§ 45. It would not be necessary to quote this precious stuff, even in outline, were it not that people still continue to treat it as more or less historical. I have already adverted to the strange inconsistency of making Alfred first hear of Neot’s fame after the latter’s return from Rome, although he was his own brother according to the pedigree. This seems to show that the making Neot a son of Æthelwulf was a later development, and not part of the original legend. And, indeed, in the fragment of the Life interpolated in Asser he is no more than Alfred’s ‘cognatus[263],’ which in mediaeval Latin means cousin, or sometimes brother-in-law, like ‘cognato’ in modern Italian[264]. But if St. Neot ever existed, his connexion with the royal house of Wessex has probably as little basis in fact, as the forged Carolingian pedigree which the later Lives of St. Hubert give to that Saint[265]. Another noteworthy point is that the only pope contemporary with Alfred known to these Lives is Marinus[266], though his obscure pontificate only lasted a little over a year (December, 882, to the beginning of 884[267]), and was some time posterior to the death of Neot, who is represented as dying before the campaign of 878[268]. The reason for this prominence is, of course, to be found in the privileges which this pope was said to have granted, at Alfred’s request, to the English School at Rome[269], and still more in the story that he had sent a fragment of the true cross to Alfred[270]. I need hardly say that the idea of Alfred’s early licentiousness, or of his tyranny at the beginning of his reign, is absolutely inconsistent with authentic history. The year 871, when Wessex was at deathgrips with the foe, was not the time, even if Alfred had been the man, for establishing a tyranny. It is pitiable that modern writers should lend even half an ear[271] to these wretched tales, which besmirch the fair fame of our hero king, in order to exalt a phantom saint.
§ 46. But perhaps the worst misconception, and the one which has most injuriously affected English history, is that connected with the withdrawal to Athelney. The Lives represent Alfred on the invasion of Guthrum as becoming not merely a helpless, but a cowardly and criminal fugitive. This view is put most strongly in the Saxon Life, which runs as follows[272]: ‘Then came Guthrum the heathen king with his cruel host first to the eastern part of Saxland (Saxonia).… When King Alfred … learnt that the host … was … so near England, he straightway for fear took to flight, and forsook all his warriors and his captains and all his people, … and crept by hedge and lane, through wood and field, till he … came to Athelney,’ where the cakes are burnt. Now there is no doubt that Wessex was thoroughly surprised by the sudden attack of the Danes at mid-winter, after twelfth-night, 878[273]. And it is possible that in this the Danes were hardly ‘playing the game.’ Military operations were generally suspended in the winter. Chippenham was a ‘villa regia’ as Asser notes; and it looks as if the Danes, with Boer ‘slimness,’ had tried to surprise Alfred in his winter home[274]. Happily they failed in this, and, as Pauli has finely said[275], Alfred’s cause was not hopeless as long as Alfred was alive. For the moment the struggle was converted into a guerilla war. But this is what authentic history has to say about it: ‘Here the host … stole on Chippenham and surprised Wessex, … and most of the people they reduced except the King Alfred[276], and he with a little band made his way with difficulty by wood and swamp; … and then after Easter he with his little band made a fort at Athelney, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe[277],’ until he in his turn surprised the Danes, and forced them to submit. Athelney, in fact, played no small part in the redemption of England.
§ 47. Of later Chroniclers, Ethelwerd, at the end of the next century, bases his work mainly on the Chronicle. But, like Asser, he has good additions here and there; and as he was closely connected with the royal house of Wessex, being descended from Æthelred, Alfred’s brother, and was also highly placed as an ealdorman in Wessex, he may well have had access to authentic sources of information. Unfortunately there is no one who has worked at Ethelwerd, who will not echo Ranke’s sigh: ‘wenn er nur verständlich wäre[278]!’ ‘If only he were intelligible!’ The designation which he gives to himself: ‘Patricius consul Fabius Quaestor Ethelwerdus’ is but too true an index of the puerile pomposity of his style. Something of this unintelligibility is no doubt to be put down to the corruption of the text[279], of which no MS. is known to exist. But if he fails to make us understand his Latin, his blunders in translating the Chronicle show that he had a very imperfect acquaintance with the Saxon language[280]. It is possible that this fact may be due, as Professor York Powell once suggested to me, to his having been brought up on the Continent.
