the king’s desire to found monasteries was due to his own fixed purpose
of holy meditation, to which he desired to invite others. But he could
not find any one of his own nation, free by birth, who was willing to
adopt the monastic life, except some who were mere children, too young
to choose between good and evil. The love of the monastic life, once so
strong in England, had died out. Asser theorises as to the reasons for
this, and he produces two which seem to be mutually destructive: it was
either because of the constant invasions by sea and land, or because
people abounded in riches of every kind and so despised the monastic
life. He had to get an old Saxon to act as Abbot of his new foundation
of Athelney; and then some priests and deacons from across the seas; and
then, as he had not nearly plenty of inmates, he got as many Gauls as he
possibly could, including children, to be reared to the monastic life.
Asser had himself seen a lad of pagan birth who was educated there, and
who was by no means the hindmost of them all.
The formation of King Alfred’s Manual, which is not known to exist, may
best be told something as Asser tells it. He says that it was in 887
or 888 that the king first formed the desire to interpret passages of
Scripture to those who did not know Latin.
“We were talking together one day, and I read to him an extract from a
certain book. He heard it with both his ears. He brought out his book
with the daily courses and psalms and the prayers he had read in his
youth, and commanded me to write there the quotation. I turned it over,
and found it very nearly full. After some delay I said, had I not better
find another sheet on which this might be entered apart; for perhaps
some other quotation might occur, and if so we should be glad to have
them kept together? ‘Your plan is good,’ he said. So I made haste and
got a sheet and wrote the quotation. That same day no less than three
other passages pleased him; and from that time we talked daily and wrote
such things as pleased him till at last it was full, for he went on
unceasingly collecting many flowers of Divine Scriptures. When the first
quotation was copied onto the sheet, he at once became anxious to read
and interpret it in Saxon, and to teach others. The book grew till it
became almost as large as a Psalter. He called it his Manual, because he
kept it carefully at hand day and night, and found, as he told me, no
small consolation therein.”
It was not to Rome only that Alfred sent messengers and gifts. Asser
speaks, with Celtic breadth, of daily embassies sent to foreign nations,
from the Tyrrhenian sea to the farthest end of Ireland.[15] The English
Chronicle goes further. Alfred vowed, it is said, when they were set
against the enemy in London, to send embassies to St. Thomas and St.
Bartholomew. The Chronicle, under the year 883, tells us that he sent
gifts to India. William of Malmesbury informs us that Sigelm, Bishop
of Sherborne, was sent as ambassador with the gifts to St. Thomas, and
that he prosperously penetrated into India. Thus, Dean Hook remarks,
the first intercourse between England and Hindustan consisted of this
interchange of Christian feeling. It is, however, a little curious that
Asser never mentions India, nor did Alfred interpolate any mention of his
embassy when translating Orosius for his English people. Asser definitely
mentions Judea, telling us that he had seen letters to Alfred which came
with presents from Abel the Patriarch of Jerusalem. It may be worth
mention that other MSS. of the English Chronicle read Iudia and Iudea
instead of India. Still, the fact of the journey of Alfred’s messengers
to some distant part which then bore the name of India, seems to be
accepted on all hands. There is no very violent improbability about it.
Christian missionaries from Persia had reached India and China more than
three centuries before this, two of them bringing the silk-worm to the
Greek empire in Justinian’s reign, about 550. The Egyptian merchant-monk
Cosmas wrote his _Christian Topography_ at that date. He found Nestorian
Christians in Ceylon and Malabar, but the king and people of Ceylon were
still heathens.
