In Our Time - Alfred and the Battle of Edington

Episode Date: April 7, 2005

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss King Alfred and the defeat of the Vikings at Battle of Edington. At the end of the 9th century the Vikings controlled almost all of what we now call England. Mercia had fallen and its king had fled, Northumbria had fallen and so had Essex. The only independent kingdom left standing against the rampaging Danes was Wessex, and Alfred the Great; then he was overrun, his treasury, palaces and castles taken whilst he and his most loyal followers were left to wander the moors. Yet he came back. The Battle of Edington in 878 is taken by many to be the great founding Battle of England. It is the conflict in which Alfred, King of Wessex, came back to defeat the Vikings and launch a grand project to establish a new entity of Englishness, what he called the 'Anglecynn' in the South of the island of Britain.How did Alfred manage to defeat the Vikings when he had been so thoroughly routed? What motivated his project to fashion Englishness? And without Edington, would there be no England?With Richard Gameson, Reader in Medieval History, University of Kent at Canterbury; Sarah Foot, Professor of Early Medieval History, University of Sheffield; John Hines, Professor in the School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello. The Battle of Eddington in 878 is taken by many historians to be the founding Battle of England. It's the conflict in which Alfred King of Wessex came back from what seemed an impossible position to defeat the Vikings and launch a grand project to establish.

a new entity of Englishness, what he called the Angle Coon, in the south, in the island of Britain. How did Alfred manage to defeat the Vikings when he'd been so thoroughly routed? What motivated his project to fashion Englishness? And without Eddington, would there be no England and no global English language? When me to discuss Alfred and Eddington is Richard Gameson, reader in medieval history at the University of Kent at Canterbury, Sarah Foote, Professor of Early medieval history at Sheffield University, and John Hines, Professor in the School of Archaeology in History,

at Cardiff University. Richard Gameson, can we start with Alfred's early life and how he became king because it's important to understanding this or the understanding of the sort of leader he became? Yes, Alfred was most unlikely to come to the throne. He was the fifth son of Athelwulf of Wessex, and as a fifth son, with four elder brothers,

his prospects of getting to the throne were obviously small. However, kings tended to live and reign for short periods of time with the Vikings running around the country, and gradually Alfred's elder brothers died. Circumstances seemed to have changed by the time... Did he be in battle? No, they died from natural causes, but we know that they struggled hard,

and indeed Alfred's immediate brother, the brother older than him, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles account of him, says that he struggled hard for five years. He reigned gloriously, but effaced a hard challenge, and then he died. Alfred seems to have been designated air, only by the time we had got to brother four.

At that stage, Alfred would have been 15 or 16, and he had some military responsibilities. But prior to that, it's unlikely that he would have seemed, in any sense, destined to become king. As the youngest of the five brothers, would he have been trained in a rather different way from brothers 1, 2 and 3, so? Yes, well, this seems very likely.

His eldest brother was probably about 20 when he was born. it's clear that Alfred was educated in the Royal Court and that he had, shall we say, a more literary time than perhaps some of his older brothers would have done, the famous story about him learning the book of Old English poetry, the fact that we know that he learnt the divine offices, the Psalms and so on, this indicates someone that had more time for literary endeavours,

even as a child, and who also may possibly have been designated for a potential career in the church. Asa, who was a monk who came from St David's, and he wrote a biography of Alfred, describes Alfred as going to Rome when he was about four. And from his description, it seems as if he's anointed by the Pope. And the idea that he will be king was already somehow around when he was four. That's right.

We had four brothers alive. The Anglo-Sexan Chronicle and Asa imply that at this stage, when he was four, he was sent to Rome and was anointed. What is more likely is that as the very youngest brother, he was free to be sent to Rome, but also this might be interpreted as leading towards a more clerical career. We had a letter from the Pope at the time, Leo IV, which says that in fact he was blessed as a servant of the papacy,

and whether or not this is genuine, it seems to articulate the likely type of ceremony that happened. It's very unlikely that he was designated king at that stage, though subsequently in the light of events the chronicler and Asa could write it up in those terms But to take the most obvious thing from that Does that mean that he was very,

it was very, his Christianity was extremely important to him And he had had direct contact With as it were God's spokesman on earth Indeed so And at an early age he had seen Rome Age 4, he probably made two journeys to Rome He had seen, he'd met the papacy He had also travelled through the Carolingian world

