Benjamin Merkle (10)
Though the king was not present for each and every military engagement fought by the Wessex troops, Alfred, until his death, regularly took his sword, shield, and spear into battle, standing shoulder to shoulder in the shieldwall with his countrymen. In the Anglo-Saxon world, combat was the duty of the ruling class; and the king, his thegns, the noblemen, and other rulers of the English people always filled the ranks of the Wessex shieldwall.White Horse King, 154
It had been nearly a full century since the Viking plague had begun with the first tragic raid on the holy island of Lindisfarne. After that disaster, Alcuin had written to the British church urging them to consider this raid as a scourge from God, sent to awaken the Anglo-Saxons from spiritual lethargy. Now, nearly one hundred years later, the king of Wessex finally took this warning to heart and set about reviving Christian learning and worship throughout his land.The Life of Alfred the Great, 181
After this length preface, which underlined the king's deep conviction that justice had been passed down from God to men and that it was the duty of law-givers to study Scripture, history, and the counsel of other men as they made their legislative decrees, Alfred finally listed his collection of one hundred twenty laws. (It is suspected that the total number of one hundred twenty laws was chosen to equal the age of Moses at his death, acknowledging once more the biblical foundation for Alfred's law code.)The White Horse King
Only those laws that had been founded on the eternal principles of justice, had stood the test of time, had been passed on from generation to generation, and had received the approval of the wisest of counsellors should be enacted and enforced by a just king. To make this point clear, Alfred began the domboc with a translation of the Ten Commandments given to Moses by God on Mount SinaiThe White Horse King, 198-199
Ecstatic to find so great a precedent as Alfred the Great, the sixteenth-century Anglican ministers began publishing biographies on Alfred and Anglo-Saxon editions of the Bible.The Life of Alfred the Great, 192
These psalms, primarily the songs of King David composed throughout the King of Israel's tumultuous reign, had always had a special place in Alfred's heart. Having memorized many of the psalms in his youth, Alfred had used these sacred words throughout his life to embolden himself in battle, encourage himself in despondency, humble himself in his sins, and comfort himself in his forgiveness. The entire spectrum of Alfred's personal trials and triumphs seemed to have been lived out already by the shepherd king of Israel. More than any other text, the book of Psalms had become the poetry of Alfred's life.The Life of Alfred the Great, 191
Before his death, King Alfred personally translated the following into the Wessex vernacular: Pastor Care by Gregory the Great; The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius; the Soliliques of Augustine; and the first fifty psalms of the Bible. These works were then copied and distributed as widely as possible throughout the schools and churches of Wessex to provide reading material for the newly literate nation.The Life of Alfred the Great, 189
Despite the fact that the aged minds of many of Alfred's best nobles seemed to resist new learning, the king was resolute in his new demand. Soon the royal court of Wessex was filled with the comic sight of the thegns of Wessex--the same men who had stood undaunted in the shieldwall, standing shoulder to shoulder with the king throughout countless bloody battles-- sitting lost in a mental fog as they tried to push their faltering minds through simple Anglo-Saxan texts.The Life of Alfred the Great, 187-188
Alfred concluded that the Vikings were not the cause of England's overthrow. They were the result. The Anglo-Saxons' own lethargic apostasy had been the cause of the fall of the various Anglo-Saxon nations. If Alfred was to have a victorious defense policy, clearly armies and burhs were not enough. If Wessex wanted to be successful in her ongoing struggle with the plundering Danes, then the nation must devote itself to a revival of Christian learning and Christian worship.The Life of Alfred the Great
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