The careful Florence gives us less help than usual in this reign, because, as we have seen, he borrows so much from Asser. His splendid and inspiring panegyric on Alfred[281] is almost his only serious addition, though a worthy one, to what we learn from Asser and the Chronicle.
Henry of Huntingdon makes no use of Asser, and does little more than reproduce the Chronicle. There is no trace of the use of ancient ballads[282], such as we find in other parts of his history; no survival of personal traditions, like the splendid anecdotes of old Siward a century and a half later, one of which is the ultimate source of Shakespeare’s glorious lines:—
One picturesque phrase Huntingdon has, where, describing the sudden swoop of the Danes on Chippenham in January, 878, he says that ‘they covered the land like locusts[283].’
§ 48. Of the double recension of the annals of this reign in Simeon of Durham I have spoken above. In the second one, which is Simeon’s own, there is very little which is not derived from Florence, Asser, and the Chronicle, except a few notices of northern affairs, taken mainly from his own history of the Church of Durham. The earlier recension also adds little to our authorities, except the writer’s own rhetoric, of which the following specimen from the opening of the battle of Ethandun may suffice[284]:—‘When the most limpid ray of the sun arose, the king and all the glory of his people put on their warlike adornments, that is to say, the threefold breastplate of faith, hope, and love of God. They, rising from the ground, boldly challenged the caitifs[285] to the fight, trusting in the clemency of the Creator, secure and fortified as with a rampart by the presence of their king, whose countenance shone like that of a resplendent angel,’ with more to the same purpose—or want of purpose. In these northern accounts St. Cuthbert plays very much the part which St. Neot plays in southern legend, appearing to Alfred in his distress, and promising him victory[286], a trait adopted also by William of Malmesbury[287]. And with this stream of legend Mr. Freeman[288] ingeniously connects the dedication of the parish church[289] of Wells to St. Cuthbert, a very unusual dedication for a south-country church. Moreover, some of these northern accounts prolong the retreat of Alfred in the marshes of Somerset from three months to three years[290]. We are fast entering the world of legend.
William of Malmesbury uses both Asser and the Chronicle, though he declines ‘to unravel separately the inextricable labyrinths of Alfred’s labours.’ He adds not only the legend of St. Cuthbert, but also the stories of the golden bracelets, and of Alfred visiting the Danish camp disguised as a minstrel[291]; wandering folk-tales which get attached to more than one historical character. There is no reason to believe that Malmesbury had for Alfred’s reign any historical authority not open to ourselves, as he unquestionably had for that of Athelstan; unless, indeed, he had seen Alfred’s Handbook, of which I shall have more to say later on[292]. He has, however, some very interesting remarks on Alfred’s literary works[293].
§ 49. After William of Malmesbury men ceased to consult, indeed were unable to consult, the authentic sources of English history[294], and there is nothing to check the growth of legend. We get into a world where cakes are freely burnt, where Alfred is sent to Ireland to be cured (Irish fashion) of an incurable disease by St. Modwenna[295], where he invents tithings, hundreds and shires[296], translates into Saxon the Martian law, originally drawn up by Martia, a wise British queen[297]. Here, too, Alfred rules as monarch of all Britain[298], appoints ‘custodes regni[299],’ yet is considerate enough to abstain from all interference with the Church[300]. Here he founds[301], or better still, reforms, the University of Oxford, to which he sends his son Æthelweard[302], and to which, by an improvement on Asser’s scheme, he devotes a fixed proportion of his revenues[303]. His supreme effort in his mythical realm is marked by the invention of trial by jury[304], and the hanging of forty-four judges in one year for unjust judgements[305]. I think it must be admitted that these achievements were highly creditable to one who, in the same mythical realm, had shown in his early years such licentiousness and tyranny[306].
