholar D. P. Kirby sees Wiglaf's restoration in 830 as a dramatic reversal for Egbert, which was probably followed by his loss of control of the London mint and the Mercian recovery of Essex and Berkshire,[30] and the historian Heather Edwards states that his "immense conquest could not be maintained".[7] However, in the view of Keynes: It is interesting ... that both Egbert and his son Æthelwulf appear to have respected the separate identity of Kent and its associated provinces, as if there appears to have been no plan at this stage to absorb the southeast into an enlarged kingdom stretching across the whole of southern England. Nor does it seem to have been the intention of Egbert and his successors to maintain supremacy of any kind over the kingdom of Mercia ... It is quite possible that Egbert had relinquished Mercia of his own volition; and there is no suggestion that any residual antagonism affected relations between the rulers of Wessex and Mercia thereafter.[31]

In 838 King Egbert held an assembly at Kingston in Surrey, where Æthelwulf may have been consecrated asking by the archbishop. Egbert restored the East Malling estate to Wulfred's successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Ceolnoth, in return for a promise of "firm and unbroken friendship" for himself and Æthelwulf and their heirs, and the same condition is specified in a grant to the see of Winchester. Egbert thus ensured support for Æthelwulf, who became the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641.[32] At the same meeting Kentish monasteries chose Æthelwulf as their lord, and he undertook that, after his death, they would have freedom to elect their heads. Wulfred had devoted his archiepiscopate to fighting against secular power over Kentish monasteries, but Ceolnoth now surrendered effective control to Æthelwulf, whose offer of freedom from control after his death was unlikely to be honoured by his successors. Kentish ecclesiastics and laymen now looked for protection against Viking attacks to West Saxon rather than Mercian royal power. [33] Egbert's conquests brought him wealth far greater than his predecessors had enjoyed, and enabled him to purchase the support which secured the West Saxon throne for his descendants.[34] The stability brought by the dynastic succession of Egbert and Æthelwulf led to an expansion of commercial and agrarian resources, and to an expansion of royal income.[35] The wealth of the West Saxon kings was also increased by the agreement in 838–39 with Archbishop Ceolnoth for the previously independent West Saxon minsters to accept the king as their secular lord in return for his protection.[36] However, there was no certainty that the hegemony of Wessex would prove more permanent than that of Mercia.[37]

King of Wessex
When Æthelwulf succeeded to the throne of Wessex in 839, his experience as sub-king of Kent had given him valuable training in kingship, and he in turn made his own sons sub-kings.[38] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, on his accession "he gave to his son Æthelstan the kingdom of the people of Kent, and the kingdom of the East Saxons [Essex] and of the people of Surrey and of the South Saxons [Sussex]". However, Æthelwulf did not give Æthelstan the same power as his father had given him, and although Æthelstan attested his father's charters[g] as king, he does not appear to have been given the power to issue his own charters. Æthelwulf exercised authority in the south-east and made regular visits there. He governed Wessex and Kent as separate spheres, and assemblies in each kingdom were only attended by the nobility of that country. The historian Janet Nelson says that "Æthelwulf ran a Carolingian-style family firm of plural realms, held together by his own authority as father-king, and by the consent of distinct élites." He maintained his father's policy of governing Kent through ealdormen appointed from the local nobility and advancing their interests, but gave less support to the church.[39] In 843 Æthelwulf granted ten hides at Little Chart to Æthelmod, the brother of the leading Kentish ealdorman Ealhere, and Æthelmod succeeded to the post on his brother's death in 853.[40] In 844 Æthelwulf granted land at Horton in Kent to Ealdorman Eadred, with permission to transfer parts of it to local landowners; in a culture of reciprocity, this created a network of mutual friendships and obligations between the beneficiaries and the king.[41] Archbishops of Canterbury were firmly in the West Saxon king's sphere. His ealdormen enjoyed a high status, and were sometimes placed higher than the king's sons in lists of witnesses to charters.[42] His reign is the first for which there is evidence of royal priests,[43] and Malmesbury Abbey regarded him as an important benefactor, who is said to have been the donor of a shrine for the relics of Saint Aldhelm.[44]

After 830, Egbert had followed a policy of maintaining good relations with Mercia, and this was continued by Æthelwulf when he became king. London was traditionally a Mercian town, but in the 830s it was under West Saxon control; soon after Æthelwulf's accession it reverted to Mercian control.[45] King Wiglaf of Mercia died in 839 and his successor, Berhtwulf, revived the Mercian mint in London; the two kingdoms appear to have struck a joint issue in the mid-840s, possibly indicating West Saxon help in reviving Mercian coinage, and showing the friendly relations between the two powers. Berkshire was still Mercian in 844, but by 849 it was part of Wessex, as Alfred was born in that year at the West Saxon royal estate in Wantage, then in Berkshire.[46][h] However, the local Mercian ealdorman, also called Æthelwulf, retained his position under the West Saxon kings.[48] Berhtwulf died in 852 and cooperation with Wessex continued under Burgred, his successor as King of Mercia, who married Æthelwulf's daughter Æthelswith in 853. In the same year Æthelwulf assisted Burgred in a successful attack on Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony over the Welsh.[49] In 9th-century Mercia and Kent, royal charters were produced by religious houses, each with its own style, but in Wessex there was a single royal diplomatic tradition, probably by a single agency acting for the king. This may have originated in Egbert's reign, and it becomes clear in the 840s, when Æthelwulf had a Frankish secretary called Felix.[50] There were strong contacts between the West Saxon and Carolingian courts. The Annals of St Bertin took particular interest in Viking attacks on Britain, and in 852 Lupus, the Abbot of Ferrières and a protégé of Charles the Bald, wrote to Æthelwulf congratulating him on his victory over the Vikings and requesting a gift of lead to cover his church roof. Lupus also wrote to his "most beloved friend" Felix, asking him to manage the transport of the lead.[51] Unlike Canterbury and the south-east, Wessex did not see a sharp decline in the standard of Latin in charters in the mid-9th century, and this may have been partly due to Felix and his continental contacts.[52] Lupus thought that Felix had great influence over the King.[13] Charters were mainly issued from royal estates in counties which were the heartland of ancient Wessex, namely Hampshire, Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset, with a few in Kent.[53]