France, Germany, Carolingian Gaul and so had a much broader view of society and culture on the continent than perhaps some of his siblings. Sarah Foote, what did the sources tell us about Alfred's personality, which has already said by the age of 15 or 16 he'd had some experience as a warrior. We seem to know he'd learned poetry and learned the Psalms. Can you tell us a bit more about the personality of this still young man, not yet king? We have many more sources for Alfred's personality than we do for any of his personality.

brothers, or indeed for most of his own contemporaries, because we have this contemporary life by Asa, but also some of the King's own writings. And they suggest a much more complex personality than many other 9th century figures that we know about. Alfred was indeed a godly and spiritual man. He was interested in the fate of his own soul, and he was very interested in the fate of the souls of those for whom he had charge. And that's very clear from his own writings. But he's also a practical, pragmatic man manifestly good at finding

complex solutions to the difficult problems that he faced during his reign and also a military leader of some significance. There's a story that Assert tells in the last year of his next eldest brother Atherred's reign when Alfred and Atherred together are preparing

for a big battle at a place called Ashdown and as was customary mass was celebrated before the battle and the two brothers take Mass together and then the moment he's received the sacrament, Alfred's off with his weapons out into the battlefield and Asa says that his brother

lingered in his tent waiting until the mass was finished but Alfred was out there he was ready the Vikings were ready and so Alfred started the battle charging like a wild boar against the Viking troops. So we have this young man who is both

if we can use the word literally literary, extremely pious a powerful soldier capable of taking the lead and, as you say, capable of finding complex solutions to problems. It's quite a combination. Do you think it's unusual at that time from what you read about, or is it just unusual in that we seem to know so much? It's very difficult not to say that Alfred is a man who stands out above the rest of his generation. Because we know so much more about him, I think we have to accept that he was a remarkable person

and against the circumstances difficulties that he faced. He did come up with some unique and very significant answers to the difficulties he faced. And because he lived for longer and did more, of course he stands out from his brothers and from his father. And he succeeded to the throne of Wessex in 871. Now, there wasn't an England, but broadly in the space that is now England, there were broadly four kingdoms. Can you briefly say where and what they were?

That's right. The country's divided broadly into four. the Northumbrian kingdom in the north which had recently in the late 860s degenerated into civil war there had been a large battle in 867 and in fact both the contesting Northumbrian kings had been killed and so the Danes are ruling in York by the time Alfred comes to the throne. There's an eastern kingdom of East Anglia

where their king Edmund had been killed in battle or perhaps martyed after the battle by the Danes in 869 so that too is under Danish control and the Midland Kingdom of Mercia is still ruled by an English king whose name was Burgred. And the fourth kingdom is Wessex, where Alfred takes over in 871. But quite soon, Bergrad is put to flight, isn't he? Burgred is persuaded that it might be to his advantage to leave, and he goes to Rome in 874, and the Danes take over the land

and share it out with a native Merceran, perhaps, of the royal line, whose name was Chale Wolf, very rudely in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a foolish king's thane, but his name suggests that he was probably, in fact, a member of a different branch of the Mercy and Royal Family. John Hines, these Viking raids are pouring in in this to the space, the United Kingdom space at that time. Can you tell us the nature of them and what they were after? Yes, what's important to appreciate is, of course, why we use this term Viking. Vikings varied.

Vikings were not always the same, and what Vikings did when they were being Vikings was by no means the same all the way through the 200-year period that we call the Viking period. I think of relevance to the situation that Alfred found himself in the 870s when he came to the throne, it's important to look at it as terms of a development from an early stage when the Viking raids were very much focused on enriching those who were undertaking these experiments. They were there to steal precious metals, to steal treasures that were of great value to them, because they used them to exchange, to, in effect, buy friends within their own social system. And it had moved on from there to them deciding that really what they wanted to steal was not the portable goods, but it was the land itself. They were looking for territory that they could establish themselves on for the more permanent and secure enrichment.