Alfred’s Ecclesiastical Laws have a long preface, apparently prepared
by himself. It is an interesting piece of argument. First he gives the
Ten Commandments in Saxon. Writers inform us that he omits the Second
Commandment, in accordance with the evil practice which had already made
considerable progress then; but probably these writers did not read to
the end, for Alfred’s Tenth Commandment is, “Thou shalt not make to
thyself golden gods nor silvern.” Then he points out that our Saviour,
Christ, said He came not to break nor forbid these Commandments, but with
all good to increase them, and mercy and humility He taught. Then he
quotes the decisions of the church at Jerusalem as to the tenderness of
the application of the law to the Gentile converts. When the English race
became Christian, he proceeds, they held synods of holy bishops and great
and wise men. They then ordained, out of that mercy which Christ had
taught, that secular lords, by the synod’s leave, might without sin take
for almost every misdeed, for the first offence, the money fine ordained
by the synod. They then in many synods ordained a fine for many human
misdeeds, and in many synod-books they wrote, at one place one doom, at
another another.
The one offence to which they dared not assign any mercy, that is, any
bot, or money fine, was treason to a lord; because God Almighty adjudged
no mercy to those who despised Him, nor did Christ, the Son of God,
adjudge any to him who sold Him to death, and He commanded that a lord
should be loved as Himself.
This is a very interesting explanation of the Saxon system of money
payments for offences of almost every description. It is not altogether
unlike in principle to the modern magistrate-law that a dog has his first
bite free. That application of the principle found no favour with King
Alfred, in whose days dogs were great and dangerous beasts. If a dog tear
or bite a man, for the first misdeed, 6s.; for the second, 12s.; for the
third, 30s. If the dog do more misdeeds, the owner is to go on paying, or
must repudiate the dog.
“These many dooms I, Alfred the king, gathered together; and commanded
many to be written of those our forefathers held which to me seemed good;
and many of those which seemed to me not good, I rejected them by the
counsel of my wise men. I durst not venture to set down much of my own,
for it was unknown to me what of it would please those who should come
after us.”
Three characteristic dooms may be quoted. “He who steals on Sunday, or
at Christmas or Easter, or on Holy Thursday,[16] or on Rogation days,[17]
or during Lent, shall pay a twofold bot.” “If a man go to the church, and
reveal an offence not revealed, and confess himself in God’s name, be it
half forgiven.” For holidays,—“To all freemen, 12 days at Yule, and the
day on which Christ overcame the devil, and the commemoration day of St.
Gregory, and 7 days before Easter and 7 after, and one day at St. Peter’s
tide, and one day at St. Paul’s tide, and in harvest the whole week
before St. Mary-mass, and one day at the celebration of All Hallows, and
the 4 Wednesdays in Ember weeks,”—forty-two days in all, making, with the
addition of Sundays, just a quarter of the whole year.
III
HIS TRANSLATIONS AND HIS WILL
His translations—Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History of the
English Race_—_The Pastoral Care_—State of learning in
Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria—Ideal of a bishop’s
life—Orosius—Boethius—Alfred’s religious opinions—John
the Scot—Alfred’s will—Hyde Abbey—State of Rome—Religious
references—Religious bequests—Slaves.
The general drift of Alfred’s opinion as to the sort of learning most
needed by his people is to be gathered from his choice of books to be
put before them in their native language. These were four. For general
history, and for history and geography relating to their own race
on the continent of Europe, he chose Orosius: for mental study, the
_Consolation_ of Boethius: for realisation of the true principles of the
life and work of religion, the _Pastoral Care_: for the Church history
of the English people, of course the great and priceless book of the
Venerable Bede. Of this last we need say nothing. Nor need we dwell upon
the fact that Alfred may be said to have created the continuity of early
English history by his establishment of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under
Plegmund.
The preface to Alfred’s translation into English from the Latin of Pope
Gregory’s _Pastoral Care_, a treatise on the life and work of a bishop,
gives us so clear an insight into the king’s mind, and such valuable
information as to the state of learning in his time, that it deserves
to be printed in full. Three of the copies of which the king speaks are
in existence, one addressed to Archbishop Plegmund of Canterbury, one
to Bishop Wulfsige of Sherborne, and the third to Bishop Werefrith of
Worcester.
