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palaces, and gilding or otherwise decorating their halls. He sent costly gifts to Rome, and even, it is said, to the shrine of St. Thomas in India. His munificence to his friends was on an equal scale; Asser, in addition to two monasteries, was presented with a rich silken pallium and with a porter's load of incense. The explanation probably is, that wealth up to a certain point was a fixed quantity in a state, consisting not as now of factories, farms, and businesses, which a few years' neglect would ruin, but of plate and jewels and wrought fabrics, which a conquest only transferred from one man to another. Perhaps, too, the rent of the king's tenants was frequently paid in labour, and to employ this would be a matter, not of expense, but of economy.

Alfred's fame as a man has obscured his position in history as a king; his grateful people in the after time ascribed to him whatever they found of good or great in the institutions of their land. Probably nothing has been thus attributed without some real fact underlying the mythical narrative; but it is not always easy to disentangle one from the other. As a lawgiver, he seems to have been the first of our English kings who distinguished the great principles of law from the local customs that modified their application. His code may be said to consist of three parts. The first is an abstract of Hebrew law, indicating the divine foundations of society, and blending the secular view of offences as damage with the Christian view of them as sin. The conception of the state as an ideal commonwealth, which regarded the right living of man as its first object, is therefore due to Alfred; and he indicates a standard so high that he could not dream of enforcing it the gradual extinction of slavery, the duty of hospitality, and the Christian law of love. In the second part are contained the general principles of English law, put down a little confusedly, as the witan sanctioned or the scribe copied them out. The king is now for the first time treated as the inviolable head of the state, to plot against

886, only says, "That same year king Alfred repaired London; and all the English submitted to him."

FRANK-PLEDGE SYSTEM AND JURIES.

117

whom is death. Loyalty to the great lords is established upon the same footing. The frank-pledge system, by which every man was bound to give some guarantee for his good conduct, is spoken of for the first time as of universal obligation. The right of feud is limited, and the powers of the courts of justice are extended.1 An over love of legality, the curse of these and of later times, is apparent in these regulations, and was partly perhaps due to the remembrance of late disorders. Lastly, Alfred subjoins a copy of the ancient laws of Wessex, no doubt to explain the customs of that province. Unfortunately, we do not possess a similar transcript of the Mercian code, which was probably appended to the copy for that province.

3

The statement of popular histories, that Alfred divided England into shires and hundreds, has been generally rejected by modern scholars. The origin of those divisions was certainly independent of the central authority, and coeval with the Saxon settlement. Moreover, shires are mentioned in Ine's laws, and names, such as shire-oak, and shire-bourne, attest their antiquity. Perhaps the enforcement of the frank-pledge system, which had hitherto been irregular and voluntary, and which was connected with these divisions, has been confounded with their establishment. But it is not impossible that the old divisions had in some instances been effaced by the late wars, and were now restored. Perhaps, too, the use of the word shire had originally been confined to Wessex, and the parts bordering on it, and was now made general.5 That Alfred introduced trial by jury, is even more certainly false. The appointment of a distinct and popular magistracy, to determine questions of fact as distinguished from questions of law, belongs to the Anglo-Norman times, when Roman law was studied as a science, and was probably derived from a

1 Laws of Alfred, 4, 27, 28, 37, 42; Laws of Edward, 4; A. S. Laws, vol. i., pp. 64, 79, 80, 87, 91, 163.

2 This statement is derived from Ingulfus-Gale, vol. i., p. 28.

* Ine's Laws, 39; A. S. Laws, vol. i., p. 127; Cod. Dip., 951, &c.

♦ Malmesbury's language seems to favour this supposition.-Lib. ii., p. 186.

5 See, however, Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. i., pp. 247, 248.

118

ESTABLISHMENT OF A NAVY.

Latin original. It cannot be traced further back than to the thirteenth century.1

Of Alfred's political capacity there can be no doubt. Wielding only the resources of a third of the kingdom, he contended against the most powerful foe then known to the nations of Europe, exacted honourable peace, and literally enlarged his dominions by Mercia, which had been free rather than dependent under his brothers, and under him became dependent rather than free. By forcing his cities to repair their walls, he foiled the furious ravages of Hastings. But above all, to Alfred belongs the credit of having first seen that an island must be defended by sea. Had he merely established a national navy where none existed, it would be sufficient proof of his statesman-like sagacity. But he seems further to have discerned the modern theory, by which war is only a question of momentum and impact. The ships of the Danes were constructed primarily as transports to carry the greatest number of men, and as platforms from which they might fight. Alfred built a fleet on a new model of his own, by which the ships were narrower, and of double the length, and impelled by sixty instead of twenty rowers; they were thus able to pursue, overtake, and run down the enemy. It was a revolution in naval warfare.