An ancient division between east and west Wessex continued to be important in the 9th century; the boundary
was Selwood Forest on the borders of Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire. The two bishoprics of Wessex were
Selborne in the west and Winchester in the east. Æthelwulf's family connections seem to have been west of
Selwood, but his patronage was concentrated further east, particularly on Winchester, where his father was
buried, and where he appointed Swithun to succeed Helmstan as bishop in 852–853. However, he made a grant
of land in Somerset to his leading ealdorman, Eanwulf, and on 26 December 846 he granted a large estate to
himself in South Hams in west Devon. He thus changed it from royal demesne, which he was obliged to pass
on to his successor as king, to bookland, which could be transferred as the owner pleased, so he could make
land grants to followers to improve security in a frontier zone.[54]
Viking threat
Viking raids increased in the early 840s on both sides of the English Channel, and in 843 Æthelwulf was
defeated by the companies of 35 Danish ships at Carhampton in Somerset. In 850 sub-king Æthelstan and
Ealdorman Ealhhere of Kent won a naval victory over a large Viking fleet off Sandwich in Kent, capturing nine
ships and driving off the rest. Æthelwulf granted Ealhhere a large estate in Kent, but Æthelstan is not heard of
Coin of King Æthelwulf:
"EĐELVVLF REX", moneyer Manna,
Canterbury[58]
again, and probably died soon afterwards. The following year the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records five different
attacks on southern England. A Danish fleet of 350 Viking ships took London and Canterbury, and when King
Berhtwulf of Mercia went to their relief he was defeated. The Vikings then moved on to Surrey, where they
were defeated by Æthelwulf and his son Æthelbald at the Battle of Aclea. According to the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle the West Saxon levies "there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen that we have heard tell of up to
the present day". The Chronicle frequently reported victories during Æthelwulf's reign won by levies led by
ealdormen, unlike the 870s when royal command was emphasised, reflecting a more consensual style of
leadership in the earlier period.[55]
In 850 a Danish army wintered on Thanet, and in 853 ealdormen Ealhhere of Kent and Huda of Surrey were
killed in a battle against the Vikings, also on Thanet. In 855 Danish Vikings stayed over the winter on Sheppey,
before carrying on their pillaging of eastern England.[56] However, during Æthelwulf's reign Viking attacks
were contained and did not present a major threat.[57]
Coinage
The silver penny was almost the only coin used in middle and later
Anglo-Saxon England. Æthelwulf's coinage came from a main mint in
Canterbury and a secondary one at Rochester; both had been used by
Egbert for his own coinage after he gained control of Kent. During
Æthelwulf's reign, there were four main phases of the coinage
distinguishable at both mints, though they are not exactly parallel and it
is uncertain when the transitions took place. The first issue at
Canterbury carried a design known as Saxoniorum, which had been
used by Egbert for one of his own issues. This was replaced by a
portrait design in about 843, which can be subdivided further; the
earliest coins have cruder designs than the later ones. At the Rochester
mint the sequence was reversed, with an initial portrait design replaced, also in about 843, by a non-portrait
design carrying a cross-and-wedges pattern on the obverse.[13][59]
In about 848 both mints switched to a common design known as Dor¯b¯/Cant – the characters "Dor¯b¯" on the
obverse of these coins indicate either Dorobernia (Canterbury) or Dorobrevia (Rochester), and "Cant",
referring to Kent, appeared on the reverse. It is possible that the Canterbury mint continued to produce portrait
coins at the same time. The Canterbury issue seems to have been ended in 850–851 by Viking raids, though it is
possible that Rochester was spared, and the issue may have continued there. The final issue, again at both
mints, was introduced in about 852; it has an inscribed cross on the reverse and a portrait on the obverse.
Æthelwulf's coinage became debased by the end of his reign, and though the problem became worse after his
death it is possible that the debasement prompted the changes in coin type from as early as 850.[60]
Æthelwulf's first Rochester coinage may have begun when he was still sub-king of Kent, under Egbert. A hoard
of coins deposited at the beginning of Æthelwulf's reign in about 840, found in the Middle Temple in London,
contained 22 coins from Rochester and two from Canterbury of the first issue of each mint. Some numismatists
argue that the high proportion of Rochester coins means that the issue must have commenced before Egbert's
death, but an alternative explanation is that whoever hoarded the coins simply happened to have access to more
Rochester coins. No coins were issued by Æthelwulf's sons during his reign.[61]
Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury throughout Æthelwulf's reign, also minted coins of his own at Canterbury:
there were three different portrait designs, thought to be contemporary with each of the first three of
Æthelwulf's Canterbury issues. These were followed by an inscribed cross design that was uniform with
Æthelwulf's final coinage. At Rochester, Bishop Beornmod produced only one issue, a cross-and-wedges
design which was contemporary with Æthelwulf's Saxoniorum issue.[62]
Charter S 316 dated 855, in which
Æthelwulf granted land at Ulaham in
Kent to his minister Ealdhere.[64]
In the view of the numismatists Philip Grierson and Mark Blackburn, the mints of Wessex, Mercia and East
Anglia were not greatly affected by changes in political control: "the remarkable continuity of moneyers which
can be seen at each of these mints suggests that the actual mint organisation was largely independent of the
royal administration and was founded in the stable trading communities of each city".[63]
Decimation Charters
The early 20th-century historian W. H. Stevenson observed that: "Few
things in our early history have led to so much discussion" as
Æthelwulf's Decimation Charters;[65] a hundred years later the charter
expert Susan Kelly described them as "one of the most controversial
groups of Anglo-Saxon diplomas".[66] Both Asser and the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle say that Æthelwulf gave a decimation,[i] in 855, shortly
before leaving on pilgrimage to Rome. According to the Chronicle
"King Æthelwulf conveyed by charter the tenth part of his land
throughout all his kingdom to the praise of God and to his own eternal
salvation". However, Asser states that "Æthelwulf, the esteemed king,
freed the tenth part of his whole kingdom from royal service and tribute,
and as an everlasting inheritance he made it over on the cross of Christ
to the triune God, for the redemption of his soul and those of his
predecessors."[68] According to Keynes, Asser's version may just be a "loose translation" of the Chronicle, and
his implication that Æthelwulf released a tenth of all land from secular burdens was probably not intended. All
land could be regarded as the king's land, so the Chronicle reference to "his land" does not necessarily refer to
royal property, and since the booking of land – conveying it by charter – was always regarded as a pious act,
Asser's statement that he made it over to God does not necessarily mean that the charters were in favour of the
church.[69]
The Decimation Charters are divided by Susan Kelly into four groups:
1. Two dated at Winchester on 5 November 844. In a charter in the Malmesbury archive, Æthelwulf refers
in the proem to the perilous state of his kingdom as the result of the assaults of pagans and barbarians.
For the sake of his soul and in return for masses for the king and ealdormen each Wednesday, "I have
decided to give in perpetual liberty some portion of hereditary lands to all those ranks previously in
possession, both to God's servants and handmaidens serving God and to laymen, always the tenth hide,
and where it is less, then the tenth part."[j]
2. Six dated at Wilton on Easter Day, 22 April 854. In the common text of these charters, Æthelwulf states
that "for the sake of his soul and the prosperity of the kingdom and [the salvation of] the people assigned
to him by God, he has acted upon the advice given to him by his bishops, comites, and all his nobles. He
has granted the tenth part of the lands throughout his kingdom, not only to the churches, but also to his
thegns. The land is granted in perpetual liberty, so that it will remain free of royal services and all secular
burdens. In return there will be liturgical commemoration of the king and of his bishops and
ealdormen."[k]
3. Five from Old Minster, Winchester, connected with the Wilton meeting but generally considered
spurious.[l]
4. One from Kent dated 855, the only one to have the same date as the decimation according to Chronicle
and Asser. The king grants to his thegn Dunn property in Rochester "on account of the decimation of
lands which by God's gift I have decided to do". Dunn left the land to his wife with reversion to
Rochester Cathedral.[m][72]
None of the charters are original, and Stevenson dismissed all of them as fraudulent apart from the Kentish one
of 855. Stevenson saw the decimation as a donation of royal demesne to churches and laymen, with those
grants which were made to laymen being on the understanding that there would be reversion to a religious
institution.[73] Up to the 1990s, his view on the authenticity of the charters was generally accepted by scholars,
with the exception of the historian H. P. R. Finberg, who argued in 1964 that most are based on authentic
diplomas. Finberg coined the terms the 'First Decimation' of 844, which he saw as the removal of public dues
on a tenth of all bookland, and the 'Second Decimation' of 854, the donation of a tenth of "the private domain of
the royal house" to the churches. He considered it unlikely that the First Decimation had been carried into
effect, probably due to the threat from the Vikings. Finberg's terminology has been adopted, but his defence of
the First Decimation generally rejected. In 1994 Keynes defended the Wilton charters in group 2, and his
arguments have been widely accepted.[74]
Historians have been divided on how to interpret the Second Decimation, and in 1994 Keynes described it as
"one of the most perplexing problems" in the study of 9th-century charters. He set out three alternatives:
1. It conveyed a tenth of the royal demesne – the lands of the crown as opposed to the personal property of
the sovereign – into the hands of churches, ecclesiastics and laymen. In Anglo-Saxon England property
was either folkland or bookland. The transmission of folkland was governed by the customary rights of
kinsmen, subject to the king's approval, whereas bookland was established by the grant of a royal charter,
and could be disposed of freely by the owner. Booking land thus converted it by charter from folkland to
bookland. The royal demesne was the crown's folkland, whereas the king's bookland was his own
personal property which he could leave by will as he chose. In the decimation Æthelwulf may have
conveyed royal folkland by charter to become bookland, in some cases to laymen who already leased the
land.[75]
2. It was the booking of a tenth of folkland to its owners, who would then be free to convey it to a
church.[76]
3. It was a reduction of one tenth in the secular burdens on lands already in the possession of
landowners.[76] The secular burdens would have included the provision of supplies for the king and his
officials, and payment of various taxes.[77]
Some scholars, for example Frank Stenton, author of the standard history of Anglo-Saxon England, along with
Keynes and Abels, see the Second Decimation as a donation of royal demesne. In Abels' view Æthelwulf
sought loyalty from the aristocracy and church during the king's forthcoming absence from Wessex, and
displayed a sense of dynastic insecurity also evident in his father's generosity towards the Kentish church in
838, and in an "avid attention" in this period to compiling and revising royal genealogies.[78] Keynes suggests
that "Æthelwulf's purpose was presumably to earn divine assistance in his struggles against the Vikings",[79]