What's actually quite interesting with that, something of great relevance to Alfred, is that they do seem to have recognised from the start of this process in England itself, which is in the 850s, that the way to achieve that was not simply to occupy territory and defend it, but it had to be a political process as well. And we've already heard from Sarah about these kings being put to death, being thrown into exile, puppets being put in their place. and I think it's very clear with the problems that Alfred faced. He was facing an army that was not just trying to move into territory and occupy.

It was trying to replace him as King of Wessex. Can you just give us some idea of what the numbers of these raiders were? They didn't come over as a mass army, did they? You tell us. Well, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, by the time of Alfred's, they were doing so. But for about 150 years they didn't. came over a warring band. Indeed, to start with, we hear of a small group of ships arriving here, there and everyone,

and gradually the numbers of ships increase. I think this is actually credible. It's very difficult. As we know that the historical sources we've got are about 100 years after the event in many cases. And we also know that when these sort of military events are being described in that sort of way, that things get exaggerated. and there is an awful lot of folklore, if you like, accretes around these. But it would appear that by the middle of the 9th century, by the time they are, as I said,

undertaking these attempts to conquer territory and to defeat kingdoms, they are organised to a level that they are putting together, large forces, forces that are numbered in small numbers of thousands rather than hundreds. But the pattern has been small bands moving quickly, very mobile, you don't know where they're going to strike. By the time you know they've been and gone. Absolutely. That was absolutely the secret of the Viking success to start with.

They had the advantage because they were the aggressors, and they simply had an expeditionary force that was there to fight in that way. Can I just clarify, if you could clarify, for us briefly, on this business of sources. Are most of the sources from, let's say the English point of view, the written sources, what sort of sources do we have from the day? Danish Vicar and the further north of the Scandinavian point of view. The only sources that we've got in Scandinavian going back to this period are poetic sources, traditional poetry.

The earliest examples we've got of that, although it's not written down in manuscript until as late as the 13th century, we can believe were being composed in the late 9th century, so around the time of the reign of Alfred. And while those sources do not by any means describe specific events and things that happen. They do give us a very good insight into the Viking mentality into the attitudes of these people.

Richard Gamson, why did the Vikings carve their way through those kingdoms with such success? Two or three reasons, I think. In the first case, as we've just heard, they were hit and run Raiders, so they always had the element of surprise. Secondly,

the Anglo-Saxon defences were particularly weak in response to this, because on the whole, the Anglo-Saxons didn't maintain any form of standing army. It was the case that the king would have his retinue and he would raise or try to raise levies in order to respond to any challenge. But given the circumstances of 9th century communications, by the time you'd heard there was a threat, it was too late. And thirdly, although towards Alfred's reign itself, we begin to find Mercia and Wessex operating in tandem, trying to maintain a unified front against the

Viking invaders, the Vikings could pick off the kingdoms one by one. And so we come towards the Battle of Eddington in 878, and as it were, graphically, but I think more or less correctly, the only one left is Wessex by that time. That's correct. And Alfred has been on the throne for seven years. He's been in many, many battles, and one of his palaces at Chippenham, and he's routed at Chippenham, taken by surprise, as I understand it. And let's go from there.

Sarah Foote, tell us about Chitnam and why it was important. 18878. Chippenham's a royal vale, a royal palace in Wiltshire. On the edge of the West Saxon kingdom, they're coming into his realm from Mercia, having disposed of the Mersland.

Yes, from the Midland area. They, according to the Chronicle and Asa, quite consistent here, they conquer the West Saxon land very quickly. They drive some of the people across the sea, which may mean across the Channel to Frankier, it might mean across the Bristol Channel, into Wales. They drive some of the people out. The others submit

to the Vikings, accept that the Danes are now their leaders. They take the royal palaces, they have control as such there is a central organisation of money within the realm. Alfred has definitively lost his kingdom at this point. The Danes have taken over. This is the moment at which Wessex could have fallen. I think it's important that since we now know that the outcome will be different, The sources make much of how bad things were in the lead up to the Battle of Eddington.

