Towards the end of his life, Alfred, king of the West-Saxons from 871 to 899, wrote: “So long as I have lived, I have striven to live worthily” adding that when death overtook him, he longed that he would “leave to the men that come after a remembrance of him in good works.”1 That aim has been more than fulfilled. Today he is still the only king whom the English refer to as “great,” and all historians continue to speak well of him. As the Oxford historian J. R. Green has written, Alfred the Great was “the first instance in the history of Christendom of the Christian king, of a ruler who put aside every personal aim or ambition to devote himself to the welfare of those whom he ruled.”2

Living and reigning at a time when England was constantly ravaged by waves of invading Vikings from Denmark and Scandinavia, Alfred showed from the start that he possessed the first great quality required for leadership—courage. The “Norsemen” (as the Vikings were called) were ferocious pagan warriors who delighted in murder, rape, and pillage. Any Saxon king who fell into their hands would be killed as a human sacrifice to their gods, his heart torn out of his living body on their bloodstained altars. Knowing what he risked if captured, Alfred fought battle after battle against the Danes, rallying his people against the pagan enemy after every defeat and setback, refusing to give up even in the darkest moments of despair, and all this over a period of 30 years during which he was often sick with a strange illness no one could cure. What is more, in the midst of war and bloodshed, Alfred combined indomitable courage with the Christian virtue of forgiveness. Instead of killing captured Viking leaders like Guthrum, he persuaded them to make peace with him and undergo Christian baptism. In this way he finally won security for his kingdom of Wessex (most of southern England) in the last decade of the ninth century.

Alfred was extraordinary in that not only was he a brave and noble-hearted warrior who made his realm secure from invasion by creating a permanent militia and navy, but he was also a great administrator and lawgiver. He reorganized the administration of justice, codifying and reforming the laws of his predecessors: the right of private revenge, for instance, was curtailed; labor on Sundays and holidays made illegal; and heavy penalties exacted for sacrilege, perjury, and the seduction of nuns. The Ten Commandments and other portions of the Law of Moses were prefixed to his code and so became part of English law. He built churches and monasteries and restored and fortified ruined towns. An excellent scholar himself, Alfred was also an enlightened educator of his people. He compiled handbooks of theology, history, and geography for the use of his subjects and laid the foundations of English prose literature by translating Latin works like Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People and Boethius’s Consolations of Philosophy. He also brought over foreign scholars from France and Flanders and “founded the first ‘public schools’ for teaching letters to the sons of noblemen and thegns,”3 so for the first time extending the gift of education to the higher laity. And if all this were not enough, Alfred sent a Saxon mariner to trace the coast of Estonia and a Norwegian to explore the White Sea. Above all, however, he showed his love for his people by allotting one-eighth of his revenue to the care of the poor and needy.4

As a monk who knew him testified: “The King attends daily services of religion; he is often at prayer and psalm singing. He goes to the church at nighttime, to pray secretly, unknown to his nobles.”5 It was this strong and disciplined Christian faith which was the source of Alfred’s courage and his extraordinarily inspiring and fruitful life and reign.
 
Footnotes:
 
1  J. R. Green, A Short History of the English People, vol. 1 (New York: Everyman’s Library, 1960), 44.
 
2  Ibid.
 
3  Thegns or thanes were those who held land from the king, who ranked between freemen and hereditary nobles. G. M. Trevelyan, Illustrated History of England (London: Longmans, 1962), 80.
 
4  Sources for this paragraph include: Green, Ibid., 45-47 and Trevelyan, Ibid., 80.
 
5  R. J. Unstead, People in History (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1958), 98.
 
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