Alfred's zeal for learning is one of his most honourable titles to remembrance. Incessant war had made every man a soldier. When the king looked round England, after the peace of Wedmor, he could find no man south of the Thames who understood the Latin in which he prayed;3 and few, indeed, were the learned men among the Mercians. He himself was probably unable to read or write to his last days, though he repeatedly put himself under masters, and perhaps got so far as to attach a certain sense to the words in the little book of prayers which he carried about him.*

A. S. Chron., A. 897.

1 Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii., note viii. * Deneulf, bishop of Winchester, is said to have been a swineherd originally. Alfred, falling in with him, perceived his talent, caused him to be educated, and finally made him bishop.-B. de Cotton. de Episc., p. 376.

4 The history of Asser, in the patch-work form which has come down to us,

REVIVAL OF LETTERS.

119

He made it the first care of his years of peace to attract scholars from old Saxony, from Gaul, and from Ireland, to the court; and he founded schools at Shaftesbury and Athelney, with perhaps another at Oxford, as centres of liberal learning. Even scholars as well as teachers were imported from other countries when the love of learning proved deficient among the Saxons. But above all, Alfred served in the great army of learning himself as a translator. His translations do not pretend to servile accuracy: sometimes he expands to explain a difficulty, or inserts a fuller account from his own knowledge, or from the report of travellers at his court; more often he epitomizes, as if he were giving the pith of a paragraph that had just been read out to him. The books he chose were the best fitted of all to form the library of an Englishman in the ninth century: they consist of a history of the world on Christian principles by Orosius; the History of the AngloSaxon Church, by Bede; the Consolation of Philosophy, by Boetius. The historical and ethical character of the king's mind is apparent in his choice of authors. A translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care was executed by the king in partner

says distinctly (M. B., p. 474) that Alfred never learned to read, and never ceased to desire to learn. But later on (p. 491) the writer seems to contradict this, saying that Alfred, by divine intuition, began to read and expound on one and the same day. I think, however, the context may be explained, that he began to work as an original author. Compare p. 497 for a curious account of the king's attempt to make his ealdormen learn reading, and of the insuperable difficulty which the old warriors found in obeying the command. Alfred's knowledge of Latin might easily be gained from oral instructions. Boys at school used to speak it in the middle ages; and it probably was spoken more or less perfectly in the towns for centuries after the Romans left the island.

1 This has generally been rejected, and I quite agree that the famous passage in Camden's Asser is mostly or altogether spurious. But the tradition is much older than Camden's time. The passage in Brompton is well known, (Twysden, p. 814) and Capgrave says, (Chron., p. 113) "this man, be the councelle of Saint Neot, made an open scole of divers sciens at Oxenford." Compare Asser's words, (M. B., p. 496) "scholæ, quam ex multis suæ propriæ gentis nobilibus studiosissime congregaverat." The statement of Ingulfus, (Gale, vol. iii., p. 73) that he studied Aristotle at Oxford, under Edward the Confessor, has been questioned because the Danes destroyed Oxford under Ethelred. But it was rebuilt by 1013 A.D.—A. S. Chron., A., 1013.

120

ALFRED'S PRIVATE LIFE.

ship with his bishops. Probably many elementary works were issued under the royal patronage, as we find at a later time several spurious works, such as moral poems and fables, recommended by Alfred's name. And it is characteristic of the new growth of letters in the country, that the chronicles of contemporary events begin about the end of this century to be kept in the Saxon tongue.2

Of Alfred's personal appearance we know nothing. His active life, and fondness for field-sports, are in strange contrast with the fact that he was perpetually visited by paroxysms of a fearful and mysterious disease, which attacked him on the day of his marriage, 869 A.D., and tormented him for twenty-five years, ceasing suddenly about seven years before his death, 901 A.D.3 But the features of his pious and studious life, even to his measurement of time by tapers sheltered in hornlanterns from the draught, have been recorded by one who lived with him. In days when charity had grown cold, and when religion no longer restrained the powerful, their king was the one man to whom the needy could apply for support, and the injured for redress. His shrewd sense was dreaded by evil-doers, and while the sternness of his early years was tempered as he grew older by courtesy, his wish to conciliate never led him to swerve from the truth. His revenue was divided equally between the state and the church. Of the secular moiety one-third went to his civil list, one-third to public works, and one-third to the support of ambassadors and distinguished foreigners. The part destined to religion and education was assigned in equal proportions to the poor, to the support of church fabrics, to the two conventual schools of

1 Alfred himself tells us in the preface that he was assisted by Plegmund, Asser, Grimbold, and John, probably John the Saxon. 2 Mon. Brit., p. 74.

3 We know that his descendants, Athelstane and Edgar, were short men; this is a slight probability that Alfred was not large. Light hair and blue eyes were family features in the tenth century. The description of his disease seems to indicate a scrofulous diathesis, displaying itself first in "ficus," afterwards perhaps in chronic gastritis, from which his grandson, Edred, suffered. Mr. Sharon Turner thinks it was cancer of the stomach, but if so, it would hardly have lasted for twenty-five years, and then have left him.

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