Alfred had nothing, a small band of men. He wanders through the fenfastnesses with nothing to live on, no overt support. But I think the sources are trying to build this up rhetorically so that when we have the sudden change in fortune, it sounds an even more glorious event than it really was. What we might add to that, of course, is that the Vikings weren't playing fair because they attack Alfred precisely when he least it. expects it. It's shortly after Christmas, not the campaigning season. Why would you be campaigning then? You should be respecting the Christian Festival. And at precisely that moment when his defences are down, the Vikings get him. So although previously he has negotiated with the Vikings, he has fought, he has lost, and so on, they get him while he's down. And as Sarah has said, it's a definitive defeat, as it seems.

Is it rather surprising, given what happened to Bergred in Mercer, who went to Rome, Allah from Northumbria was killed, he may have been martyred, killer, and so was Edmund from East Anglia, is it surprising that Alfred held on? Let's take this carefully before we get to the actual Battle of Eddington, which is later in that year. Who wants to take that off? I'd actually quite like to. I think actually the big surprise there is that Burgred gets away,

not that Alfred carried on. you would expect one of these kings at this time simply to fight to the death. And it is interesting that Borgred accepts defeat. Presumably like Alfred, as Sarah described him, a man of very serious religious beliefs and thought accepting he'd lost his position in Mercia was prepared to go on this pilgrimage which he believed would secure the salvation of his soul subsequently. Alfred, yes, he's taken by surprise.

As Sarah indicated, I'm sure the source is. exaggerate enormously, suggesting that. Because if one simply looks at the reality of the situation, it's quite right. Alfred was taken by surprise. He manages to get away with his personal retinue. He goes somewhere where he seems to know already he can establish a fortress, somewhere where he's going to be secure. There's really evidence that he established a fortress, and so much the whole point was.

I thought the point was that he moved around like the Vikings had done. We told that he went to Avalny and that there he fortified the place to create a... Though after a period, well, he had wanted... After a period in which we described him as having wandered. But this whole thing takes place in a small number of months. In January there, he's defeated. In January, he's forced to flee, and by May he's gathered a substantial army. and is facing the Vikings in the Battle of Eddington,

it appears where he wants to fight. Good. Well, let's just go over those few months once more before we get the battle. He's routed. We agree with that, right? He goes to the Somerset Marshers and that, with a small retinue, and for a while moves around his mobile,

and there are a certain guerrilla attacks take place there. Then he gets some base there, and he begins at Egbert Stone, he calls for the people of that air of Wessex to come. He's presumably recogniting, he's presumably seeing how many men he has still in the field that he can summon in due course. We can't do this without the cakes. Nobody's going to like the bloke who spills the beans about the cakes. That's well.

It's you, Richard. Yes. The story of the cakes seems to appear in Asser, Alfred's biography. However, it's not that simple. The first published edition of Asser in 1574 was done by Archbishop. Parker, who was a great enthusiast for Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and Anglo-Xen history. He was also a great enthusiast for

remaking both Anglis-Axan manuscripts and Anglo-Saxon history. And when he was doing his edition of Asa, he interpolated information from other sources, and one of the sources, the Annals of St. Neitz, made at Bery St. Edmunds in the 12th century,

included this splendid story about Alfred not looking after the cakes while he was seeking refuge with a herdsman and being chided. for burning them, and Matthew Parker put this into his edition. That text was then printed and reprinted, and the manuscript itself was burnt in 1731, leaving us with Parker's edition as the standard form of reference,

and it was only in the 19th century that people began to query and realize that this was a later interpolation. Having now dashed people's image, I might say that the story itself is certainly current, in the 10th century, and our earliest witness to a version of it is late 10th century. And to the extent that it shows us Alfred musing on the troubles of his life, seeing them as a judgment from God, and seeing humility as a way of getting back God's favour, it's quite consistent with what we know about Alfred's character from his own words.

So you might have saved the cakes? I might save the cakes. They might not be fake cakes, after all. Okay. Sarah, so, Sarah Foote, so he's rallied at Egbert's Stone. Do you know where Egbert Stone is? People think they do, doesn't it? It's on the edge of Selwood Forest,

just on the edge of Salisbury Plain. Edgebert was his grandfather, a significant West Saxon King, presumably a local meeting point. And he's got enough men for a big battle, and how many men has he? And how does he organise a battle? As he said, look, we're coming.

