The Alfred Jewel: An Historical Essay

I have been favoured by Sir Alexander Acland Hood with the following extract from the Manuscript of Mr. Thomas Palmer, which is preserved in Fairfield House:—

‘The Park and Manor of Newenton belonged to the King at the time of the general survey, and probably this is the Petherton where king John held his court. The House was on the north side of the Park, where there is now a tenement called Parker’s Field. At this place a remarkable piece of antiquity was dug up in the year 1693, which is, by Dr. Hickes and other antiquaries, adjudged to have been of the age of King Alfred, the letters being such as were introduced by this King in imitation of the Roman Alphabet, and never used before or since.

‘Doctor Hickes interprets this inscription to be “Alfred ordered me to be made”; and supposes the enamelled figure to be the picture of St. Cuthbert, the tutelar saint of that King. The whole is of gold, over the enamel is a piece of rock crystal, half an inch thick: the gold rim is cut through to form the letters of the inscription. This is now among the antiquities of the University of Oxford.’

The Keeper of the Archives (Mr. Bayne of Christ Church) has kindly made search at my request, and he writes: ‘I have gone carefully through the Convocation Register for 1718, and can find no reference to the Jewel, nor to Mr. Palmer who died 6 March, 1735.’

The Register of Benefactions of the Ashmolean Museum has a paragraph in Latin, which however gives no information on this point.

The most interesting piece I have found on this point is in Collinson’s History of Somerset (1791), vol. i, p. 87, where he is speaking of Athelney Abbey: it is as follows:—

Some allusion to the vision of St. Cuthbert above-mentioned is supposed to have been intended by a little curious amulet of enamel and gold, richly ornamented, that was found in 1693 in Newton Park, at some distance northward from the abbey. On one side of it is a rude figure of a person sitting crowned, and holding in each hand a sceptre surmounted by a lily, which Dr. Hickes and other antiquaries have imagined to be designed for St. Cuthbert. The other side is filled by a large flower, and round the edge is the following legend: AELFRED MEC HEIT GEVVRCAN; that is, Alfred ordered me to be made. This piece of antiquity is now in the museum at Oxford, accompanied with the accounts of doctors Hickes and Musgrave, and the following memorandum: “Nov. 16, 1718, Tho. Palmer, esq; of Fairfield in Somersetshire, put this ancient picture of St. Cuthbert, made by order of king Alfred, into my hands to bee conveyed to y^r Bodlean Library in Oxford, where his father Nat. Palmer, esq; lately dead, desired it might be placed and preserved.

“Geo. Clark.”