§ 50. In some cases we can trace how the later myth arose; and this furnishes us with an instructive warning as to the danger of listening to the unsupported statements of later chroniclers, as many modern writers are half inclined to do.
The following is a good instance:—
The Chronicle under 885 tells how Alfred sent a fleet to East Anglia, which defeated a force of sixteen wiking ships at the mouth of the Stour, but on their way home fell in with a superior force of the enemy, and were totally defeated. In the earlier text of Simeon of Durham an elaborate explanation is given of the cause of this defeat[307]; how the English were surprised, an unarmed multitude, when plunged in lazy sleep; so that to them, says the moralising writer, would apply the proverb: ‘many shut their eyes when they ought to see.’ Will it be believed that this elaborate tale, with its attendant moral, has all grown out of a false reading in the parallel account of Asser? He says that the English were attacked ‘cum inde uictrix classis dormiret,’ where ‘dormiret’ is a corruption of ‘domum iret,’ the ‘hamweard wendon’ of the Chronicle[308]. Florence has ‘rediret,’ whether that be his substitution for ‘domum iret,’ or his own correction of the obviously nonsensical ‘dormiret.’ This example is further interesting as showing how early the text of Asser was corrupted. Simeon in his turn is misunderstood by later writers. The Chronicle of Melrose says[309] that in 883 Alfred ‘began to inhabit the devastated provinces of Northumbria.’ This is a misreading of a passage in Simeon[310], in which the nominative to ‘prepared to inhabit’ is ‘exercitus,’ i.e. the Danish army.
Langtoft says that Æthelred died at Driffield, which shows that he first of all confused him with Aldfrid of Northumbria[311], who reigned just two hundred years earlier; he next goes on to confuse him with his own brother Alfred[312]. As he writes Æthelred’s name ‘Elfred’ the confusion of names is not surprising. We are reminded of Fuller’s quaint protest against the similar confusion in the case of Ceadda (Chad) and Cedd: ‘though it is pleasant for brethren to live together in unity, yet it is not fit by errour that they should be jumbled together in confusion[313].’
Roger of Wendover says that Alfred sent alms to Jerusalem[314]. The thing in itself is not impossible. But the context in which the statement occurs shows that it rests simply on a false reading in two MSS. of the Saxon Chronicle ‘Iudea’ for ‘Indea[315].’
Lastly the Liber de Hyda gives Alfred a pedigree which seems to make him a descendant of Offa of Mercia[316]. If this pedigree was the only one which we possessed, we might rack our brains to discover what the connexion was. But on reference to the authorised West-Saxon pedigree we find that the compiler of the Liber de Hyda has simply made a confusion between Offa of Mercia and Eafa, one of the steps in the descent of the royal house of Wessex.
One wonders how many statements, usually accepted as historical, would, if they could be traced to their origin, prove to have no better foundation than these.
§ 51. Curiously enough, among the statements of later writers, some of those which sound most authentic occur in Ingulf, one of the most notable forgeries of the Middle Ages[317]. It seems to me that the accounts of the ravages of the Danes[318] may rest, at least in their outlines, on genuine local traditions. Other statements, though probably false considered as descriptions of concrete facts, may be true as types of things which must almost certainly have occurred. For instance, when we are told[319] that a monk of Croyland named Tolius, formerly a Mercian soldier of repute, organised military resistance to the Danes, I take the freedom very seriously to doubt the historical existence of any person of that name. But that in the time of their country’s need, more than one world-weary warrior may have come forth from their monastic retreats, to lead their countrymen against the foe, just as two centuries earlier Sigbert, ex-king of the East Angles, had been dragged from the cloister to lead his former subjects against the heathen Penda[320], is more than likely. So when we read how Beornred, king of Mercia, took advantage of the confusion caused by the Danish raids to annex monastic estates[321], how, owing to the ravages of the Danes, and the exactions of their puppet king, Ceolwulf, Croyland became so poor that no one could be found to take the monastic vows there[322], we have every disposition to accept the statements.