I mean, what's going on? Tell us what happens. He gets these men together. How many are there, and they go out to fight? He collects men presumably from the southwestern portion of his kingdom. The attack on Chippenham, there was also a second attack on Devon at precisely the same point in midwinter, when the local Aaldemen of Devon routed that Danish force. So the western portion of the kingdom, I think, is doing marginally better than the southeast.

And presumably he sends word out, by word of mouth, to those who are still there who've not fled, that he wishes to gather his army together. how many people did he gather some thousands I think John has a view about how many people he might have it I'd say probably a small number of thousands 4,000 3 to 4,000

And would the Danes, the Vikings have about the same number John? Well, in fact the question we can answer is We can put figures on We can put realistic figures on the English army Because we're told very clearly That he collected the troops from three counties and he collected the troops from Wiltshire, from Somerset, and from a large part of Hampshire.

There's a curious phrase that's used about Hampshire. It's Hampshire's this side of the sea. Well, you know, Hampshire is not across the sea, so we don't really know what they mean by that. Now, in fact, we've got a slightly later source, a little bit later, a source called the Burgl-Hyditch, which describes the mustering points for forces in that area and gives us very precise figures of the number of troops

the king who followed Alfred would expect to be able to gather in these various places. And if we, in fact, add up all of those for Hampshire, Wiltshire and Somerset, you get to a figure close to 9,000. Now, I don't believe for a moment he could have put 9,000 men into the field at any one time. But I think it is actually quite credible to think of figures that could have gone up to 5,000 to 6,000. I'd go slightly beyond Sarah's 3 or 4,000, but I think we're in the same general area.

And now we're talking about equal numbers here. The other thing to bear in mind that is that, of course, the Vikings themselves haven't been in control of Wessex for very long. So even if we, whatever the putative number of the Vikings, they haven't established themselves in Wessex, effectively. They've only been there in control for a matter of five months. So to that extent, it's an unequal fight. Unequal in what sense?

In the sense that Alfred. has the men, he knows the terrain, he knows the resources of the county, in a way that the Vikings won't at the time of the Battle of Eddington. Can you, John, Bristley, can you describe, we haven't many sources for the battle, in fact, very little, but from what we've got and from what you know from surrounding sources, and probably all know of the period, what might have happened, how long would it have taken

that particular battle in 8-7-8 of Eddington? Well, it seems to have been a battle that was fought on a single day. sources do very much give that impression. Alfred gathers his forces at Edgwert Stone, as we said, clearly an unknown assembly place. He then moves very rapidly north towards Chippenham. Eddington, it was an estate that he already had, so he would have known the terrain there.

It would be a place he'd be willing to fight. He may have been attempting to move right up to Chippenham to besiege the Viking force there because this is what happens. The Vikings are not utterly defeated on the battlefield. They flee from the battlefield. Alfred has the advantage over them. They flee back to chippen them.

Alfred is able then to besiege them there, and within a fortnight they give up. What sort of military technology are we talking about? I've read about locked shields that the West Exche people, let's call them the English for them. They locked shields together and move forward with... The famous shield wall. Shield wall, that's right, yeah.

We're not thinking about a great difference in technology between the two sides of the armies. We are thinking of pretty much the same technology on both sides. Shield walls, shields could be used both offensively and defensively. Axes, swords, spears. Those are the sort of weapons that people would have been using, and which survive in considerable numbers. So they move forward. And then the

briefly speaking, the Danes of Vikings broke and ran and Alfred's army followed them and they'd siege to them for about 14 days. Yes, for two weeks at Chippinam and at that point the Vikings capitulate and that it was a great victory for Alfred and it was a genuine victory for Alfred is confirmed by the events thereafter because at that point the Vikings

agree unconditionally to leave. Wessex and Yes, please I'm just going to ask Sarah to go on them And they offer hostages to Alfred and Alfred offers no hostages in return So the measure of the victory so if you could develop what Rich has been saying

Is the other terms of the peace agreement Absolutely the nature of the peace agreed Makes it completely clear that this is recognised by both sides To be a definitive defeat for the Danes They give the hostages, they agree to leave And I think most significantly of all the Viking leader, Guthram, agrees that he will accept baptism at Alfred's hands. So he is being converted.