and the mid-20th century historian Eric John observes that "a lifetime of medieval studies teaches one that an
early medieval king was never so political as when he was on his knees".[80] The view that the decimation was
a donation of the king's own personal estate is supported by the Anglo-Saxonist Alfred Smyth, who argues that
these were the only lands the king was entitled to alienate by book.[81][n] The historian Martin Ryan prefers the
view that Æthelwulf freed a tenth part of land owned by laymen from secular obligations, who could now
endow churches under their own patronage. Ryan sees it as part of a campaign of religious devotion.[84]
According to the historian David Pratt, it "is best interpreted as a strategic 'tax cut', designed to encourage
cooperation in defensive measures through a partial remission of royal dues".[85] Nelson states that the
decimation took place in two phases, in Wessex in 854 and Kent in 855, reflecting that they remained separate
kingdoms.[86]
Kelly argues that most charters were based on genuine originals, including the First Decimation of 844. She
says: "Commentators have been unkind [and] the 844 version has not been given the benefit of the doubt". In
her view Æthelwulf then gave a 10% tax reduction on bookland, and ten years later he took the more generous
step of "a widespread distribution of royal lands". Unlike Finberg, she believes that both decimations were
carried out, although the second one may not have been completed due to opposition from Æthelwulf's son
Æthelbald. She thinks that the grants of bookland to laymen in the Second Decimation were unconditional, not
with reversion to religious houses as Stevenson had argued.[87] However, Keynes is not convinced by Kelly's
arguments, and thinks that the First Decimation charters were 11th or early 12th century fabrications.[88]
Pilgrimage to Rome and later life
In the early 850s Æthelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome. According to Abels: "Æthelwulf was at the height of
his power and prestige. It was a propitious time for the West Saxon king to claim a place of honour among the
kings and emperors of christendom."[89] His eldest surviving sons Æthelbald and Æthelberht were then adults,
while Æthelred and Alfred were still young children. In 853 Æthelwulf sent his younger sons to Rome, perhaps
accompanying envoys in connection with his own forthcoming visit. Alfred, and possibly Æthelred as well,
were invested with the "belt of consulship". Æthelred's part in the journey is only known from a contemporary
record in the liber vitae of San Salvatore, Brescia, as later records such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle were only
interested in recording the honour paid to Alfred.[13] Abels sees the embassy as paving the way for Æthelwulf's
pilgrimage, and the presence of Alfred, his youngest and therefore most expendable son, as a gesture of
goodwill to the papacy; confirmation by Pope Leo IV made Alfred his spiritual son, and thus created a spiritual
link between the two "fathers".[90][o] Kirby argues that the journey may indicate that Alfred was intended for
the church,[92] while Nelson on the contrary sees Æthelwulf's purpose as affirming his younger sons'
throneworthiness, thus protecting them against being tonsured by their elder brothers, which would have
rendered them ineligible for kingship.[93]
Æthelwulf set out for Rome in the spring of 855, accompanied by Alfred and a large retinue.[94] The King left
Wessex in the care of his oldest surviving son, Æthelbald, and the sub-kingdom of Kent to the rule of
Æthelberht, and thereby confirmed that they were to succeed to the two kingdoms.[25] On the way the party
stayed with Charles the Bald in Francia, where there were the usual banquets and exchange of gifts. Æthelwulf
stayed a year in Rome,[95] and his gifts to the Diocese of Rome included a gold crown weighing 4 pounds
(1.8 kg), two gold goblets, a sword bound with gold, four silver-gilt bowls, two silk tunics and two goldinterwoven
veils. He also gave gold to the clergy and leading men and silver to the people of Rome. According
to the historian Joanna Story, his gifts rivalled those of Carolingian donors and the Byzantine emperor and
"were clearly chosen to reflect the personal generosity and spiritual wealth of the West Saxon king; here was no
Germanic 'hillbilly' from the backwoods of the Christian world but, rather, a sophisticated, wealthy and utterly
contemporary monarch".[96] According to the 12th-century chronicler William of Malmesbury, he helped to
pay for the restoration of the Saxon quarter, which had recently been destroyed by fire, for English pilgrims.[97]
The pilgrimage puzzles historians and Kelly comments that "it is extraordinary that an early medieval king
could consider his position safe enough to abandon his kingdom in a time of extreme crisis". She suggests that
Æthelwulf may have been motivated by a personal religious impulse.[98] Ryan sees it as an attempt to placate
the divine wrath displayed by Viking attacks,[84] whereas Nelson thinks he aimed to enhance his prestige in
dealing with the demands of his adult sons.[99] In Kirby's view:
Æthelwulf's journey to Rome is of great interest for it did not signify abdication and a retreat from
the world as their journeys to Rome had for Cædwalla and Ine and other Anglo-Saxon kings. It
was more a display of the king's international standing and a demonstration of the prestige his
dynasty enjoyed in Frankish and papal circles.[100]
On his way back from Rome Æthelwulf again stayed with King Charles the Bald, and may have joined him on
a campaign against a Viking warband.[101] On 1 October 856 Æthelwulf married Charles's daughter, Judith,
aged 12 or 13, at Verberie. The marriage was considered extraordinary by contemporaries and by modern
historians. Carolingian princesses rarely married and were usually sent to nunneries, and it was almost
unknown for them to marry foreigners. Judith was crowned queen and anointed by Hincmar, Archbishop of
Rheims. Although empresses had been anointed before, this is the first definitely known anointing of a
Carolingian queen. In addition West Saxon custom, described by Asser as "perverse and detestable", was that
the wife of a king of Wessex could not be called queen or sit on the throne with her husband – she was just the
king's wife.[102]
King Æthelwulf's
ring
Æthelwulf returned to Wessex to face a revolt by Æthelbald, who attempted to prevent his father from
recovering his throne. Historians give varying explanations for both the rebellion and the marriage. In Nelson's
view, Æthelwulf's marriage to Judith added the West Saxon king to the family of kings and princely allies
which Charles was creating.[103] Charles was under attack both from Vikings and from a rising among his own
nobility, and Æthelwulf had great prestige due to his victories over the Vikings; some historians such as Kirby
and Pauline Stafford see the marriage as sealing an anti-Viking alliance. The marriage gave Æthelwulf a share
in Carolingian prestige, and Kirby describes the anointing of Judith as "a charismatic sanctification which
enhanced her status, blessed her womb and conferred additional throne-worthiness on her male offspring."
These marks of a special status implied that a son of hers would succeed to at least part of Æthelwulf's
kingdom, and explain Æthelbald's decision to rebel.[104] The historian Michael Enright denies that an anti-
Viking alliance between two such distant kingdoms could serve any useful purpose, and argues that the
marriage was Æthelwulf's response to news that his son was planning to rebel; his son by an anointed
Carolingian queen would be in a strong position to succeed as king of Wessex instead of the rebellious
Æthelbald.[105] Abels suggests that Æthelwulf sought Judith's hand because he needed her father's money and
support to overcome his son's rebellion,[106] but Kirby and Smyth argue that it is extremely unlikely that
Charles the Bald would have agreed to marry his daughter to a ruler who was known to be in serious political
difficulty.[107] Æthelbald may also have acted out of resentment at the loss of patrimony he suffered as a result
of the decimation.[98]
Æthelbald's rebellion was supported by Ealhstan, Bishop of Sherborne, and Eanwulf, ealdorman of Somerset,
even though they appear to have been two of the king's most trusted advisers.[108] According to Asser, the plot
was concerted "in the western part of Selwood", and western nobles may have backed Æthelbald because they
resented the patronage Æthelwulf gave to eastern Wessex.[109] Asser also stated that Æthelwulf agreed to give
up the western part of his kingdom in order to avoid a civil war. Some historians such as Keynes and Abels
think that his rule was then confined to the south-east,[110] while others such as Kirby think it is more likely
that it was Wessex itself which was divided, with Æthelbald keeping Wessex west of Selwood, Æthelwulf
holding the centre and east, and Æthelberht keeping the south-east.[111] Æthelwulf insisted that Judith should
sit beside him on the throne until the end of his life, and according to Asser this was "without any disagreement
or dissatisfaction on the part of his nobles".[112]
King Æthelwulf's ring
King Æthelwulf's ring was found in a cart rut in Laverstock in Wiltshire in about
August 1780 by one William Petty, who sold it to a silversmith in Salisbury. The
silversmith sold it to the Earl of Radnor, and the earl's son, William, donated it to the
British Museum in 1829. The ring, together with a similar ring of Æthelwulf's daughter
Æthelswith, is one of two key examples of nielloed 9th-century metalwork. They
appear to represent the emergence of a "court style" of West Saxon metalwork,
characterised by an unusual Christian iconography, such as a pair of peacocks at the
Fountain of Life on the Æthelwulf ring, associated with Christian immortality. The ring
is inscribed "Æthelwulf Rex", firmly associating it with the King, and the inscription
forms part of the design, so it cannot have been added later. Many of its features are
typical of 9th-century metalwork, such as the design of two birds, beaded and speckled borders, and a saltire
with arrow-like terminals on the back. It was probably manufactured in Wessex, but was typical of the
uniformity of animal ornament in England in the 9th century. In the view of Leslie Webster, an expert on
medieval art: "Its fine Trewhiddle style ornament would certainly fit a mid ninth-century date."[113] In Nelson's
view, "it was surely made to be a gift from this royal lord to a brawny follower: the sign of a successful ninthcentury
kingship".[13] The art historian David Wilson sees it as a survival of the pagan tradition of the generous
king as the "ring-giver".[114]
Æthelwulf's will
A page from King Alfred's will
Æthelwulf's will has not survived, but Alfred's has and it provides some
information about his father's intentions. The kingdom was to be
divided between the two oldest surviving sons, with Æthelbald getting
Wessex and Æthelberht Kent and the south-east. The survivor of
Æthelbald, Æthelred and Alfred was to inherit their father's bookland –
his personal property as opposed to the royal lands which went with the
kingship – and Abels and Yorke argue that this probably means that the
survivor was to inherit the throne of Wessex as well.[115] Other
historians disagree. Nelson states that the provision regarding the
personal property had nothing to do with the kingship,[13] and Kirby
comments: "Such an arrangement would have led to fratricidal strife.
With three older brothers, Alfred's chances of reaching adulthood
would, one feels, have been minimal."[116] Æthelwulf's moveable
wealth, such as gold and silver, was to be divided between "children,
nobles and the needs of the king's soul".[13] For the latter, he left one
tenth of his hereditary land to be set aside to feed the poor, and he
ordered that three hundred mancuses be sent to Rome each year, one
hundred to be spent on lighting the lamps in St Peter's at Easter, one
hundred for the lights of St Paul's, and one hundred for the pope.[117]
Death and succession
Æthelwulf died on 13 January 858. According to the Annals of St
Neots, he was buried at Steyning in Sussex, but his body was later
transferred to Winchester, probably by Alfred.[118] Æthelwulf was succeeded by Æthelbald in Wessex and
Æthelberht in Kent and the south-east. The prestige conferred by a Frankish marriage was so great that
