Despite this relative peace, the king was forced to deal with a number of Danish raids and incursions | Alfred also encouraged his judges to be literate and at all times pursue wisdom |
---|---|
He defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, becoming the dominant ruler in England | This is unlikely; his succession could not have been foreseen at the time because Alfred had three living elder brothers |
Offa is not known to have issued a law code, leading historian to speculate that Alfred had in mind the legatine of 786 that was presented to Offa by two.
15This is also the period in which almost all chroniclers agree that the Saxon people of pre-unification England submitted to Alfred | In 825, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had recorded that the people of Essex, Sussex, Kent and Surrey surrendered to , Alfred's grandfather |
---|---|
The two kingdoms became allies, which was important in the resistance to attacks | Alfred was a learned man and liked to be in the company of educated men |
Alfred the Great defeated the Great Heathen Army at the Battle of Edington With a sizable number of arms and men, financed by the contributions from the various lords, Alfred the Great marched against the Great Heathen Army at the Battle of Edington in May 878 | Scholars more often refer to translations as "Alfredian" indicating that they probably had something to do with his patronage but are unlikely to be his own work |
---|---|
Patrick Wormald's explanation is that Alfred's law code should be understood not as a legal manual but as an ideological manifesto of kingship "designed more for symbolic impact than for practical direction" | About a fifth of the law code is taken up by Alfred's introduction which includes translations into English of the , a few chapters from the , and the Apostolic Letter from the 15:23—29 |
Alfred the Great died on October26, 899 AD and was succeeded by his son Edward the Elder.
22