Publicly converted? Publicly converted. Would he see this, might he see this as a sort of public humiliation? He and 29 other hostages, as I understand it, and Alfred adopted him as his son, is his spiritual son. Would he see this as a humiliation? I think that Alfred went out of his way to try and make it not seem too deeply humiliating. Alfred accepts Guthrum himself as his spiritual son from the font. They feast together for the eight days after the baptism before Guthrum's white robes

are then removed at the end of that period. Alfred gives him gifts as a godparent would give his godson. So yes, the terms of trade between them have changed. Alfred is the superior person. But I think he's doing his best to say this is another king that I would recognise in terms of Christian kingship. Well, I think I would go even further than that. I think, you know, although Guthrum certainly doesn't come

out with what he wanted and there's no question that Alfred is in the stronger position. I think Guthram could in the end be really quite satisfied with what he came away with. He came away with recognition. He came away with acceptance as a Christian king ruling what subsequently was to become known as the Dane Law within

England. Alfred having stood sponsor to him at baptism, in fact took Guthram into kingship with himself. He was taken into kinship with the Wessex Royal Family. His His baptismal name was the name of Alfred's dead eldest brother. So he even had a name from that.

Adelstan. He had a name from that royal family. The degree of recognition that he had achieved was really very high. You could also say that that was politically brilliant. Oh, it was. I mean, it's as if he was gay. I mean, we've got to get it clear. This battle was a victory because it wasn't only the baptism.

Alfred said there will be a line, you will go there and get out of it. I will have London eventually. which he got, which was a huge gain. We will, I will go into Mercia, and he made huge demands, but obviously what you say is absolutely accurate, John, did it, it's politically

extremely astute, and one assumes that given he was a very religious man after, and got this great idea of this warrior, who was also a serious, serious warrior, who was also a very pious Christian, driven by the both things, uncynically simultaneously. Previously, of course,

the problem had been that if you made treaties and trucees with the Vikings, they tended not to follow them. So you paid tribute, you paid them off, you made an agreement, and they reappeared anyway. The advantage of this particular settlement was by maintaining face on both sides, but redefining Guthrum, giving him a particular area, this was something that was then adhered to. So it was a clever political settlement. He also, Sarah, Alfred, immediately after that battle, set about reinforcing his own kingdom. He did this, you tell us how can you tell us, in the years after

Eddington he pursues a two-fold reform programme he sets about restoring and improving the fortifications of Wessex so that were another Viking force to come again, Wessex wouldn't be vulnerable to attack in the way that it had been before.

So he sets up a network of fortified places, burrs, described for us in some detail in this text that John's already referred to, the Bergal-Hyid, which in fact dates from his son's reign, but setting up a series of fortified centres across the whole of his kingdom so that in effect nobody was more than 20 miles away from a fortified place and organising a regular system of defence for them.

Instead of having this system that we've described whereby you can call up the army when you have need, he virtually sets up a standing army and divides it into two parts so that one half is always on service within the forts ready to provide defence if they're needed and the other half is at home looking after the fields. There were other effects on early medieval society of these books, aren't there, John Hines? Can you develop those? Yes, it really is the start of a new period in which urban centres appear as part of the English economic landscape, if you like. It takes some time. It's interesting, your reference to London as a great prize. It's a great symbolic prize, curiously, for about 100 years from when Alfred, we know, takes it over through to the end of the 10th century, London seems to have been really. rather small and unimportant place, surprisingly so. But for instance, Winchester, Alfred's capital in Winchester,

this grows and grows from there. Gloucester becomes an extremely important site to. Equally, in fact, the same thing was happening up in the Scandinavian settled areas. York and Lincoln appear as major towns at this time. The point that should be made, of course, is that fighting the Vikings was only half of the battle. From Alfred's point of view, beating them in the field, it was only dealing with the symptom, not the cause,

and part of his response to how to defend the kingdom was not just military, it was also literary. And let's go to that now, Richard, where he, and let's go straight to the matter of English. Yes. The matter of these books, Oetheus, Augustus and Stalidiquis, B. The pastoral care.

