"When I began to reign," said Alfred, "I cannot remember one priest south of the Thames who could render his service-book into English." For instructors indeed he could find only a few Mercian prelates and priests, with one Welsh bishop, Asser.
"Formerly," the King writes bitterly, "men came hither from foreign lands to seek for instruction, and now when we desire it we can only obtain it from abroad." But his mind was far from being prisoned within his own island. He sent a Norwegian shipmaster to explore the White Sea, and Wulfstan to trace the coast of Esthonia; envoys bore his presents to the churches of India and Jerusalem, and an annual mission carried Peter's pence to Rome.
But it was with the Franks that his intercourse was closest, and it was from them that he drew the scholars to aid him in his work of education. A scholar named Grimbald came from St. Omer to preside over his new abbey at Winchester; and John, the old Saxon, was fetched from the abbey of Corbey to rule a monastery and school that Alfred's gratitude for his deliverance from the Danes raised in the marshes of Athelney. The real work, however, to be done was done, not by these teachers, but by the King himself. Alfred established a school for the young nobles in his court, and it was to the need of books for these scholars in their own tongue that we owe his most remarkable literary effort.
He took his books as he found them—they were the popular manuals of his age—the Consolation of Boethius, the Pastoral of Pope Gregory, the compilation of Orosius, then the one accessible handbook of universal history, and the history of his own people by Bede. He translated these works into English, but he was far more than a translator, he was an editor for the people. Here he omitted, there he expanded. He enriched Orosius by a sketch of the new geographical discoveries in the north. He gave a West Saxon form to his selections from Bede. In one place he stops to explain his theory of government, his wish for a thicker population, his conception of national welfare as consisting in a due balance of priest, soldier, and churl. The mention of Nero spurs him to an outbreak on the abuses of power. The cold providence of Boethius gives way to an enthusiastic acknowledgment of the goodness of God.
As he writes, his large-hearted nature flings off its royal mantle, and he talks as a man to men. "Do not blame me," he prays with a charming simplicity, "if any know Latin better than I, for every man must say what he says and do what he does according to his ability."
But simple as was his aim, Alfred changed the whole front of our literature. Before him, England possessed in her own tongue one great poem and a train of ballads and battle-songs. Prose she had none. The mighty roll of the prose books that fill her libraries begins with the translations of Alfred, and above all with the chronicle of his reign. It seems likely that the King's rendering of Bede's history gave the first impulse toward the compilation of what is known as the English or Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was certainly thrown into its present form during his reign. The meagre lists of the kings of Wessex and the bishops of Winchester, which had been preserved from older times, were roughly expanded into a national history by insertions from Bede; but it is when it reaches the reign of Alfred that the chronicle suddenly widens into the vigorous narrative, full of life and originality, that marks the gift of a new power to the English tongue. Varying as it does from age to age in historic value, it remains the first vernacular history of any Teutonic people, and, save for the Gothic translations of Ulfilas, the earliest and most venerable monument of Teutonic prose.
But all this literary activity was only a part of that general upbuilding of Wessex by which Alfred was preparing for a fresh contest with the stranger. He knew that the actual winning back of the Danelagh must be a work of the sword, and through these long years of peace he was busy with the creation of such a force as might match that of the Northmen. A fleet grew out of the little squadron which Alfred had been forced to man with Frisian seamen.
The national fyrd or levy of all freemen at the King's call was reorganized. It was now divided into two halves, one of which served in the field while the other guarded its own burhs (burghs or boroughs) and townships, and served to relieve its fellow when the men's forty days of service were ended. A more disciplined military force was provided by subjecting all owners of five hides of land to "thane-service," a step which recognized the change that had now substituted the thegn for the eorl and in which we see the beginning of a feudal system. How effective these measures were was seen when the new resistance they met on the Continent drove the Northmen to a fresh attack on Britain.
In 893 a large fleet steered for the Andredsweald, while the sea-king Hasting entered the Thames. Alfred held both at bay through the year till the men of the Danelagh rose at their comrades' call. Wessex stood again front to front with the Northmen. But the King's measures had made the realm strong enough to set aside its old policy of defence for one of vigorous attack. His son Edward and his son-in-law Ethelred, whom he had set as ealdorman[[23]] over what remained of Mercia, showed themselves as skilful and active as the King.
[!-- Note Anchor 23 --][Footnote 23: Primitive of alderman; in this period, a chieftain, lord, or earl; subsequently, the chief magistrate of a territorial district, as of a county or province.]