Alfred the Great: War, Culture and Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England [Paperback]

Richard Abels (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0582040477 | ISBN-13: 978-0582040472 | Edition: 1

This biography of Alfred the Great, king of the West Saxons (871-899), combines a sensitive reading of the primary sources with a careful evaluation of the most recent scholarly research on the history and archaeology of ninth-century England. Alfred emerges from the pages of this biography as a great warlord, an effective and inventive ruler, and a passionate scholar whose piety and intellectual curiosity led him to sponsor a cultural and spiritual renaissance. Alfred's victories on the battlefield and his sweeping administrative innovations not only preserved his native Wessex from viking conquest, but began the process of political consolidation that would culminate in the creation of the kingdom of England.

Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England strips away the varnish of later interpretations to recover the historical Alfredpragmatic, generous, brutal, pious, scholarly within the context of his own age.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'...based on wide knowledge, and not infrequent reconsideration, of the sources...this is a most useful book'. English Historical Review  'Abels' Alfred is a remarkable man...made believable, intriguing, relevant... this is a book for anyone who enjoys history.' Times Literary Supplement  

From the Back Cover

FRONT OF COVER: Final: 2.4.98



ALFRED THE GREAT

War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England



RICHARD ABELS



THE MEDIEVAL WORLD




SPINE:

ALFRED THE GREAT

ABELS

[colophon]



OUTSIDE TRIM:


Probable price:

Probable publication:













BACK OF COVER:

THE MEDIEVAL WORLD
General Editor: David Bates
Professor of Medieval History, University of Glasgow

The influence of Alfred - king of Wessex from 871 to 899 - pervades English history. His victories on the battlefield and his administrative innovations not only preserved his native Wessex from viking conquest, but also began the process of political consolidation and unification that would culminate, within a couple of generations, in the creation of the kingdom of England.

Alfred was a great warrior king, and an effective and inventive ruler. But, even more remarkably, he was also a lover of wisdom, who sought to preserve and disseminate Latin learning by translating into English the books most necessary for all men to know . The spiritual and literary renaissance he spearheaded gave rise to a lasting tradition of English vernacular prose and learning.

He himself claimed that what he most desired was to live a worthy life, and to leave to posterity his memory in good works. This is precisely what he accomplished. Few bearers of the sobriquet the Great have so firm a hold on the title: eleven hundred years after his death, his name still resonates, and modern scholarship has not undermined his reputation. Yet that status carries its own dangers: he seems such a modern figure that each generation is tempted to recreate him in its own image. One of the great virtues of Richard Abels s splendid new study of the king, however, is to strip away the varnish of such later interpretations, in order to recover the historical figure - pragmatic, generous, brutal, pious, scholarly - within the context of Alfred s own age.

The book is timely, fresh and authoritative. It is based throughout on the primary sources, but it also presents a judicious assessment of recent scholarship in interpreting the man and his times. It has been written with a student and non-specialist readership in mind, but fellow specialists will find much in it to stimulate and challenge (and many will especially welcome the re-assertion of Asser s life of Alfred as a key contemporary source for the reign, against recent scholarly attack).

Richard Abels s Alfred convinces as a man who combined within himself the complexities and contradictions of his time. But, fascinating though that portrait is, this is more than just a study of an individual, however Great : the book investigates, and illuminates, the whole nature of warfare, culture and kingship in Anglo-Saxon England.

RICHARD ABELS is Professor of History at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis.

Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: Longman; 1 edition (October 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0582040477
• ISBN-13: 978-0582040472
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,121,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An informative and easily accessible read, August 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Alfred the Great: War, Culture and Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (The Medieval World) (Hardcover)

I bought this book on the recommendation of a professor of mine when embarking upon my senior thesis this spring, and though Abel's book did not end up playing a large part in my paper, I went back to this book after the term was over. This book was an easy, quick, and absorbing read, while informative, cohesive, and clear in its aims and the points it was trying to express. My only criticism might be a minor one -- As an English major, I am more interested in the ideological, cultural, or literary influence or views of an individual. Naturally, as a history professor, Abels interests were not the same as mine. He devotes a lot of the book to details of Alfred's battles with the Vikings, and at times, this failed to hold my attention. This criticism, as a result, is only the result of a personal preference.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captures even the smell of "the burnt cakes", September 4, 2001

By 

Mark Howells (Puyallup, Washington State, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Alfred the Great: War, Culture and Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Paperback)

Alfred, being the only English monarch styled "the Great", is a notoriously difficult subject to write history about. The Victorian cult of Alfred made him a marked man for the debunkers of the Dead White European Male focus of history. Attempts at an even-handed review of the Wessex king's life are fraught with peril.

This book does the job magnificently. Alfred the warrior, ruler, innovator, strategist, and moralist are all presented well within the context of a 9th century Anglo-Saxon world. Alfred the pious and Alfred the ruthless are both shown as parts of the same man.