Æthelbald then wedded his step-mother Judith, to Asser's retrospective horror; he described the marriage as a
"great disgrace", and "against God's prohibition and Christian dignity".[13] When Æthelbald died only two
years later, Æthelberht became King of Wessex as well as Kent, and Æthelwulf's intention of dividing his
kingdoms between his sons was thus set aside. In the view of Yorke and Abels this was because Æthelred and
Alfred were too young to rule, and Æthelberht agreed in return that his younger brothers would inherit the
whole kingdom on his death,[119] whereas Kirby and Nelson think that Æthelberht just became the trustee for
his younger brothers' share of the bookland.[120]
After Æthelbald's death Judith sold her possessions and returned to her father, but two years later she eloped
with Baldwin, Count of Flanders. In the 890s their son, also called Baldwin, married Æthelwulf's
granddaughter Ælfthryth.[13]
Historiography
Æthelwulf's reputation among historians was poor in the twentieth century. In 1935 the historian R. H. Hodgkin
attributed his pilgrimage to Rome to "the unpractical piety which had led him to desert his kingdom at a time of
great danger", and described his marriage to Judith as "the folly of a man senile before his time".[121] To
Stenton in the 1960s he was "a religious and unambitious man, for whom engagement in war and politics was
an unwelcome consequence of rank".[122] One dissenter was Finberg, who in 1964 described him as "a king
whose valour in war and princely munificence recalled the figures of the heroic age",[123] but in 1979 Enright
said: "More than anything else he appears to have been an impractical religious enthusiast."[124] Early medieval
writers, especially Asser, emphasise his religiosity and his preference for consensus, seen in the concessions
made to avert a civil war on his return from Rome.[p] In Story's view "his legacy has been clouded by
accusations of excessive piety which (to modern sensibilities at least) has seemed at odds with the demands of
early medieval kingship". In 839 an unnamed Anglo-Saxon king wrote to the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the
Pious asking for permission to travel through his territory on the way to Rome, and relating an English priest's
dream which foretold disaster unless Christians abandoned their sins. This is now believed to have been an
unrealised project of Egbert at the end of his life, but it was formerly attributed to Æthelwulf, and seen as
exhibiting what Story calls his reputation for "dramatic piety", and irresponsibility for planning to abandon his
kingdom at the beginning of his reign.[126]
In the twenty-first century he is seen very differently by historians. Æthelwulf is not listed in the index of Peter
Hunter Blair's An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, first published in 1956, but in a new introduction to
the 2003 edition Keynes listed him among people "who have not always been accorded the attention they might
be thought to deserve ... for it was he, more than any other, who secured the political fortune of his people in
the ninth century, and who opened up channels of communication which led through Frankish realms and
across the Alps to Rome".[127] According to Story: "Æthelwulf acquired and cultivated a reputation both in
Francia and Rome which is unparalleled in the sources since the height of Offa's and Coenwulf's power at the
turn of the ninth century".[128]
Nelson describes him as "one of the great underrated among Anglo-Saxons", and complains that she was only
allowed 2,500 words for him in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, compared with 15,000 for
Edward II and 35,000 for Elizabeth I.[129] She says:
Æthelwulf's reign has been relatively under-appreciated in modern scholarship. Yet he laid the
foundations for Alfred's success. To the perennial problems of husbanding the kingdom's
resources, containing conflicts within the royal family, and managing relations with neighbouring
kingdoms, Æthelwulf found new as well as traditional answers. He consolidated old Wessex, and
extended his reach over what is now Devon and Cornwall. He ruled Kent, working with the grain
of its political community. He borrowed ideological props from Mercians and Franks alike, and
went to Rome, not to die there, like his predecessor Ine, ... but to return, as Charlemagne had, with
enhanced prestige. Æthelwulf coped more effectively with Scandinavian attacks than did most
contemporary rulers.[13]
Notes
a. Egbert's death and Æthelwulf's accession is dated by historians to 839. According to Susan Ke,l l"ythere may be grounds
for arguing that Æthelwulf's succession actually took place late in 838["3,] but Joanna Story argues that the West Saxon
regnal lists show the length of Egbert's reign as 37 years and 7 months, and as he acceded in 802 he is unlikely to have
died before July 839.[4]
b. Keynes and Lapidge comment: "The office of butler (pincerna) was a distinguished one, and its holders were likely to
have been important figures in the royal court and household["1.2]
c. Æthelstan was sub-king of Kent ten years before Alfred was born, and some late versions of thAen glo-Saxon Chronicle
make him the brother of Æthelwulf rather than his son. This has been accepted by some historians, but is now generally
rejected. It has also been suggested that Æthelstan was born of an unrecorded first marriage, but historians generally
assume that he was Osburh's son[.15]
d. Nelson states that it is uncertain whether Osburh died or had been repudiate[d1,3] but Abels argues that it is "extremely
unlikely" that she was repudiated, asH incmar of Rheims, who played a prominent role in Æthelwulf's and Judith's
marriage ceremony, was a strong advocate of the indissolubility of marriage[1.8]
e. The historians Janet Nelson and Ann Williams date Baldred's removal and the start of Æthelwulf's sub-kingship to
825,[19] but D. P. Kirby states that Baldred was probably not driven out until 826[2.0] Simon Keynes cites the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle as stating that Æthelwulf expelled Baldred in 825, and secured the submission of the people of Kent,
Surrey, Sussex and Essex; however, charter evidence suggests that Beornwulf was recognised as overlord of Kent until
he was killed in battle while attempting to put down a rebellion in East Anglia in 826. His successor as king of Mercia,
Ludeca, never seems to have been recognised in Kent. In a charter of 828 Egbert refers to his son Æthelwulf "whom we
have made king in Kent" as if the appointment was fairly new.[21]
f. Christ Church, Canterbury kept lists of patrons who had made donations to the church, and late 8th and early 9th century
patrons who had been supporters of Mercian power were expunged from the lists towards the end of the 9th cent.u[2ry6]
References
g. To attest a charter was to witness a grant of land by the king. The attesters were listed by t hsecribe at the end of the
charter, although usually only the most high-ranking witnesses were included.
h. The scholar James Booth suggests that the part of Berkshire where Alfred was born may have beene Wst Saxon territory
throughout the period.[47]
i. "Decimation" is used here in the sense of a donation of a tenth part. This usually means a payment to the ruler or church
(tithe),[67] but it is used here to mean a donation of a tenth part by the king. Historians do not agree what it was a tenth
of.
j. The charters are S 294, 294a and 294b. Kelly treats 294a and b, which are both fromM almesbury Abbey, as one
text.[70]
k. The six charters are S 302, 303, 304, 305, 307 and 308[7.1]
l. The five Old Minster charters are S 309-13. Kelly states that there are six charters, but she only lists five and she states
that there are fourteen in total, whereas there would be fifteen if there were six Old Minster charte[r6s6.]
m. The Kent charter is S 315.[66]
n. Smyth dismisses all the Decimation Charters as spurious[8,2] with what the scholar David Pratt describes as
"unwarranted scepticism".[83]
o. Abels is sceptical whether Æthelred accompanied Alfred to Rome as he is not mentioned in a letter from Leo to
Æthelwulf reporting Alfred's reception[,91] but Nelson argues that only a fragment of the letter survives in an 11thcentury
copy, and the scribe who selected excerpts from Leo's letters, like the editors of thAen glo-Saxon Chronicle, was
only interested in Alfred.[13]
p. The historian Richard North argues that the Old English poem "Deor" was written in about 856 as a satire on Æthelwulf
and a "mocking reflection" on Æthelbald's attitude towards him[1.25]
1. "Notes and Queries about the Mortuary Chests "(http://
churchmonumentssociety.org/Mortuary_Chests.html).
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Retrieved 24 May 2015.
2. Halsall 2013, p. 288.
3. Kelly 2005, p. 178.
4. Story 2003, p. 222, n. 39.
5. Keynes 1995, pp. 22, 30–37; Williams 1991b; Kirby
2000, p. 152.
6. Abels 2002, p. 85.
7. Edwards 2004.
8. Abels 2002, pp. 86–87.
9. Keynes 1993, pp. 113–19; Brooks 1984, pp. 132–36.
10. Ryan 2013, p. 258; Stenton 1971, p. 241.
11. Stenton 1971, p. 235; Charles-Edwards 2013, p. 431.
12. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 229–30.
13. Nelson 2004a.
14. Nelson 2004b.
15. Hodgkin 1935, pp. 497, 721; Stenton 1971, p. 236, n.
1; Abels 1998, p. 50; Nelson 2004b.
16. Abels 1998, p. 50.
17. Miller 2004.
18. Abels 1998, p. 71, n. 69.
19. Nelson 2004a; Williams 1991a.
20. Kirby 2000, pp. 155–56.
21. Keynes 1993, pp. 120–21.
22. Williams 1991a; Stenton 1971, p. 231; Kirby 2000,
pp. 155–56.
23. Smyth 1995, p. 673, n. 63.
24. Keynes 1993, pp. 112–20.
25. Abels 2002, p. 88.
26. Fleming 1995, p. 75.
27. Keynes 1993, pp. 120–21; Keynes 1995, p. 40.
28. Brooks 1984, pp. 136–37.
29. Stenton 1971, pp. 232–33.
30. Kirby 2000, p. 157.
31. Keynes 1995, pp. 40–41.
32. Wormald 1982, p. 140; Keynes 1994, pp. 1112–13; S
281 Sawyer.
33. Nelson 2004a; Keynes 1993, p. 124; Brooks 1984,
pp. 197–201; Story 2003, p. 223; Blair 2005, p. 124.
34. Yorke 1990, pp. 148–49.
35. Pratt 2007, p. 17.
36. Kelly 2005, p. 89.
37. Abels 1998, p. 28.
38. Yorke 1990, pp. 168–69.
39. Keynes 1993, pp. 124–27; Nelson 2004a.
40. Brooks 1984, pp. 147–49.
41. Abels 1998, pp. 32–33; S 319 Sawyer.
42. Abels 1998, p. 271.
43. Pratt 2007, p. 64.
44. Kelly 2005, pp. 13, 102.
45. Keynes 1993, pp. 127–28.
46. Kirby 2000, pp. 160–61; Keynes 1998, p. 6; Booth
1998, p. 65.
47. Booth 1998, p. 66.
48. Abels 1998, p. 29.
49. Kirby 2000, p. 161.
50. Keynes 1994, pp. 1109–23; Nelson 2004a.
51. Nelson 2013, pp. 236–38; Stafford 1981, p. 137.
52. Ryan 2013, p. 252.
53. Abels 1998, p. 52.
54. Yorke 1995, pp. 23–24, 98–99; Nelson 2004a; Finberg
1964, p. 189.
55. Nelson 2004a; Story 2003, p. 227.
56. Stenton 1971, p. 243; Abels 1998, p. 88.
57. Ryan 2013, p. 258.
58. Grueber & Keary 1893, pp. 9, 17 no. 19, Plate III.4;
Early Medieval Coins Fitzwilliam Museum.
59. Grierson & Blackburn 2006, pp. 270, 287–91.
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required)
Nelson, Janet L. (2004c). "England and the Continent in the Ninth Century: III, Rights and RitualsT"r. ansactions of the
Royal Historical Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press (14): 1–24.
Nelson, Janet L. (2006). "The Queen in Ninth-Century Wessex". In Keynes, Simon; Smyth, Alfred P. Anglo-Saxons:
Studies Presented to Cyril Roy Har.t Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts Press. pp. 69–77I. SBN 1-85182-932-6.
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O'Keeffe, Katherine O'Brien (Winter 1996). "Deor" (PDF). Old English Newsletter. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Western
Michigan University. 29 (2): 35–36. ISSN 0030-1973.
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External links
Æthelwulf 1 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Egbert
King of Wessex
839–858
Succeeded by
Æthelbald
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Æthelwulf&oldid=784363977"
Categories: Burials at Winchester Cathedral West Saxon monarchs 858 deaths
9th-century English monarchs House of Wessex
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may
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trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Æthelwulf married of Wessex, Queen Consort Osburh. Osburh (daughter of of Wessex, Oslac) was born in UNKNOWN in Kingdom of Wessex (England); died in DECEASED in Kingdom of Wessex (England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Appointments / Titles: Between 839 and 854; Queen consort of Wessex

