Part 11

The first seven years of his own reign (871-878) were years of deadly struggle. In 877 his cause seemed to be lost, but in 878 the King of Wessex was victorious. He made peace with the conquered Danes, and their king, Guthrum, was baptized. And now he had to guide in peace the nation which he had guided in war. He had to reconstruct the social and political fabric which had been shattered by the devastations and panics of three generations. In all his reconstruction there is manifested a purpose not only of restoration, but also of improvement and reform. This is conspicuous in his revision of the West Saxon Laws. The Law-book then in use was that of King Ina (688-726). When Alfred’s code was published, that of Ina was not abolished, but it was re-edited in the same volume, after the manner of an appendix to Alfred’s Laws. That a new departure was purposed is indicated by the new feature of a Prologue composed of the Decalogue and kindred selections from Scripture. This is to be understood partly as a consecration of the new Law-book; but further, as the inauguration of a new principle, namely, that laws are founded in right reason and have their highest sanction in religion. Before Alfred’s time laws had rested upon tradition, deriving their force from the fact that they were ancestral, or if reasoned at all were based upon a stunted and barbaric type of reasoning. We happen to have an extant example in which we can compare a law of Ina’s with Alfred’s reform of it. In the case of damage to a wood, the old law drew a distinction between injury by fire and injury by the axe, and that by fire was punished far more heavily than the other, for this assigned reason—that fire is a thief and works silently, whereas the axe announces itself.

“In case any one burn a tree in a wood, and it come to light who did it, let him pay the full penalty, let him give sixty shillings, because fire is a thief. If one fell in a wood ever so many trees, and it be found out afterwards, let him pay for three trees, each with thirty shillings. He is not required to pay for more of them, however many they might be, because the axe is a reporter and not a thief (forðon seo æsc biþ melda, nalles ðeof).”

This contrast could be retorted: for it might be urged that if fire is a thief relatively to the owner of the wood, so is it also relatively to the defendant, for it had started up afresh when he had left the place thinking that all was safe. The worst that could be proved upon him was the want of _sufficient_ caution. In fact, the law is only good as against arson, wanton or malicious; and for that case it is not severe enough. It may be assumed that in the bulk of cases damage by fire would be undesigned and accidental.

But where the axe is used there can be no doubt about the motive. The man who fells another man’s timber does so plainly with intent to steal, and the noise of the axe is not extenuating but rather aggravating by reason of its audacity.

In Ina’s law all such considerations were prevented by two venerable maxims which said, “Fire is a thief, but the axe is outspoken.” Jacob Grimm, in his _Antiquities of Law_, produced some parallels from old German codes, but he gave the palm to this of ours for its poetic tinge. Moreover, as an indication of the national instinct which is favourable to whatever is open and straightforward, it may be interesting; but the distinction was bad as law, and it was abolished by King Alfred. His new law equalised the penalty thus: “If a man burn or hew another man’s wood without leave, let him pay for every great tree with five shillings, and afterwards for each, let there be ever so many, with five pence;—and a fine of thirty shillings.”

The closing words of the king’s Prologue are as follows:—

“I, Alfred the King, gathered these (laws) together and ordered many to be written which our forefathers held, such as I approved, and many which I approved not I rejected, and had other ordinances enacted with the counsel of my Witan; for I dared not venture to set much of my own upon the statute-book, for I knew not what might be approved by those who should come after us. But such ordinances as I found, either in the time of my kinsman Ina, or of Offa, King of the Mercians, or of Ethelberht, who first received baptism in England—such as seemed to me rightest I have collected here, and the rest I have let drop.

“I, then, Alfred, King of the West Saxons, showed these laws to all my Witan, and they then said that they all approved of them as proper to be holden.”

[Illustration: THE SEASONS—JULY TO SEPTEMBER

(_Cottonian Library_)]

The same spirit of improvement and vigorous initiative is manifested in his famous translations. Either by his own knowledge or by the good advice which he knew how to obtain and appreciate, he selected from the books then accessible those which were calculated to be most generally useful to his people. The chief books were five, the productions of four authors: one by Orosius, written about A.D. 412; one by Boethius, of about A.D. 522; two by Gregory the Great, written towards A.D. 600; and one by the Venerable Bede, which was brought to a close in the year 731. It may be useful to add a few particulars about each of the works which appear to have constituted the select library of King Alfred.