THIS BOOK IS FOR WORCESTER
King Alfred greets Bishop Wærferth with loving words and with
friendship. I let it be known to thee that it has very often
come into my mind, what wise men there formerly were throughout
England, both of sacred and secular orders; and how happy
times there were then throughout England; and how the kings
who had power over the nation in those days obeyed God and his
ministers; and they preserved peace, morality, and order at
home, and at the same time enlarged their territory abroad;
and how they prospered both with war and with wisdom; and
also the sacred orders how zealous they were both in teaching
and learning, and in all the services they owed to God; and
how foreigners came to this land in search of wisdom and
instruction, and how we should now have to get teachers from
abroad if we were to have them. So general was the decay in
England that there were very few on this side of the Humber
who could understand their rituals in English, or translate a
letter from Latin into English; and I believe that there were
not many beyond the Humber. There were so few of them that I
cannot remember a single one south of the Thames when I came
to the throne. Thanks be to God Almighty that we have any
teachers among us now. And therefore I command thee to do as
I believe thou art willing, to disengage thyself from worldly
matters as often as may be, that thou mayest apply the wisdom
which God has given thee wherever thou canst.[18] Consider what
punishments would come upon us on account of this world, if we
neither loved wisdom ourselves nor suffered other men to obtain
it: we should love the name only of Christian, and very few
of the virtues. When I considered all this I remembered also
how I saw in my own early days, before all had been ravaged
and burnt, how the churches throughout the whole of England
stood filled with treasures and books, and there was also a
great multitude of God’s servants. But they had very little
knowledge of the books, for they could not understand anything
of them because they were not written in their own language.
As if they had said: “Our forefathers, who formerly held these
places, loved wisdom, and through it they obtained wealth and
bequeathed it to us. In this we can still see their tracks, but
we cannot follow them, and therefore we have lost both the
wealth and the wisdom, because we would not incline our hearts
after their example.” When I remembered all this, I wondered
extremely that the good and wise men who were formerly all over
England, and had perfectly learnt all the books, did not wish
to translate them into their own language. But again I soon
answered myself and said: They did not think that men would
ever be so careless, and that learning would thus decay; so
they abstained from translating, and they hoped that wisdom in
this land would increase, and our knowledge of languages. Then
I remembered how the law was first known in Hebrew, and again,
when the Greeks had learnt it, they translated the whole of
it into their own language, and all other books besides. And
again, the Romans, when they had learnt it, they translated
the whole of it through learned interpreters into their own
language. And also all other Christian nations translated parts
of it into their own languages. Therefore it seems better to
me, if ye think so, for us also to translate some books which
are most needful for all men to know into the language which
we can all understand. And I would have you do as we very
easily can if we have tranquillity enough, that is, set all
the youth now in England of free men, who are rich enough to
be able to devote themselves to it, to learn, as long as they
are not old enough for other occupations, until they are well
able to read English writing. And let those be afterwards
taught more in the Latin language who are to continue learning
and be promoted to a higher rank. When I remembered how the
knowledge of Latin had formerly decayed throughout England,
and yet many could read English writing, I began, among other
various and manifold troubles of this kingdom, to translate
into English the book which is called in Latin _Pastoralis_,
and in English _Shepherd’s Book_, sometimes word for word and
sometimes according to the sense, as I had learnt it from
Plegmund my archbishop, and Asser my bishop, and Grimbold my
mass-priest, and John my mass-priest.[19] And when I had learnt
it as I could best understand it and as I could most clearly
interpret it, I translated it into English; and I will send a
copy to every bishopric in my kingdom; and on each there is a
[clasp and chain][20] worth fifty mancuses. And I command in
God’s name that no man take the [clasp] from the book or the
book from the minster. It is uncertain how long there may be
such learned bishops as, thanks be to God, there now are nearly
everywhere; therefore I wish these books always to remain in
their place, unless the bishop wish to take them with him, or
they be lent out anywhere, or any one make a copy from them.