Notes:

Osburh

Queen consort of Wessex
Tenure c. 839 – c. 854
Spouse Æthelwulf, King of Wessex
Issue
Æthelstan of Wessex
Æthelswith, Queen of Mercia
Æthelbald, King of Wessex
Æthelbert, King of Wessex
Æthelred, King of Wessex
Alfred, King of Wessex
House House of Wessex (by marriage)
Father Oslac

Osburh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Osburh or Osburga was the first wife of King Æthelwulf of
Wessex and mother of Alfred the Great. Alfred's biographer,
Asser, described her as "a most religious woman, noble in
character and noble by birth".[1]

Osburh's existence is known only from Asser's Life of King Alfred. She is not named as witness to any charters, nor is her death reported in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. So far as is known, she was the mother of all Æthelwulf's children, his five sons Æthelstan, Æthelbald, Æthelberht, Æthelred and Alfred the Great, and his daughter Æthelswith, wife of King Burgred of Mercia.

She is best known for Asser's story about a book of Saxon songs which she showed to Alfred and his brothers, offering to give the book to whoever could first memorise it, a challenge which Alfred took up and won. This exhibits the interest of high status ninth-century women in books, and their role in educating their children.[2]

Osburh was the daughter of Oslac (who is also only known from Asser's Life), King Æthelwulf's pincerna (butler), an important figure in the royal court and household.[3] Oslac is described as a descendant of King Cerdic's Jutish nephews, Stuf and Wihtgar, who conquered the Isle of Wight.[4] and, by this, is also ascribed Geatish/Gothic ancestry.

Notes
1. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge eds, Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, London, Penguin Classics, 1983, p. 68
2. Janet L. Nelson, Osburh, 2004, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20887) In Nelson's view, Osburh may have been dead by 856 or may have been repudiated.
3. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 68, 229.
4. Asser states that Oslac was a Goth, but this is regarded by historians as an error as Stuf and iWghtgar were Jutes. Keynes and Lapidge pp. 229-30 and Frank StentonA, nglo-Saxon England, Oxford, Oxford UP, 3rd edition 1971, p. 23-4

References
Asser's Life of King Alfred
Lees, Clare A. & Gillian R. Overing (eds), Double Agents: Women and Clerical Culture in Anglo-Saxon
England. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2001. ISBN 0-8122-3628-9
External links
Osburg 2 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Osburh&oldid=774039684"
Categories: 9th-century deaths Anglo-Saxon royal consorts 9th-century English people
9th-century women House of Wessex
This page was last edited on 5 April 2017, at 22:30.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may
apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered
trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Appointments / Titles: Between 802 and 839; King of Wessex
• Appointments / Titles: Between 825 and 839; King of Kent

Notes:

Egbert

King of Wessex
Reign 802 – 839
Predecessor Beorhtric
Successor Æthelwulf

King of Kent
Reign 825 – 839
Predecessor Baldred
Successor Æthelwulf

Born 771 or 775[1]
Died 839 (aged 64 or 68) Burial Winchester
Issue
Æthelwulf, King of Wessex

House Wessex

Father Ealhmund of Kent

Egbert of Wessex
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Egbert (771/775 – 839), also spelled Ecgberht, Ecgbert, or Ecgbriht, was King of Wessex from 802 until his death in 839. His father was Ealhmund of Kent. In the 780s Egbert was forced into exile by Offa of Mercia and Beorhtric of Wessex, but on Beorhtric's death in 802 Egbert returned and took the throne.

Little is known of the first 20 years of Egbert's reign, but it is thought that he was able to maintain the independence of Wessex against the kingdom of Mercia, which at that time dominated the other southern English kingdoms. In 825 Egbert defeated Beornwulf of Mercia, ended Mercia's supremacy at the Battle of Ellandun, and proceeded to take control of the Mercian dependencies in southeastern England. In 829 Egbert defeated Wiglaf of Mercia and drove him out of his kingdom, temporarily ruling Mercia directly. Later that year Egbert received the submission of the Northumbrian king at Dore. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle subsequently described Egbert as a bretwalda or 'wide-ruler' of Anglo-Saxon lands.

Egbert was unable to maintain this dominant position, and within a year Wiglaf regained the throne of Mercia. However, Wessex did retain control of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey; these territories were given to Egbert's son Æthelwulf to rule as a subking under Egbert. When Egbert died in 839, Æthelwulf succeeded him; the southeastern kingdoms were finally absorbed into the kingdom of Wessex after Æthelwulf's death in 858.

