I am not without apprehension that these explanations may strike some readers as too minute and too far-fetched, and that I may be charged with bringing out of the Jewel more than is in it. I will therefore endeavour to anticipate this charge with a few apologetic words. And first of all, I think it well to state that I did not set out with any idea of discovering latent meanings in the Jewel. When first I discoursed upon it, I contented myself with exhibiting drawings of the object, narrating the story of the discovery, explaining the inscription, and rehearsing the opinions which had been put forward concerning such a remarkable find. This furnished material to fill an hour, and to satisfy an audience. Whatever I have added to the traditional exegesis has broken in upon me from time to time at wide intervals, causing me on such occasions more surprize and pleasure than I can hope to impart to my readers.
For those who would test the symbolism of the Jewel, there is an obvious preliminary question. Is there any reason to think that Alfred had an aptitude and a fondness for allegory? This question has been to me a valuable guide in observations on the extant writings of the king. It would be easy to show, by examples drawn from his writings, that he had a marked fondness for imagery and parable, that his habit of mind inclined to all figures of analogy and similitude. It was not a previous knowledge of these in the writings that led me to look for them in the Jewel, but reversely. I am not aware that any one had called attention to this characteristic in the writings: I do not think I apprehended it from any other source than the Jewel itself. In regard to this particular feature, the Jewel has (for me) thrown light on the writings, and these again have reflected illustration back upon the Jewel. I hope this explanation may make it easier for some to think that the imagery of the Jewel is a strong indication that Alfred of Wessex was the designer.
It was with this aim that, in chapter vii, I quoted the poetical Epilogue to Alfred’s Pastoralis, and with the same aim I now proceed to quote a long-drawn simile in prose, which the king inserted into his translation of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiæ. It is in the fourth book, where the discussion is about Providence and Fate[59].
In the abstract and implicit manner natural to the sage of a mature and over-blown culture, Boethius had illustrated the relation between Providence and Fate by the relation between the centre of the circle and its circumference. This analogy is stated in mathematical fashion. A series of concentric circles offer points of external contact more numerous in some and less numerous in others, according as their circumference is nearer or further from the common centre, but the centre itself is unaffected by such chances; it remains always the same, one and indivisible. The stable centre is Divine Providence; by the various contact of the circumferences with external things is represented the vicissitude of Fate or Fortune.
This refined similitude was translated by king Alfred, out of the diamond-cut succinct Latin of Boethius, into the homely speech of his own people, by means of a concrete figure that was familiar to every son of the soil.
Accordingly some things in this world are subject to Fate, some are no whit subject thereto: but Fate, and all the things subject to it, are in subjection to Divine Providence. Concerning this I can rehearse unto thee a similitude, whereby thou mayest the better understand, which men be subject to Fate, and which be not. All this moving and revolving creation revolves upon God, who is immovable, unchangeable, and one: and he wieldeth all creatures just as he at the first had ordained, and still doth ordain.
As on a waggon’s axle the wheels revolve and the axle standeth still and beareth the whole waggon and governs all the motion; while the wheel turns about, and the nave next to the axle moves more steadily and more securely than the fellies do: in such a manner that the axle is the highest good, which we call God, and the happiest men move nighest to God, even as the nave moveth nighest to the axle, and the middling sort are just like the spokes; forasmuch as every spoke hath one end fast in the nave and the other end in the felly. So it is with men of the middling sort; at one time he thinks in his mind about this earthly life, at another time about the heavenly; like a man looking with one eye to heaven and with the other to earth. Just as the spokes have one end sticking in the felly and the other in the nave, while the middle of the spoke is equally near to both, even so are the middling men in the middle of the spoke, and the better men nearer to the nave, and the meaner men nearer to the fellies: they are, however, in connexion with the nave, and the nave with the axle. So now, the fellies though they are attached to the spokes, yet are they altogether rolling upon the earth; so are the meanest connected with the middling and the middling with the best and the best with God. Though the meanest men all direct their love to this world, yet can they not rest thereon, nor be of any account, unless they be in some measure associated with God, any more than the wheel’s fellies can be in progress, unless they be attached to the spokes and the spokes to the axle. The fellies are the farthest from the axle; therefore they move the most unevenly. The nave moves next to the axle; and that is why it has the surest motion. So do the happiest men: as they set their love nearer to God, and more resolutely contemn these earthly things, so are they more free from care, and less they reck how Fate may chance to turn, or what it may bring. In like manner the nave is continually so sure, jolt the fellies on whatso they may jolt; and this even though the nave is somewhat apart from the axle. By this figure thou mayest understand that as the waggon is much more durably sound, the less it is parted from the axle; so are those men the freest of all from care (whether about anxieties of this life or of the next) who are fast in God: but in whatever degree they are asunder from God, in the same degree are they worried and harassed, both in mind and in body.
This prose simile is unquestioned as an original piece of king Alfred’s authorship, and so is also the poetical epilogue to his Pastoralis, which was quoted above in the seventh chapter. Can any one doubt that his mind was exuberantly fertile in allegorical thought, and shall it be judged a thing improbable that in his imaginative youth, having recently passed through a very grand and rude transition of experience, he should have strained the plasticity of a favourite craft to body forth the symbolic expression of thoughts too deep for common speech?
As the course of investigation into the variety and unity of this composite Jewel brings it more and more home to the creative mind of Alfred, the conviction rises that this work represents no passing freak of artistic fancy, nor the fond elaboration of some fascinating idea (as in a sonnet); but rather that we have before us the thoughtful record of a period of life and a phase of some duration, containing serious reflections by one who had reached a higher stage of observation, a stage commanding a wider outlook. Of some such a crisis as this the Alfred Jewel appears to be the pictorial and symbolic monument.
And if this impression is sound, it ought to help us to some further conclusions. We ought with this help to be able to form some estimate of the period in which this Jewel was designed. However we may lament the poverty of detailed incident in the life of Alfred, we are not ignorant of its main divisions. And we are now in a position to ask—To which of these divisions does this carefully elaborated design most naturally belong?
In seeking materials for the answer to this question, I will first consider the probabilities of the case, which are suggested by the course of public events: and then, secondly, I will come to the indications which are personal to Alfred himself. This plan may tend to clearness, though it be not feasible to keep the two aspects quite apart.