Gregory's pastoral care, and so being translated into the English language. Now, he set that project underway, and it had enormous consequences. Indeed, do. Can you just tell us why did it and what the size of it was, as it were? The key text for this is the preface to Alfred's own translation of Gregory the Great's pastoral care, in which he sets out in his own words his vision of both the problem and the solution. And the problem he sees it is that English people have failed to love divine learning.

He's quite clear that before the Vikings ravaged and burned, I'm virtually quoting, the churches throughout England were filled with treasures and books, but we didn't derive perhaps any profit from them because we didn't read them. He now sees the Vikings' centres judgment from God for English literary laziness, and therefore part of responding to this is to read more Christian texts. He's also readily aware that reading in England by enlargement, reading in a foreign language Latin, and he sees that the fastest way to get text circulate,

is to translate them into Old English. And he himself translated Gregory the Great's pastoral care into Old English. And the Prefetary letter tells us that this is to be distributed to bishops who are to organise further copies. And those copies themselves are not to be lent out unless they're going to be copied.

This is a spiritual programme, but I think it also has an underlying political purpose. What Alfred has achieved in pushing the Dane's to the east of this line that's established, the Alfred Guthrum line going north from London, is to split the country into two halves, a Danish half and an English half. And the English half contains a people

that's never previously been united, West Saxon and Mercians together. And Alfred is the only king. He's not ruling Mercia directly. He's ruling it through his son-in-law, the Aaldeman. But this is a new community, and the idea of using English as a language is a way of reinforcing the political nature

of this new community. They're not West Saxons and Mercians, men of Kent and men of Hampshire. They are all people who belong to the English race, the Angul Cune, Beads, Gensanglorum, translated into Old English. And this imagined community of Englishness is an identity that all Alfred's followers can now subscribe to, an identity created through a shared language, a shared Christian faith, and the fact that they have a common history that leads towards this programme. So the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the translation of Beed into English are part of a political programme to create.

And indeed the selection of Pope Gregor the Great's pastoral care is part and parcel of this because we're specifically told in the verse preface to it that this is the text that had been sent with the missionary Augustine to convert the Anglo-Sexans and so Alfred himself is now reconverting them to a common Christian identity. And one of the ways that, one of the ways, I'd like to bring you in on this, John Hahn, One of the ways in which they are becoming English is to be not Viking, not Danish. The Danish are this and the English are not this. The Danish are very brutal and violent.

The English are, we'll fight in self-defence but are not brutal. I mean, that's one ping-pong, isn't it, that's going on that? Yeah, it's certainly one of the ways in which this is presented, although what slightly muddies it for people who are pursuing that particular gender is the desire of the Danes themselves to become English, so that the contrast is being worn down, from the other side. Prior to this, of course, they were able to define themselves

against the Welsh, the British population of the southern part of Britain. Subsequently, it was all to be redefined when the Normans came in and provided a different group they could define themselves against. But unquestioned in that way, we do find the fact that occasionally Anglo-Saxon seeking advantage would ally themselves with the Danes against Christianity. Can we just keep on this idea of English, at this point, of the programme? John, I mean, there's the very least more impetus given it on Alfred. Now, is it a new impetus?

Is it a defining impetus or is it something it grows out of, say, B, which Sarah's mentioned, and other factor, the alchemical, almost alchemical change of the language once it came across from Frasier changed into a different sort of language. It's working already there. Where is Alfred in that? Well, I think it's a very important stage, but from my point of view, I had emphasis on the science. the point that it is another stage, it's another turn of a wheel that has been going round for some time and I think really did begin when the Anglo-Saxons first moved into Britain

way back in the fifth century. But in terms of literary point, it's so... I think it's... Well, I'm not as to you guys, I am serious. In terms of literary survival, I think it is very definitive because Alfred is why no means the first king to sponsor learning in order to get divine favour, but he's the first one to be so directly involved in translating texts himself and specifically in the vernacular. Yes. And we see from Alfred's reign onward

a massive increase in the use of writing in government and it's surely the fact that the educational reform has worked the evidence for that is the massive increase in the production of written. That is not under dispute although it's perhaps fair also to note the fact that in doing that Alfred was very consciously I think copying Charlemagne of about a hundred years before that. So Charlemagne saw Latin rather than romance as saying. Though he did also have some in the Frankish language, he did have texts preserved in that particular language.