Then the book itself is made to speak, as the Cross speaks in the early
Anglian Dream of the Holy Rood:—
This message Augustine over the salt sea brought from the
south to the islanders, as the Lord’s champion had formerly
indited it, the Pope of Rome. The wise Gregorius was versed in
many true doctrines through the wisdom of his mind, his hoard
of studious thoughts. For he gained over most of mankind to
the Guardian of heaven, best of Romans, wisest of men, most
gloriously famous. Afterwards King Alfred brought every word of
me into English, and sent me to his scribes south and north;
ordered more such to be brought to him, that he might send them
to his bishops, for some of them needed it, who knew but little
Latin.
[Illustration: THE SEASONS—APRIL TO JUNE
(_Cottonian Library_)]
It is not our business here to consider the contents of Pope Gregory’s
treatise on the shepherding of the people. But the headings of two or
three of the sixty-five chapters will show what the attraction for
Alfred’s mind was. The first chapter argues “that unlearned men are not
to presume to undertake teaching.” To prevent this was a purpose with
Alfred; he faced obloquy, it is said, rather than fill bishoprics with
unlearned men. The second chapter forbids even learned men to undertake
to teach if they are not ready to live in accordance with their own
precepts. The third and fourth chapters no doubt appealed to himself as
a secular governor, though they related to spiritual government, “how
he who governs must despise all hardships, and how afraid he must be of
every luxury,” and “how often the occupations of power and government
distract the mind of the ruler.” The sixty-fifth chapter brings the whole
to a conclusion with an argument thoroughly after Alfred’s own heart:
“When any one has performed all the duties of his pastoral charge, let
him then consider and understand his own self, lest either his exemplary
life or his successful teaching puff him up.”
In his translation of the history and geography of Orosius he does not
interpolate information where we might not unnaturally have expected him
to do so. Of his large and valuable interpolations of a geographical
character, and in regard to the history of the Teutonic races, mention
is no doubt made in another chapter. In the sixth book, to mention two
cases where Orosius writes of the times of Constantius and Constantine,
and makes references to Britain, he does not speak of Christianity here,
and Alfred does not add anything. Orosius speaks of many martyrs under
Diocletian, not localising any. Again, Alfred does not add anything. Two
quaint phrases the king employs:—“In those days Arius the mass-priest
was in error with regard to the right faith”;—“Constantine was the first
emperor who ordered churches to be built, and locked up the devil’s
houses.”
It is not to be wondered at that Alfred determined to translate into
English the _Consolation_ of Boethius, and his interpolations show
how dear the book was to his heart and to his reason. King and people
alike had gone through much trial and suffering, and such happiness
and prosperity as they had was at best very precarious. The book of
_Consolation_ which Boethius wrote in the sad days when all his great
prosperity had passed from him, and he waited in chains for the last
fatal word of the tyrant, was well suited for men and women situated as
the English then were. Boethius himself, who was executed in 524, was
both a very learned Christian and a deeply-read student of classical
philosophy. His Consolations are taken entirely from philosophy, but
they have the Christian spirit. They thus supplement the help which the
Christian religion gives to those in anxiety, and put into the troubled
mind fresh and useful trains of thought. This is probably one main reason
for the attraction which the book had in the Middle Ages, and we cannot
doubt that Alfred had this in view in giving it to his people. Why he did
not at the same time have the New Testament translated into English is
not clear, for he himself pointed out, in his Preface to the _Pastoral
Care_, that the law was first given in Hebrew, and then necessarily
translated into Greek, and Latin, and the languages of the various
nations which embraced Christianity. William of Malmesbury tells us that
the king did as a matter of fact set about translating the Psalter, but
died before the first part was done.
Besides the hint which his translation of Boethius gives, it is on
another account probable that Alfred took a broad view of religious
questions. If the evidence is to be accepted as sufficient, he was a
patron of Johannes Scotus Erigena. John the Scot, that is, as we should
now say, the Irishman, had made the Continent too hot to hold him by
the breadth of his religious views. He refused to distinguish religion
from philosophy, an attitude of mind which may have specially influenced
Alfred, who had probably known him as a boy at the court of Charles the
Bald, where John acted as tutor to Judith. He had maintained, too, that
authority, when it is not confirmed by reason, is of no value. He had
made a determined stand against the new and materialistic teaching on
the Real Presence, known as transubstantiation. He found a refuge at the
court of Alfred. This can scarcely have meant less than that Alfred, to
some extent at least, shared his opinions; and if that was so, we see an
additional reason for Alfred’s admiration of Boethius, and we have some
explanation of the character of the provisions of the will by which the
king disposed of his property.