It is in Ingulf that Alfred is praised for his devotion to St. Neot and St. Werferth[323]. It is curious to find the very definite connexion of Alfred with the human friend who helped him so much in his literary and other tasks, converted into the shadowy relation of a votary to a saint.
§ 52. Where, on the other hand, this growth of legend does not appear in later chroniclers, we seem to come into ‘a land where all things are forgotten.’ And it is, I think, unquestionably true, that Alfred’s fame was in after times largely obscured by that of Edgar. The connexion of the latter with the monastic revival secured him the homage of monastic historians, and his imperial position appealed more to the imagination of posterity than the weightier achievements of Alfred. And then he was three-quarters of a century nearer to their view. It is not unnatural therefore that the laws and homilies of Æthelred’s reign should look back to the reign of Edgar as a golden age[324]; that here in Oxford, in 1018, Canute and his conquered subjects should be reconciled on the basis of Edgar’s law[325]. The one exception is the Anglo-Saxon homily on St. Neot, in which the later years of Alfred are regarded as the golden age[326]. The motive of this is too obvious to be dwelt on. But to show how small a space Alfred occupies in some of the later Chronicles, I may point out that in the Annals of Waverley[327] the only thing mentioned about him is his foundation of the three monasteries of Athelney, Newminster, and Shaftesbury, that in the Annals of Dunstaple[328] the only act recorded of him is the sending of alms to St. Thomas in India; while this is what his reign shrinks to in the pages of Capgrave, the first to apply the English tongue once more to the original writing of history in prose:—
‘In this tyme regned Alured in Ynglond, the fourt son of Adelwold. He began to regn in the ȝere of our Lord 872. This man, be the councelle of St. Ned, mad an open Scole of divers sciens at Oxenford. He had many batailes with Danes; and aftir many conflictes in which he had the wers, at the last he overcam hem; and be his trety Godrus (a nominative inferred from Godrum = Guðrum) here king was baptized, and went hom with his puple. XXVIII ȝere he regned, and deied the servaunt of God[329].’
And so through these dim pages the greatest name in English story moves like the shadow cast by some great luminary in eclipse[330].
§ 53. There has been a good deal of discussion as to the date of Alfred’s birth. Asser at the beginning of his work places it in 849. And in the annalistic portions he dates each year, not only by the Incarnation, but by the nativity of Alfred. From 851 to 869 inclusive this latter series (with one exception) is correctly reckoned from Asser’s own date 849; from 870 to 876 the dates are reckoned as if from 850; from 878 to 887 they are reckoned as if from 852. In one case, the annal for 853, the resulting year of Alfred’s nativity is 843. With this single exception all the other errors are accounted for by the accidental repetition of numbers, combined with the occurrence of blank annals which are not allowed for[331]. I have shown elsewhere how the chronology of the Saxon Chronicle is dislocated in various places by similar causes of a purely mechanical nature[332]. It is idle to build anything on this. Sir James Ramsay indeed seizes on the one eccentric annal 853 as giving the true date of Alfred’s birth[333]. But, to say the least, the doctrine of chances is strongly against this. We cannot indeed account for this date by progressive degeneration, but it is simply one of those scribal errors to which numerals are peculiarly liable[334].
The best authority for the date of Alfred’s birth has been generally overlooked. This is the genealogical preface prefixed to MS. A of the Chronicle. This is a strictly contemporary document, being drawn up during Alfred’s reign, as is proved by the fact that, though it gives Alfred’s accession, it does not, as in the case of all preceding kings, give the length of his reign. According to this authority Alfred ‘took to the kingdom when there were gone of his age three and twenty winters.’ In other words, Alfred was ‘turned’ twenty-three, as we say, at his accession in 871. This fixes his birth to 848[335]. The place, according to Asser, was Wantage.
