§ 81. Asser gives a striking picture[565], which there is no reason to distrust, of the pains which Alfred took to secure a good administration of justice, and especially to ‘see that such as are in need and necessity have right.’ From this point of view we can understand Alfred’s recasting the precept of Exodus xxiii. 3: ‘pauperis quoque non misereberis in iudicio,’ ‘neither shalt thou favour a poor man in his cause’ (R.V.). The warning that justice is no more to be wrested in favour of the poor, than of the rich, is one not unneeded now. But undue favouring of the poor was a remote danger in Alfred’s day, when, as Asser says, the poor had few helpers, or none, besides the king[566]. And so Alfred puts the precept in a general form: ‘Judge thou very equally, judge not one judgement for the rich, and another for the poor[567].’ And it would seem from Asser’s account that he kept a control on the local administration of justice, not only by constantly hearing appeals himself, but also by a system of special envoys analogous to the Carolingian ‘missi dominici,’ and to the later ‘justices in eyre[568].’
Alfred’s accessibility to suitors.
Of Alfred’s accessibility as the fountain of justice a very pleasant picture is given in a document addressed to Edward the Elder detailing the progress of a suit which had come before his father Alfred: ‘we went in to the king and told him how we proposed to settle the matter, and the king stood and washed his hands at Wardour within the bower, and when he had finished, he asked us[569],’ and so forth. It reminds us of the sketch which Josephus gives of Philip, tetrarch of Ituraea, almost the only amiable member of the odious Herod family; how he would stroll through his little state, with a chariot following him on which was his curule chair, and if any of his subjects approached him with their causes, he would at once have the chair brought forward, and sit and give his judgement there and then[570]. It reminds us still more of the great Charles, of whom Einhard relates: ‘When he was putting on his shoes or dressing, he would not only admit his friends, but also, if the Count of the Palace reported that there was some suit which could not be settled without his command, he would have the parties brought in at once, and, as if sitting in his tribunal, would hear the matter, and give his decision[571].’ The satisfaction given by Alfred’s decisions appears not only from Asser’s panegyric, but also from the document already cited, where the writer continues: ‘And, sire, if every judgement which King Alfred gave is to be upset, when shall we come to any conclusion?’
Alfred’s laws drawn mainly from earlier sources. Action of the Witenagemót under Alfred.
§ 82. The last section of the Preface to the Laws which tells how Alfred gathered these laws from older sources, and rejected others, with the advice of his Witan, not daring to add to them many of his own, which might not be suitable to after ages[572], has been often quoted as an illustration of Alfred’s wise conservatism. It is also the best illustration that we have of the action of the Witenagemót in his reign. Others may be found in the charters, but charters, as we have seen[573], are not numerous. The most interesting illustration is to be found in Alfred’s will, which shows how anxious Alfred was not to bring any undue influence to bear upon his councillors. The will tells us how in a Witenagemót at Long Dean[574] the provisions of Æthelwulf’s will and the agreements made between Alfred and his brothers were recited, in order that the Witan might judge whether Alfred’s proposed disposition of his property was in harmony with these: ‘Then prayed I them all for my love, and gave them my pledge, that I would never bear any grudge against any for what they might conscientiously decide, and that none for love or fear of me should hesitate to declare the law of the case[575].’ The Chronicle does not mention a single meeting of the Witan; and though it would be wrong to argue from this silence, for the same is true of many other reigns, yet it is probable that the circumstances of the time, combined with Alfred’s character and ability, would tend to throw more power into the hands of the king, and to reduce proportionally the importance of the Witenagemót[576].
Obscurity of ecclesiastical history under Alfred. Alfred’s relation to the Church.
§ 83. Of synods or special ecclesiastical legislation I can find no trace under Alfred. More than one bishop’s see became temporarily or permanently extinct owing to the ravages of the Danes[577]. The monasteries ‘once filled,’ as Alfred says, ‘with treasures and books[578]’ were favourite objects of attack. In the Preface to the Cura Pastoralis Alfred thanks God for ‘the learned bishops which we now have’; but, with the exception of the two archbishops of Canterbury, Æthelred and Plegmund, Werferth of Worcester, and Asser, it is hard to say anything about any of them. It is the same with the abbots. Thorne, the historian of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, gives a list of abbots about this time, but he can say nothing as to any of them[579]. Beyond the broad fact of the ruin caused by the ravages of the Danes, the whole history of the Church under Alfred is most obscure[580]. This does not mean that there is any truth in Ailred of Rievaulx’ myth[581] that Alfred regained it as a king’s chief dignity to have no power in the Churches of Christ. What little evidence there is points distinctly the other way[582]. There is a curious letter of Pope John VIII to Archbishop Æthelred[583] in which he says: ‘We admonish you to set yourself as a wall for the house of God not only against the king, but also against all who are minded to act perversely.’ There seems some ground for Sir John Spelman’s remark: ‘The life and ways of Alfred were not perfectly pleasing to the Fathers of Rome[584].’ A letter, from Archbishop Fulk of Rheims to Æthelred’s successor, Plegmund[585], shows that clerical and episcopal marriages were common in England at that time; and there are traces of something like hereditary succession to ecclesiastical lands[586]. There is no evidence that Alfred attempted to alter this state of things; there is some evidence that he disapproved it. In the Soliloquies of St. Augustine, the Anglo-Saxon translation of which[587] is almost certainly by Alfred[588], there is a passage in which Augustine declares that he has no desire to marry. This, which in the original is purely personal to Augustine, is by the translator extended to all clergy: ‘I say however that it is better for priests not to marry than to marry[589].’
Decline of monasticism.
Alfred made some attempt to revive the monastic life in England. He built a monastery for men at Athelney[590], no doubt as a thank-offering for the deliverance there begun, and a convent for women at Shaftesbury[591]; he also made arrangements, though he did not live to carry them out, for founding the New Minster at Winchester[592]. But he had but small success. The taste for the monastic life had almost been extinguished among men in England; and of the two contradictory causes which Asser suggests[593] for this fact, viz. the Danish ravages, and the too great riches of the English, which caused them to despise the monastic life, there can be no doubt that the former is nearer the truth. Alfred had accordingly to fill his monasteries with foreign monks. The result was not always satisfactory, if there is any truth in Asser’s story[594] how two of these foreign monks at Athelney tried to murder their abbot, John the Old Saxon. Besides his own foundations, Alfred was a liberal contributor to other monasteries, not only in England, but also in Ireland and on the Continent[595]. Yet there is no monastic halo round the head of Alfred, like that which adorns his great-grandson Edgar.