Family
Egbert's name, spelled Ecgbriht, from the 827 entry in the C manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Historians do not agree on Egbert's ancestry. The earliest version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Parker Chronicle, begins with a genealogical preface tracing the ancestry of Egbert's son Æthelwulf back through Egbert, Ealhmund (thought to be Ealhmund of Kent), and the otherwise unknown Eoppa and Eafa to Ingild, brother of King Ine of Wessex, who abdicated the throne in 726. It continues back to Cerdic, founder of the House of Wessex.[2] Egbert's descent from Ingild was accepted by Frank Stenton, but not the earlier genealogy back to Cerdic.[3] Heather Edwards in her Online Dictionary of National Biography article on Egbert argues that he was of Kentish origin, and that the West Saxon descent may have been manufactured during his reign to give him legitimacy,[4] whereas Rory Naismith considered a Kentish origin unlikely, and that it is more probable that "Egbert was born of good West Saxon royal stock".[5] Egbert's wife's name is unknown. A fifteenth century chronicle now held by Oxford University names Egbert's wife as Redburga who was supposedly a relation of Charlemagne that he married when he was banished to Francia, but this is dismissed by academic historians in view of its late date.[6] He is reputed to have had a halfsister Alburga, later to be recognised as a saint for her founding of Wilton Abbey. She was married to Wulfstan, ealdorman of Wiltshire, and on his death in 802 she became a nun, Abbess of Wilton Abbey.[7] He was believed at one time to also be the father of Saint Eadgyth of Polesworth and Æthelstan of Kent. Political context and early life

Offa of Mercia, who reigned from 757 to 796, was the dominant force in Anglo-Saxon England in the second half of the eighth century. The relationship between Offa and Cynewulf, who was king of Wessex from 757 to 786, is not well documented, but it seems likely that Cynewulf maintained some independence from Mercian overlordship. Evidence of the relationship between kings can come from charters, which were documents which granted land to followers or to churchmen, and which were witnessed by the kings who had power to grant the land. In some cases a king will appear on a charter as a subregulus, or "subking", making it clear that he has an overlord.[8][9] Cynewulf appears as "King of the West Saxons" on a charter of Offa's in 772;[10] and he was defeated by Offa in battle in 779 at Bensington, but there is nothing else to suggest Cynewulf was not his own master, and he is not known to have acknowledged Offa as overlord.[11] Offa did have influence in the southeast of the country: a charter of 764 shows him in the company of Heahberht of Kent, suggesting that Offa's influence helped place Heahberht on the throne.[12] The extent of Offa's control of Kent between 765 and 776 is a matter of debate amongst historians, but from 776 until about 784 it appears that the Kentish kings had substantial independence from Mercia.[12][13]

Another Egbert, Egbert II of Kent, ruled in that kingdom throughout the 770s; he is last mentioned in 779, in a charter granting land at Rochester.[12] In 784 a new king of Kent, Ealhmund, appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. According to a note in the margin, "this king Ealhmund was Egbert's father [i.e. Egbert of Wessex], Egbert was Æthelwulf's father." This is supported by the genealogical preface from the A text of the Chronicle, which gives Egbert's father's name as Ealhmund without further details. The preface probably dates from the late ninth century; the marginal note is on the F manuscript of the Chronicle, which is a Kentish version dating from about 1100.[14]

Ealhmund does not appear to have long survived in power: there is no record of his activities after 784. There is, however, extensive evidence of Offa's domination of Kent during the late 780s, with his goals apparently going beyond overlordship to outright annexation of the kingdom,[12] and he has been described as "the rival, not the overlord, of the Kentish kings".[15] It is possible that the young Egbert fled to Wessex in 785 or so; it is suggestive that the Chronicle mentions in a later entry that Beorhtric, Cynewulf's successor, helped Offa to exile Egbert.[12]

Cynewulf was murdered in 786. His succession was contested by Egbert, but he was defeated by Beorhtric, maybe with Offa's assistance.[16][17] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Egbert spent three years in Francia before he was king, exiled by Beorhtric and Offa. The text says "iii" for three, but this may have been a scribal error, with the correct reading being "xiii", that is, thirteen years. Beorhtric's reign lasted sixteen years, and not thirteen; and all extant texts of the Chronicle agree on "iii", but many modern accounts assume that Egbert did indeed spend thirteen years in Francia. This requires assuming that the error in transcription is common to every manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; many historians make this assumption but others have rejected it as unlikely, given the consistency of the sources.[18] In either case Egbert was probably exiled in 789, when Beorhtric, his rival, married the daughter of Offa of Mercia.[19]

At the time Egbert was in exile, Francia was ruled by Charlemagne, who maintained Frankish influence in Northumbria and is known to have supported Offa's enemies in the south. Another exile in Gaul at this time was Odberht, a priest, who is almost certainly the same person as Eadberht, who later became king of Kent. According to a later chronicler, William of Malmesbury, Egbert learned the arts of government during his time in Gaul.[20]

Early reign
Beorhtric's dependency on Mercia continued into the reign of Cenwulf, who became king of Mercia a few months after Offa's death.[11] Beorhtric died in 802, and Egbert came to the throne of Wessex, probably with the support of Charlemagne and perhaps also the papacy.[21] The Mercians continued to oppose Egbert: the day of his accession, the Hwicce (who had originally formed a separate kingdom, but by that time were part of Mercia) attacked, under the leadership of their ealdorman, Æthelmund. Weohstan, a Wessex ealdorman, met him with men from Wiltshire:[14] according to a 15th-century source, Weohstan had married Alburga, Egbert's sister, and so was Egbert's brother-in-law.[22] The Hwicce were defeated, though Weohstan was killed as well as Æthelmund.[14] Nothing more is recorded of Egbert's relations with Mercia for more than twenty years after this battle. It seems likely that Egbert had no influence outside his own borders, but on the other hand there is no evidence that he ever submitted to the overlordship of Cenwulf. Cenwulf did have overlordship of the rest of southern England, but in Cenwulf's charters the title of "overlord of the southern English" never appears, presumably in consequence of the independence of the kingdom of Wessex.[23]