§ 54. The earliest event recorded in the life of Alfred is his being sent to Rome in 853, when he would be, according to this, five years old. Of the fact there can be no possible doubt. It is not only mentioned by the Chronicle and Asser; but we have the actual letter which Leo IV wrote to Æthelwulf announcing Alfred’s safe arrival[336]. Considering the child’s tender age, I can hardly think that the object of the journey was educational, as is very commonly supposed; to say nothing of the fact that Rome, at this time, had very little to offer in the way of education, being far outstripped in this respect by the Carolingian schools of Germany and Gaul[337]. The motive was, I think, much more religious than intellectual. I see no reason to doubt Asser’s statement that Alfred was, from the very first, a child of singular promise and attractiveness[338]; and his parents, who were both conspicuous for their piety[339], may well have wished to secure for their favourite child[340], in his earliest years, those spiritual advantages which were believed to attend a pilgrimage to Rome, and contact with the visible head of the Church. The passion for pilgrimages and relics was indeed at its height in the ninth century[341]. So far there is no difficulty. The difficulty is as to what took place at Rome. Not only Asser, but the Chronicle, assert that the pope ‘hallowed Alfred as king, and took him as his bishop’s son.’ The latter phrase clearly points to confirmation. We have seen by the case of Anaraut of North Wales, that it was no unusual compliment for one exalted person to act as sponsor to another at his confirmation[342], or, as in the case of Guthrum, at his baptism. And in some cases the confirming or baptising prelate acted also as sponsor, as we see in the case of Birinus and Cuthred of Wessex, mentioned in the Chronicle at 639. There is therefore some plausibility in the suggestion, that the unction which formed part of the rite of confirmation was afterwards misinterpreted as a royal anointing. This theory was put forward as early as the seventeenth century, as appears by Sir John Spelman’s life of Alfred[343], and has been accepted by many subsequent writers, myself included. I confess it fails to satisfy me now. The statement of the Chronicle seems to me too explicit to be lightly set aside. Dr. Liebermann indeed argues[344] that the Chronicle cannot have been drawn up under Alfred’s influence, because of the gross improbability of this very statement. I am inclined to turn the argument round the other way. I think that Alfred must have understood the ceremony to mean something more than confirmation, especially as the two ceremonies, the hallowing as king, and the reception as ‘bishop’s son,’ are in the Chronicle clearly distinguished. In the letter of Leo IV alluded to above the words run thus: ‘We have affectionately received your son Erfred … and have invested him as a spiritual son with the girdle (or office), insignia, and robes[345] of the consulate, as is the manner of Roman consuls.’ It is certain that Clovis wore a diadem after receiving the consular insignia from Constantinople[346]; and in these ceremonial matters the Papacy largely inherited the traditions of the Byzantine Court. If then the imposition of a diadem of some kind on the child’s head formed part of the ceremony of the consular investiture, this would come very near to a royal coronation. I am however inclined to go a step further in the way of suggestion. Ailred of Rievaulx indeed, who compares the anointing of David by Samuel, supposes the pope to have been endowed with the gift of prophecy[347]. And a spurious charter[348] represents Alfred as making promises to the pope, as if it was then certain that he would one day become king. But, humanly speaking, it was of course impossible that Alfred’s succession to the West Saxon throne should have been foreseen in 853, seeing that he had three brothers living, all older than himself. But is it not possible that he may titularly have held some subordinate royalty conferred on him by his father for this very object? Athelstan, the under-king of Kent, disappears from history after 851. Æthelberht, Alfred’s second brother, was appointed to that under-kingdom when Æthelwulf went to Rome in 855[349]. Is it not just possible that in the interval it may have been titularly conferred on Alfred? What emboldens me to make this suggestion is the curiously interesting parallel of Louis the Pious, who, at the age of three, was crowned by Pope Hadrian I in 781 as king of Aquitaine[350]. But if this be thought too bold a theory, then I should fall back on the diadem as one of the consular insignia. When in the course of years Alfred inherited his father’s throne, he, and others, may well have seen in the action of him who was ‘high priest that same year,’ a prophetic significance; just as St. John traces a higher inspiration in words[351], which, in the intention of the speaker, simply laid down the doctrine of political expediency in its most brutal form.