While concluding that Asser's "Life" is a legitimate source of biography for Alfred, the author does not limit himself. Extensive use and comparison between versions of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" is combined with what limited charter evidence survives, archaeological discoveries and an examination of coinage patterns to round out the picture of Alfred and his times.

One major strength of this work is its very careful comparisons of Alfred and his activities to those of predecessor kings of Wessex and successor kings of the Anglo-Saxons. Alfred's reign is not studied in isolation. How Alfred was both traditional and innovative in contrast to his father and brothers helps place Alfred in the context of his times. The legacy which Alfred left his descendants (to become kings of all England) is given special attention.

The author is circumspect in trying to get inside of Alfred's head. Alfred's physical afflictions are examined with an eye to a modern medical diagnosis and their effects on Alfred's personality. Using the marginalia in Alfred's own translations from Latin into the vernacular, the author tries to see inside Alfred the man - all the while cognizant that such a review is only speculative.

This is a great book and a very good read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really well done biography of Alfred the Great, June 8, 2010

By 

Kiwi (Mississauga, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Alfred the Great: War, Culture and Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Paperback)

This is a good solid and concise biography of King Alfred (871-99) that is not just a synthesis of earlier and current work, but also includes some new research and interpretations by the author. It consists of a chronological narrative with an introduction and background chapter, a short epilogue, and three thematic chapters on "The Defence of the Realm," "The Reign of Solomon," and "The Practice of Kingship" as an interlude between the death of Guthrum in 890 and the new invasion by vikings under Hasteinn in 892. Abels has a keen sense of both the significance of Alfred to his own time and the shifting place the king has occupied in the historiography of his reign - which it seems has become a bit of a battlegound of alternate views in itself. Abels places his work in the context of the work of others without making and criticisms of other's research.

In Abels book, what stands out first and foremost is that the author creates a three-dimensional sense of space. He not only has visited many of the sites he discusses --his "Alfred pilgrimage of 1989" as he calls it - but he has tested them out. For instance, in March of 878, while Alfred was a refugee from Danish invaders in Wessex, he established a camp at Athelney in the Somerset marshes from which he launched his assault on the Danes. In Asser's near contemporary account, "King Alfred, with a few men, made a fortress at a place called Athelney, and from that fortress with the thegns of Somerset he again waged war ceaselessly and tirelessly against the heathens". After pointing to the site's high ground that would serve as a "natural lookout," Abels adds: "It is difficult for a modern visitor to envision Athelney as an 'island' rising out of the marshes; erosion and tractors have considerably lowered the hill . . . and the Somerset fens have long since been drained. What does impress one, though, is how small the site is: about 365 paces long and 50 paces across" - about the size of a football field. Given the confined space at Athelney, Abels calculates that Alfred probably had at most one hundred men with whom to begin the reconquest of Wessex, which makes the king's accomplishment all the more remarkable. Even when it is unclear whether such personal visits were undertaken, Abels' ability to characterize setting is superb: on the size of Rome to ninth-century English pilgrims, Abels says all of Saxon Southampton (Hamwic), the "greatest commercial town of Wessex," would fit into the Baths of Caracalla. A measurement like this conveys more than any statistic or pages of description.

The book itself covers King Alfred's life and his kingdom's history, but the actual biography is really just the skeleton around which a lot of broader, more circumstantial evidence is set out. This is pretty much a common format for biographies of medieval (and earlier) subjects where sources are often scarce. Alfred is probably easier than many to deal with as her had a contemporary biographer, his will survived, as did his law code and some of his own translations of biblical and other works. It's an impressively detailed work and it's thoughtful (and well thought out) - his conclusions seem to be based on a sound basis without making wild leaps of conjecture - for example, in his discussion of Alfred's illness - the "agonizing infirmity" Alfred suffered throughout his life - Abels refers to modern interpretations of the king's affliction as Crohn's disease, but admits that it can only ever be "an attractive possibility" given the state of the evidence.

He also devotes a separate appendix to assessing claims against the authenticity of Asser's Life of Alfred: this is a fair and thoughtful consideration of the arguments of V. H. Galbraith and Alfred Smyth, arguments which Abels rejects. Elsewhere, he alerts readers to the existence of debates and offers a summary of rival positions or qualifications of standard positions (e.g., on extrapolating from dies to estimate circulation of coinage). All information that I, as a reader, found both interesting and relevant. The book itself is, if you're interest in the subject, both clearly structured and interesting (I was going to say fun, but that really depends on you as the reader....). Abels also has a good sense of humour which comes through here and there - for example, he sums up the account of Alfred's ninth-century delegation to "India" - a perplexing event given the times - with a small dose of Wordsworth on the subject. "But," he opines, "as the better Victorian scholars realized, Alfred as a prefigurement of Clive was too good to be true," and Abels offers W. H. Stevenson's conclusion that it was Edessa, and (alas for later imperialists) not "British" India, to which Alfred was directing England's attention.

The book has been cleanly produced with a minimum of typos and editing errors, and with useful maps, a genealogy, and a guide to further reading.