In 815 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Egbert ravaged the whole of the territories of the remaining
British kingdom, Dumnonia, known to the author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the West Welsh; their
territory was about equivalent to what is now Cornwall.[14][24] Ten years later, a charter dated 19 August 825
indicates that Egbert was campaigning in Dumnonia again; this may have been related to a battle recorded in
the Chronicle at Gafulford in 823, between the men of Devon and the Britons of Cornwall.[25]
The battle of Ellendun
It was also in 825 that one of the most important battles in Anglo-Saxon history took place, when Egbert
defeated Beornwulf of Mercia at Ellendun—now Wroughton, near Swindon. This battle marked the end of the
Mercian domination of southern England.[26] The Chronicle tells how Egbert followed up his victory: "Then he
sent his son Æthelwulf from the army, and Ealhstan, his bishop, and Wulfheard, his ealdorman, to Kent with a
great troop." Æthelwulf drove Baldred, the king of Kent, north over the Thames, and according to the
Chronicle, the men of Kent, Essex, Surrey and Sussex then all submitted to Æthelwulf "because earlier they
were wrongly forced away from his relatives."[14] This may refer to Offa's interventions in Kent at the time
Egbert's father Ealhmund became king; if so, the chronicler's remark may also indicate Ealhmund had
connections elsewhere in southeast England.[21]
A map of England during Egbert's reign
The entry for 827 in the C manuscript
of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, listing
the eight bretwaldas
The Chronicle's version of events makes it appear that
Baldred was driven out shortly after the battle, but this was
probably not the case. A document from Kent survives
which gives the date, March 826, as being in the third year
of the reign of Beornwulf. This makes it likely that
Beornwulf still had authority in Kent at this date, as
Baldred's overlord; hence Baldred was apparently still in
power.[25][27] In Essex, Egbert expelled King Sigered,
though the date is unknown. It may have been delayed until
829, since a later chronicler associates the expulsion with a
campaign of Egbert's in that year against the Mercians.[25]
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not say who was the
aggressor at Ellendun, but one recent history asserts that
Beornwulf was almost certainly the one who attacked.
According to this view, Beornwulf may have taken
advantage of the Wessex campaign in Dumnonia in the
summer of 825. Beornwulf's motivation to launch an attack
would have been the threat of unrest or instability in the
southeast: the dynastic connections with Kent made Wessex
a threat to Mercian dominance.[25]
The consequences of Ellendun went beyond the immediate loss of Mercian power in the southeast. According
to the Chronicle, the East Anglians asked for Egbert's protection against the Mercians in the same year, 825,
though it may actually have been in the following year that the request was made. In 826 Beornwulf invaded
East Anglia, presumably to recover his overlordship. He was slain, however, as was his successor, Ludeca, who
invaded East Anglia in 827, evidently for the same reason. It may be that the Mercians were hoping for support
from Kent: there was some reason to suppose that Wulfred, the Archbishop of Canterbury, might be
discontented with West Saxon rule, as Egbert had terminated Wulfred's currency and had begun to mint his
own, at Rochester and Canterbury,[25] and it is known that Egbert seized property belonging to Canterbury.[28]
The outcome in East Anglia was a disaster for the Mercians which confirmed West Saxon power in the
southeast.[25]
Defeat of Mercia
In 829 Egbert invaded Mercia and drove Wiglaf, the king of Mercia,
into exile. This victory gave Egbert control of the London Mint, and he
issued coins as King of Mercia.[25] It was after this victory that the West
Saxon scribe described him as a bretwalda, meaning 'wide-ruler' or
perhaps 'Britain-ruler', in a famous passage in the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle. The relevant part of the annal reads, in the C manuscript of
the Chronicle:[29]
⁊†þy geare geeode Ecgbriht cing Myrcna rice ⁊†eall þæt be
suþan Humbre wæs, ⁊†he wæs eahtaþa cing se ðe
Bretenanwealda wæs.
In modern English:[30]
And the same year King Egbert conquered the kingdom of Mercia, and all that was south of the
Humber, and he was the eighth king who was 'Wide-ruler'.
Coin of King Egbert
The previous seven bretwaldas are also named by the Chronicler, who gives the same seven names that Bede
lists as holding imperium, starting with Ælle of Sussex and ending with Oswiu of Northumbria. The list is often
thought to be incomplete, omitting as it does some dominant Mercian kings such as Penda and Offa. The exact
meaning of the title has been much debated; it has been described as "a term of encomiastic poetry"[31] but
there is also evidence that it implied a definite role of military leadership.[32]
Later in 829, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Egbert received the submission of the Northumbrians at
Dore (now a suburb of Sheffield); the Northumbrian king was probably Eanred.[33] According to a later
chronicler, Roger of Wendover, Egbert invaded Northumbria and plundered it before Eanred submitted: "When
Egbert had obtained all the southern kingdoms, he led a large army into Northumbria, and laid waste that
province with severe pillaging, and made King Eanred pay tribute." Roger of Wendover is known to have
incorporated Northumbrian annals into his version; the Chronicle does not mention these events.[34] However,
the nature of Eanred's submission has been questioned: one historian has suggested that it is more likely that the
meeting at Dore represented a mutual recognition of sovereignty.[35]
In 830, Egbert led a successful expedition against the Welsh, almost certainly with the intent of extending West
Saxon influence into the Welsh lands previously within the Mercian orbit. This marked the high point of
Egbert's influence.[25]
Reduction in influence after 829
In 830, Mercia regained its independence under Wiglaf—the Chronicle
merely says that Wiglaf "obtained the kingdom of Mercia again",[14] but
the most likely explanation is that this was the result of a Mercian
rebellion against Wessex rule.[36]
Egbert's dominion over southern England came to an end with Wiglaf's
recovery of power. Wiglaf's return is followed by evidence of his
independence from Wessex. Charters indicate Wiglaf had authority in
Middlesex and Berkshire, and in a charter of 836 Wiglaf uses the phrase
"my bishops, duces, and magistrates" to describe a group that included eleven bishops from the episcopate of
Canterbury, including bishops of sees in West Saxon territory.[37] It is significant that Wiglaf was still able to
call together such a group of notables; the West Saxons, even if they were able to do so, held no such
councils.[28][38] Wiglaf may also have brought Essex back into the Mercian orbit during the years after he
recovered the throne.[25][39] In East Anglia, King Æthelstan minted coins, possibly as early as 827, but more
likely c. 830 after Egbert's influence was reduced with Wiglaf's return to power in Mercia. This demonstration
of independence on East Anglia's part is not surprising, as it was Æthelstan who was probably responsible for
the defeat and death of both Beornwulf and Ludeca.[25]
Both Wessex's sudden rise to power in the late 820s, and the subsequent failure to retain this dominant position,
have been examined by historians looking for underlying causes. One plausible explanation for the events of
these years is that Wessex's fortunes were to some degree dependent on Carolingian support. The Franks
supported Eardwulf when he recovered the throne of Northumbria in 808, so it is plausible that they also
supported Egbert's accession in 802. At Easter 839, not long before Egbert's death, he was in touch with Louis
the Pious, king of the Franks, to arrange safe passage to Rome. Hence a continuing relationship with the Franks
seems to be part of southern English politics during the first half of the ninth century.[25]
Carolingian support may have been one of the factors that helped Egbert achieve the military successes of the
late 820s. However, the Rhenish and Frankish commercial networks collapsed at some time in the 820s or 830s,
and in addition, a rebellion broke out in February 830 against Louis the Pious—the first of a series of internal
16th-century mortuary chest, one in a
series set up by Bishop Foxe in
Winchester Cathedral, which purports
to contain Egbert's bones
conflicts that lasted through the 830s and beyond. These distractions may have prevented Louis from
supporting Egbert. In this view, the withdrawal of Frankish influence would have left East Anglia, Mercia and
Wessex to find a balance of power not dependent on outside aid.[25]
Despite the loss of dominance, Egbert's military successes fundamentally changed the political landscape of
Anglo-Saxon England. Wessex retained control of the south-eastern kingdoms, with the possible exception of
Essex, and Mercia did not regain control of East Anglia.[25] Egbert's victories marked the end of the
independent existence of the kingdoms of Kent and Sussex. The conquered territories were administered as a
subkingdom for a while, including Surrey and possibly Essex.[40] Although Æthelwulf was a subking under
Egbert, it is clear that he maintained his own royal household, with which he travelled around his kingdom.
Charters issued in Kent described Egbert and Æthelwulf as "kings of the West Saxons and also of the people of
Kent." When Æthelwulf died in 858 his will, in which Wessex is left to one son and the southeastern kingdom
to another, makes it clear that it was not until after 858 that the kingdoms were fully integrated.[41] Mercia
remained a threat, however; Egbert's son Æthelwulf, established as king of Kent, gave estates to Christ Church,
Canterbury, probably to counter any influence the Mercians might still have there.[25]
In the southwest, Egbert was defeated in 836 at Carhampton by the Danes,[14] but in 838 he won a battle
against them and their allies the West Welsh at the Battle of Hingston Down in Cornwall. The Dumnonian royal
line continued after this time, but it is at this date that the independence of one of the last British kingdoms may
be considered to have ended.[25] The details of Anglo-Saxon expansion into Cornwall are quite poorly
recorded, but some evidence comes from place names.[42] The river Ottery, which flows east into the Tamar
near Launceston, appears to be a boundary: south of the Ottery the placenames are overwhelmingly Cornish,
whereas to the north they are more heavily influenced by the English newcomers.[43]
Succession
At a council at Kingston upon Thames in 838, Egbert and Æthelwulf
granted land to the sees of Winchester and Canterbury in return for the
promise of support for Æthelwulf's claim to the throne.[28][37][44] The
archbishop of Canterbury, Ceolnoth, also accepted Egbert and
Æthelwulf as the lords and protectors of the monasteries under
Ceolnoth's control. These agreements, along with a later charter in
which Æthelwulf confirmed church privileges, suggest that the church
had recognised that Wessex was a new political power that must be
dealt with.[25] Churchmen consecrated the king at coronation
ceremonies, and helped to write the wills which specified the king's
heir; their support had real value in establishing West Saxon control and
a smooth succession for Egbert's line.[45] Both the record of the Council
of Kingston, and another charter of that year, include the identical
phrasing: that a condition of the grant is that "we ourselves and our
heirs shall always hereafter have firm and unshakable friendships from
Archbishop Ceolnoth and his congregation at Christ Church."[44][46][47]
Although nothing is known of any other claimants to the throne, it is likely that there were other surviving
descendants of Cerdic (the supposed progenitor of all the kings of Wessex) who might have contended for the
kingdom. Egbert died in 839, and his will, according to the account of it found in the will of his grandson,
Alfred the Great, left land only to male members of his family, so that the estates should not be lost to the royal
house through marriage. Egbert's wealth, acquired through conquest, was no doubt one reason for his ability to
purchase the support of the southeastern church establishment; the thriftiness of his will indicates he understood
the importance of personal wealth to a king.[45] The kingship of Wessex had been frequently contested among
different branches of the royal line, and it is a noteworthy achievement of Egbert's that he was able to ensure
Æthelwulf's untroubled succession.[45] In addition, Æthelwulf's experience of kingship, in the subkingdom
formed from Egbert's southeastern conquests, would have been valuable to him when he took the throne.[48]
Egbert was buried in Winchester, as were his son, Æthelwulf, his grandson, Alfred the Great, and his greatgrandson,
Edward the Elder. During the ninth century, Winchester began to show signs of urbanisation, and it is
likely that the sequence of burials indicates that Winchester was held in high regard by the West Saxon royal
line.[49]
See also
Notes
1. Ashley, p. 313
2. Garmonsway, G.N. ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, London, J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., pp. xxxii,2,4
3. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 65–66
4. Edwards, Ecgbehrt
5. Naismith, p. 16
6. The chronicle (Hardy, Vol III, No. 326 (https://books.google.com/books?id=XPkUAAAAQAAJ&pg=AP198&redir_esc
=y#v=onepage&q&f=false) describes Egbert's wife as "Redburga regis Francorum sororia" (sister or sister-in-law of
the Frankish Emperor). Some nineteenth-century historians cited the manuscript to identify Redbguar as Egbert's wife,
such W. G. Searle in his 1897 Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum (https://archive.org/stream/onomasticonangl00seargoog/
onomasticonangl00seargoog_djvu.txt) and (as Rædburh) in his 1899 Anglo-Saxon Bishops, Kings and Nobles (http://ia7
00408.us.archive.org/20/items/anglosaxonbishop00searuoft/anglosaxonbishop00searuoft.pf)d. Other historians of that
time were sceptical, such as William Hunt, who did not mention Redburga in his article about Egbert in the original
Dictionary of National Biography in 1889. In the twentieth century, popular genealogists and historians have followed
Searle in naming Redburga as Egbert's wife, but academic historians ignore her when discussing Egbert, and Janet
Nelson's 2004 article on his sonÆ thelwulf (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8921?docPos=1 )in the Online
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states that his mother's name is unknown.
7. Farmer, D.H.: The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, p. 10
8. Hunter Blair, Roman Britain, pp. 14–15.
9. P. Wormald, "The Age of Bede and Æthelbald", in Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons, pp. 95–98
10. "Anglo-Saxons.net: S 108" (http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=charter&id=108. )Sean Miller.
Retrieved 8 August 2007.
11. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 208–210.
12. Kirby, Earliest English Kings, pp. 165–169
13. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 207.
14. Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, pp. 58–63.
15. Wormald, "Bede, the bretwaldas and the origins of the Gens Anglorum", in Wormald et al., Ideal and Reality, p. 113;
quoted in Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 167., and n. 30.
16. Fletcher, Who's Who, p. 114.
17. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 141.
18. E.g. Fletcher assumes that Egbert spent essentially all Beorhtric's reign in Francia; see Fletch, eWr ho's Who, p. 114.
Similarly, Swanton annotates "3 years" with "in fact thirteen years . . . this error is commotno all MSS." See note 12 in
Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, pp. 62–63. Naismith suggests that Egbert's exile may have occupied the thirteen-year
period from 789, the year of Beorhtric's marriage with Offa's daughter, to 802, the year of his coming to power: see
Naismith, p. 3. On the other hand, Stenton accepts the figure as three: see StentonA,n glo-Saxon England, p. 220.
Stenton adds in a footnote that "it is very dangerous to reject a reading which is so well attested".
19. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 220.
20. Kirby, Earliest English Kings, pp. 176–177.
21. Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 186.
22. The source, a poem in the Chronicon Vilodunense, is described by Yorke as "admittedly . . . far from ideal". See Barbara
Yorke, "Edward as Ætheling", in Higham & HillE, dward the Elder, p. 36.
23. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 225.
24. The border had been pushed back to ther iver Tamar, between Devon and Cornwall, by Ine of Wessex in 710. See Kirby,
Earliest English Kings, p.125.
25. Kirby, Earliest English Kings, pp. 189–195.
26. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 231.
References
Primary sources
Swanton, Michael (1996). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92129-5.
Egbert's charters at Anglo-Saxons.net
Secondary sources
Abels, Richard (2005). Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. Longman.
ISBN 0-582-04047-7.
Ashley, Mike (1998). The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens. London: Robinson. ISBN 1-
84119-096-9.
Campbell, James; John, Eric; Wormald, Patrick (1991). The Anglo-Saxons. London: Penguin Books.
ISBN 0-14-014395-5.
Edwards, Heather (2004) Ecberht, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography
Fletcher, Richard (1989). Who's Who in Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon England. Shepheard-Walwyn.
ISBN 0-85683-089-5.
Higham, N.J.; Hill, D.H. (2001). Edward the Elder. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-21497-1.
Hunter Blair, Peter (1966). Roman Britain and Early England: 55 B.C. – A.D. 871. W.W. Norton &
Company. ISBN 0-393-00361-2.
Kirby, D.P. (1992). The Earliest English Kings. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09086-5.
Naismith, Rory (2011). "The Origins of the Line of Egbert, King of the West Saxons, 802 – 839" (PDF).
English Historical Review. Oxford University Press. CXXVI (518): 1 – 16. doi:10.1093/ehr/ceq377.
Retrieved 23 May 2012.
Nelson, Janet L. (2004). "Æthelwulf (d. 858)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford
University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8921. Retrieved 14 April 2012. (subscription or UK public library
membership required)
27. "Anglo-Saxons.net: S 1267" (http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=charter&id=1267. )Sean Miller.
Retrieved 8 August 2007.
28. P. Wormald, "The Age of Ofa and Alcuin", p. 128, in Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons.
29. "Manuscript C: Cotton Tiberius C.i" (http://asc.jebbo.co.uk/c/c-L.html). Tony Jebson. Retrieved 12 August 2007.
30. Translation is based on Swanton; note thatb retwalda (which Swanton translates as 'controller of Britain') in ms A
appears as brytenwealda and variants in the other mss; here this is translated as 'wide-ruler', per Swanton. See Swanton,
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, pp. 60–61.
31. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 34–35.
32. Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 17.
33. Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 197.
34. P. Wormald, "The Ninth Century", p. 139, in Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons.
35. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 96.
36. Stenton cites the annal for 839, which says Æthelwulf "granted" or "gave" the kingdom of Kent to his son, as an
example of the language that would have been used had Wiglaf been granted the kingdom by Egbert. See Stenton,
Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 233–235
37. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 233–235
38. P. Wormald, "The Ninth Century", p. 138, in Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons.
39. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 51.
40. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 32.
41. Abels, Alfred the Great, p. 31.
42. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 155.
43. Payton, Cornwall, p. 68.
44. "Anglo-Saxons.net: S 1438" (http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=charter&id=1438. )Sean Miller.
Retrieved 1 September 2007.
45. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, pp. 148–149.
46. "Anglo-Saxons.net: S 281" (http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=charter&id=281. )Sean Miller.
Retrieved 8 August 2007.
47. P. Wormald, "The Ninth Century", p. 140, in Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons.
48. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, pp. 168–169.
49. Yorke, Wessex, p. 310.
Wikimedia Commons has
media related to Egbert of
Wessex.
Payton, Philip (2004). Cornwall: A History. Cornwall Editions. ISBN 1-904880-00-2.
Stenton, Frank M. (1971). Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-821716-1.
Whitelock, Dorothy (1968). English Historical Documents v.l. c.500 – 1042. London: Eyre &
Spottiswoode.
Wormald, Patrick; Bullough, D.; Collins, R. (1983). Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon
Society. Oxford. ISBN 0-631-12661-9.
Yorke, Barbara (1990). Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Seaby. ISBN 1-
85264-027-8.
Yorke, Barbara (1995). Wessex in the Early Middle Ages. London: Leicester University Press. ISBN 0-
7185-1856-X.
External links
Ecgberht 10 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Egbert_of_Wessex&oldid=775069967"
Categories: 839 deaths 8th-century births 9th-century English monarchs Burials at Winchester Cathedral
Founding monarchs House of Wessex Kentish monarchs Mercian monarchs West Saxon monarchs
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Other Events and Attributes:

• Occupation: Butler to the King of Wessex

Notes:

Oslac (who is also only known from Asser's Life), King Æthelwulf's pincerna (butler), an important figure in the royal court and household.[3] Oslac is described as a descendant of King Cerdic's Jutish nephews, Stuf and Wihtgar, who conquered the Isle of Wight.[4] and, by this, is also ascribed Geatish/Gothic ancestry.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Appointments / Titles: 784; King of Kent

Notes:

Ealhmund of Kent
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ealhmund was King of Kent in 784. He is reputed to be the father of King Egbert who was King of Wessex and, later, King of Kent.

Biography
He is not known to have struck any coins,[1] and the only contemporary evidence of him is an abstract of a charter dated 784, in which Ealhmund granted land to the Abbot of Reculver.[2] By the following year Offa of Mercia seems to have been ruling directly, as he issued a charter [3] without any mention of a local king. General consensus among historians is this is the same Ealhmund found in two pedigrees in the Winchester (Parker) Chronicle, compiled during the reign of Alfred the Great.[4] The genealogical preface to this manuscript, as well as the annual entry (covering years 855–859) describing the death of Æthelwulf, both make King Egbert of Wessex the son of an Ealhmund, who was son of Eafa, grandson of Eoppa, and great-grandson of Ingild, the brother of King Ine of Wessex, and descendant of founder Cerdic,[5] and therefore a member of the House of Wessex (see House of Wessex family tree). A further entry has been added in a later hand to the 784 annal, reporting Ealhmund's reign in Kent.

Finally, in the Canterbury Bilingual Epitome, originally compiled after the Norman conquest of England, a later scribe has likewise added to the 784 annal not only Ealhmund's reign in Kent, but his explicit identification with the father of Egbert.[6] Based on this reconstruction, in which a Wessex scion became King of Kent, his own Kentish name and that of his son, Egbert, it has been suggested that his mother derived from the royal house of Kent,[7] a connection dismissed by a recent critical review.[4] Historian Heather Edwards has suggested that Ealhmund was probably a Kentish royal scion, whose pedigree was forged to give his son Egbert the descent from Cerdic requisite to reigning in Wessex.[8]

Notes
1. Grierson and Blackburn, p. 269
2. "S 38" (http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=seek&query=S+38.) Anglo-Saxons.net. Retrieved 2012-02-10.
3. "S 123" (http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=seek&query=S+123.) Anglo-Saxons.net. Retrieved 2012-02-10.
4. Bierbrier, p. 382
5. Garmonsway, pp. xxxii, 2, 4
6. Garmonsway, pp. xxxix-xxxx, 52
7. Kelley
8. Edwards, "Ecgberht"

References
Bierbrier, M.L., "Genealogical Flights of Fancy. Old Assumptions, New Sources", Foundations: Journal of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, 2:379–87.

Edwards, Heather (2004). "Ecgberht [Egbert] (d. 839), king of the West Saxons". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8581. Retrieved 14 May 2014.

Garmonsway, G.N. ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.

Grierson, Philip; Blackburn, Mark (2006). Medieval European Coinage, With A Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th–10th Centuries). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-03177-X.

Kelley, David H., "The House of Aethelred", in Brooks, Lindsay L., ed., Studies in Genealogy and Family History in Tribute to Charles Evans. Salt Lake City: The Association for the Promotion of Scholarship in Genealogy, Occasional Publication, No. 2, pp. 63–93.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ealhmund_of_Kent&oldid=731523535"
Categories: Kentish monarchs 780s deaths 8th-century English monarchs
This page was last edited on 25 July 2016, at 22:14.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.