§ 55. Two years later, in 855, Æthelwulf went to Rome himself[352]. As early as the year of his accession, 839, he had formed the plan, and had sent an embassy to the emperor, Louis the Pious, to prepare the way[353]; and now at last, after sixteen years, he was able to accomplish it. How much the subject filled his thoughts seems to be indicated by the fact that a charter of this year is dated: ‘when I set out to go beyond the sea to Rome[354].’ He hardly left ‘composito regno’ as William of Malmesbury states[355], for in 855 the Danes for the second time wintered in the island[356], and a Mercian charter of this very year is dated: ‘when the Pagans were in the country of the Wrekin[357]’; though that concerned Mercia more immediately than Wessex. Before leaving England Æthelwulf entrusted his dominions to his two eldest sons in the way in which they were ultimately divided at his death; Æthelbald receiving Wessex, and Æthelberht Kent with its dependencies[358]. The spirit of family partitions, which wrecked the Carolingian empire, threatened the house of Wessex also. Happily the evil consequences were averted, as we shall see[359], by the patriotic unselfishness of the two youngest brothers, Æthelred and Alfred.
Æthelwulf took Alfred with him on this journey to Rome. This fact is not mentioned in the Chronicle, and rests only on the authority of Asser[360], and those writers who have copied him. But on the whole the statements are too precise to be set aside, and we may accept Dr. Stubbs’ decision: ‘there is no possibility that a single visit has been broken into two[361].’ That the child returned to England after his visit in 853, and did not wait at Rome till his father came, is proved by the fact that his signature is affixed to the charter of 855, already cited, which Æthelwulf executed when setting out for Rome[362]: and this is better authority than that of the two recensions of Simeon of Durham; which however both state the fact very distinctly[363].
The continental authorities do not mention Alfred; but they tell how honourably the emperor Charles the Bald received Æthelwulf, and escorted him to the borders of his kingdom[364]; while the Roman historian gives lists of the offerings which the pious monarch made at the holy places[365]. Gregorovius indeed says that he came ‘to be anointed and crowned by the pope[366].’ But he gives no authority, and I do not believe that any exists. Some authorities transfer to this visit the royal unction of Alfred[367], while another places it at Æthelwulf’s death, January, 858[368]. But there is no reason to believe that Alfred remained at Rome after his father left. The object of both versions is to make the story of the unction rather more probable; but both alike are inconsistent with the fact that Leo IV, who is always represented as the anointing pontiff, died July 17, 855[369].
§ 56. According to the Chronicle and Asser, Æthelwulf remained a year in Rome, and according to William of Malmesbury he restored the ‘Schola Saxonum[370]’ or English hostelry there, which is probable enough, as early in Leo’s reign it had suffered much from fire[371]. It is worth while to take a glance at the state of Rome at this time. Only nine years before, under Sergius II, a Saracen fleet had entered the Tiber and sacked the papal suburb, though they probably did not capture Rome itself. St. Peter’s, the centre of Western Christendom, the archive, the museum, the treasury of five centuries of Christian devotion, became their prey. The church of his brother apostle St. Paul, scarcely less rich, shared a like fate[372]. The conquest of Sicily, 827-832, had thrown down the last barrier against Islam[373]. The Mediterranean was indeed fast becoming a Saracenic lake; and the Saracens were, as has been well said[374], to the dwellers on its coasts very much what the Danes and Northmen were to the dwellers on the coasts of Northern Europe, a haunting ever-present dread, which would not let men sleep. Some parts indeed suffered from both plagues alike[375]; and in Spain we find Saracen and Christian combining against the Dane[376], much as we have seen Celt and Saxon combining in England[377]. It was to prevent a repetition of the disaster of 846 that Leo IV, with the help of the emperor Lothair[378], built the fortifications which have ever since given to the papal suburb the name of ‘the Leonine city.’ These fortifications were solemnly consecrated by the pope just a year before Alfred’s former visit, viz. on June 27, 852[379].