I think the point that I'm making is especially if we're going to focus on this issue of the English language itself, the first sign we've got of the English nation existing as some sort of practical unit is the fact that the English language does develop and develops very, very rapidly out of the continental German. languages as early as the fifth century. Now, I'm not suggesting for a moment they thought to themselves as English, then I'm not suggesting that this was something that must inevitably lead to political unity. Those were things that were happening in these later stages, but that we do have a series of stages leading, that lay the foundations for that is, I think, an important point to remember. Well, everything has foundations, but I want to just try to

really go in on this for last year. Do you, there's obviously a... There's a massive growth in vernacular text production in late Anglo-Saxon England, far in advance of anything you'll find on the continent. We have some two to three hundred manuscripts still surviving of works in old English, homilies, classic texts in translation. And indeed, one of the supreme ironies of this is that even after the Norman conquest, England remains in the forefront of copying works in the vernacular, and actually some of the oldest copies of works in French are copied in Anglo-Norman England, rather than in France. Let's bring it back to Alfred on the consequences of Eddington.

Do you see, Sarah, do you see the consequences of Eddington, the Battle of Eddington being a massively important definition, or in John's case, redefinition of Englishness and a foundational definition? I think you could argue that Eddington is one of those battles that changed the course of English history. Had Alfred lost at Eddington, the Danes would have consolidated their... their hold over the whole of England. Wessex was the last kingdom to fall. Wessex would have been

a Danish kingdom. It's inconceivable to imagine that Alfred could have survived that battle had he been defeated and indeed I think all his own writing would suggest that he would have chosen death rather than the ignominy of defeat. Because Alfred won, the political consequences are monumental. So yes, it is a foundational battle but it's not just the terms on which Alfred made the with Guthrum and the sense in which Guthrum was able to retain and indeed sustain and promote his own kingly identity. It's what

Alfred did afterwards and I think the political consequences of his promotion of English, his promulgation of a law code for all those people whom he ruled, taking the laws of his predecessors, Alvobar of Kent Ina of Wessex, offer of Mercia, looking at what was best

in those laws and then producing one code for all his English people. I was I would pick up one side of that in particular because politically one might argue that even if the Vikings succumbed to dominate England actually it wouldn't have made too much difference to the growth of towns to the political

geography. However, in terms of Englishness and in terms of writing in English it was the survival not just of Wessex but of Alfred in particular a king with literary interests with a personal mission for spreading literary Christianity that pumped

English as a literary language through England. John John Hines. Yes, I think I'm much closer to Richard's position in that, that I think a lot of the cultural changes would have taken place anyway. And I would emphasise, again, the fact that where you do get Viking forces are able to conquer territories, we do see them assimilating, and that the local language and culture tends to carry on. Normandy is, of course, an excellent parallel to draw in this particular point.

But it would have been, there would have been considerably more Scandinavian influence at an early stage than we see already. And I think Richard's point that the impetus to produce so many texts, we can't really expect to have been there had it not been for Alfred's own quite conscious and deliberate policy. His particular interests, and he was someone who believed that if you were to succeed as a kingdom, you had to love learning. His literary texts were ultimately for divine eyes, and one might argue the fact that the English survived for a few more centuries,

proved that in divine eyes he had got it right. I mean also, a very powerful association of Englishness with Christianity and with law, those three things, law in their own land, those three things were all put. The law that started with mosaic law and the laws of the earlier English kingdoms and showed the United People of England has the success of us. But a United saved, people of England, a people in the sight of God, chosen, and with a clear destiny. So a shared past, but also at the promise of a shared future. very much indeed. Next week I'll be discussing archaeology and imperialism. Thanks for listening.

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