scholarly journals The Vita Alcuini, Asser and Scholarly Service at the Court of Alfred the Great*

2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (566) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Rebecca Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Alfred The Great

King Alfred the Great.

1997 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 363
Author(s):  
Bernard S. Bachrach ◽  
Alfred P. Smyth
Keyword(s):  
Alfred The Great ◽  
King Alfred

A Tale of Two Kings: Alfred the Great and Æthelred the Unready

1986 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 195-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Keynes
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
The Other ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
Apparent Contrast ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Alfred The Great ◽  
The People ◽  
The Status ◽  
Personal Qualities

IN the gallery of Anglo-Saxon kings, there are two whose characters are fixed in the popular imagination by their familiar epithets: Alfred the Great and ÆEthelred the Unready. Of course both epithets are products of the posthumous development of the kings' reputations (in opposite directions), not expressions of genuinely contemporary attitudes to the kings themselves: respective personalities. In the case of Alfred, it was the king’s own resourcefulness, courage and determination that brought the West Saxons through the Viking invasions, for it was these qualities, complemented by his concern for the well–being of his subjects, that inspired and maintained the people’s loyalty towards the king and generated their support for his cause. Whereas in the case of jEthelred, it was the king’s incompetence, weakness and vacillation that brought the kingdom to ruin, for it was these failings, exacerbated by his displays of cruelty and spite, that alienated the people and made them abandon his cause. Few historians, perhaps, would subscribe to such a view expressed as bluntly as that, and more, I suspect, would consider such comparisons to be futile and probably misconceived in the first place. I would maintain, however, that something is to be gained from the exercise of comparing the two kings in fairly broad terms: by juxtaposing discussions of the status of the main narrative accounts of each king’s reign we can more easily appreciate how their utterly different reputations arose, and see, moreover, that in certain respects the apparent contrast between them might actually be deceptive; by comparing the predicament in which each king was placed we can better understand how one managed to extricate himself from trouble while the other succumbed; and overall we can more readily judge how much, or how little, can be attributed to personal qualities or failings on the part of the kings themselves.

The Tablet-woven Braids from the Vestments of St. Cuthbert at Durham

1939 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace M. Crowfoot
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Alfred The Great ◽  
The Gift ◽  
The Subject

The braids which form the subject of this study were found with a stole and maniple on the body of St. Cuthbert when the tomb was opened in 1827. The vestments are embroidered in coloured silks and gold thread: the stole with figures of prophets, and the maniple with those of saints. Both have an inscription embroidered on the ends, with the names of the donor, Ælflæda, and the ‘pious Bishop Fridestan’ for whom they were worked. Fridestan became the Bishop of Winchester in A.D. 905 and Ælflæda, second wife of Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, died in A.D. 916, so that the gift must have been made between these dates. It is further probable that this stole and maniple are identical with those recorded as having been presented to the shrine of St. Cuthbert (then at Chester-le-Street) by King Athelstan, stepson of Queen Ælflæda, in A.D. 934. Fridestan had died in 931, and this circumstance, together with the close connexion of the king's family with Winchester, supports the story.

Alfred the Great

Manuscripta ◽  
1958 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-52
Author(s):  
Richard E. Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Alfred The Great
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