In those days, and in days earlier still, to teach an unpopular opinion
was a dangerous thing. Great violence was not unknown in schools of
learning. Even in modern times we hear a good deal of the violence of
students in Paris and in other universities of the Continent. When
Archbishop Theodore came over to England in 664 and began to teach,
there were very sharp passages at arms between the teacher and the Irish
students who attended his lectures. Aldhelm was a student at Canterbury
at the time, and he describes one of these encounters, where the Irish
students baited their lecturer, Archbishop though he was. The old student
and lecturer of the University of Athens was more than a match for them.
“He treated them,” Aldhelm wrote to a friend, “as the truculent boar
treats the Molossian hounds. He tore them with the tusk of grammar,
and shot them with the deep and sharp syllogisms of chronography, till
they cast away their weapons and hurriedly fled to the recesses of
their dens.” In Wessex the students went further still. One John—almost
certainly not the famous John of whom we are speaking, though mediæval
writers took him to be the same—so irritated the students of the great
school of Malmesbury, that they set on him with the sharp iron styles
of the time, which represented our modern pens, and inflicted wounds of
which he died. William of Malmesbury gives the epitaph of this John from
a tomb on the left side of the altar at Malmesbury; he is described as
the holy sophist John, and is said to have been a martyr. William does
not absolutely identify him with Johannes Erigena, but he describes him
as Johannes Scottus, and says that he had been at the court of Charles
the Bald, and was attracted by the munificence of Alfred. We may fairly
say that William believed their John to be the Erigena, and we may
almost certainly say that in that belief he was wrong.
John the Erin-born is usually said to have died about 886. There is
thus no difficulty on the score of dates in the way of his being at
Alfred’s court. He must have been an oldish man, for he was a prominent
controversialist as early as 854.
Alfred’s will is on all accounts a document of very great interest. We
have noticed already the provisions of his father’s will, so far as they
have been preserved for us, and with these we cannot but contrast the
corresponding parts of Alfred’s disposition of his property. Many details
of the will we must for our present purpose pass by, notwithstanding
their general importance: they are no doubt dealt with in another chapter.
Alfred’s will exists in an Anglo-Saxon form and in a Latin form. It
is preserved in the Register of Newminster, which Alfred founded at
Winchester. This institution was afterwards moved to Hyde. The will was
copied into the Register now known as the Register of Hyde Abbey, about
the years 1028-1032.
Ethelwulf had bequeathed considerable sums to the Church of St. Peter
and the Church of St. Paul at Rome, and to the Pope. Alfred had sent
presents to Rome. From 883 to 890 there are four records of West Saxon
gifts. But after 890 there is no record, and in Alfred’s will no mention
is made of the chief city of the Western world or of the spiritual head
of the Church of the West. One explanation may be that at his death the
sad period had already begun which makes men of all Christian creeds hang
their heads with shame that such things could be. King Alfred’s court
was unique among secular courts in its purity and order; the papal court
had entered upon one of those phases in its existence where it has stood
out prominently among the most impure and disorderly spots on the face
of the known earth. It is enough, for any one who knows the meaning of
the references, to glance at the table of contents of a Church history
for the years 896 and 897:—“Death of Pope Formosus; Pope Boniface VII.;
trial and condemnation of the body of Formosus by Pope Stephen VI.; Pope
Stephen strangled; Pope Romanus; Pope Theodorus II.; Pope John IX.; Pope
Sergius IV.; Marquisate of Tusculum; Theodora and Marozia.” We can well
understand that not all Alfred’s reverence for the place where lay the
bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul could overcome the effect of a record so
grievous as that.