Orosius was a young priest who came out of Spain into Africa to visit Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, at the time when that Father of the Latin Church was writing his greatest work, which he entitled the _City of God_. The occasion for this work arose out of the sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth in the year 410. A great outcry was made by the pagans against Christianity, as if it had been the cause of calamities which they attributed to the displeasure of the ancient gods for their neglected altars. In his _City of God_, which was conceived as an answer to this charge, Augustine constructed his argument upon a broad view of human history, urging that events must not be interpreted in an isolated manner, but must be taken with their connection and sequence; and then we shall discern signs of a great providential purpose guiding mankind in a progressive course of amelioration. The old dispensation prepared men for a fuller revelation, and the spread of Christianity has brought manifest improvement in the condition of human life. The heathen empires of the world, as Babylon in the East and Rome in the West, have been active though unconscious factors in this vast and beneficent process. The book is in fact a philosophy of history, with the Gospel for its pivot, and all events subordinated to this master principle. The thesis is developed with an extraordinary wealth of reasoning and illustration. To make this great argument the more complete, Orosius undertook, at Augustine’s request, to write a compendium of general history in the same spirit, and accordingly he loses no opportunity of showing up the calamities of the old heathen times, and indicating the tendency of Christianity to mitigate the horrors of war. This book of Orosius became the recognised manual of general history down to the sixteenth century.

The _Consolation of Philosophy_ by Boethius was the chief if not the sole representative of the philosophy, the ethics, and the religious aspirations of the ancients during the Dark and early Middle Ages. The author is thus introduced by Gibbon: “The senator Boethius is the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman.” Suspected by Theodoric, the Gothic King of Italy, of the crime of Roman patriotism, he was cast into prison, and a sentence of confiscation and death was pronounced against him, while he was denied the means of making his defence. Chained and in view of death he composed the _Consolation of Philosophy_, of which Gibbon says: “A golden volume, not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the situation of the author.”[26]

Gregory the Great, who in A.D. 597 sent Augustine with his missionary band to the King of Kent, is a name which through the whole extent of Anglo-Saxon literature is mentioned with a peculiar veneration. From his writings the king took two books to be included in his library of English translations. The first was his _Pastoral Care_ (_Cura Pastoralis_), a guide-book for the use of the priest, to instruct the consciences of those who come to him for spiritual counsel; and as it is the first, so it may safely be pronounced the best of all manuals of the kind. Gregory’s ideal is a world governed by conscience, and the spirit of the _Cura Pastoralis_ would transform all men into worthy citizens of such a polity.

The other book of Gregory’s which Alfred took was of a different kind. The _Dialogues_ are stories of a sensational or even grotesque character, with a religious moral. They are calculated for a childish level of intelligence, and were designed to compete with the degrading tales which were the entertainment of barbarian circles. This book, which enjoyed the highest popularity for centuries, and was among the earliest books to be printed, is now entirely neglected, and Alfred’s translation has not yet been edited.

Bede was born in the neighbourhood of Wearmouth in 672. In his seventh year he entered the abbey recently founded there by Benedict Biscop, who was the first abbot. In that and the sister house of Jarrow he continued to his death in 735. He wrote _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_, the History of the Conversion of the Angles and Saxons and of their Earliest Ecclesiastical Institutions. No other national church possesses a history of equal merit.[27] This was the youngest book on Alfred’s list, and as Orosius was, what Pauli calls it,[28] a Chronicle of the World, so this was a History of England.

I have thus endeavoured to give some idea of the books chosen by Alfred, as regards their rank and place in general literature. Our next step is to consider how Alfred dealt with these books and what he made of them. In his mind the translator’s function was not to reproduce an ancient author, but to produce a useful work. How he treated Orosius may readily be seen by any one who will examine the latest edition of the translation, that by Dr. Sweet (Early English Text Society). He hit upon the admirable plan of printing opposite the translation the corresponding portions of the Latin text, using italics for such parts of the original as are not literally translated. How great was the freedom of adaptation is promptly seen by the swarms of italics with which the Latin pages are bespangled. Besides these adaptations there are substantial additions in the shape of original contributions by King Alfred to the knowledge of European geography. First there is a map-like description of the nations of Central and Northern Europe, which are comprised under the name of Germania. The author begins with a sketch of his area: by east and west, from the Don to the sea about Britain; by north and south, from the Danube and Euxine to the White Sea. Coming to details, he starts with the East Franks (whose land-mark and memorial now lives in Frankfort), and with these East Franks for a centre he gives the relative positions of Swabians, Bavarians, Bohemians, and Thuringians, to the north of whom lie the Old Saxons, who are bounded on the west by Elbe-mouth and Friesland. From this point the Old Saxons become the pivot of the description.

This new piece of geographical literature is followed by two narratives of northern voyagers: Oht-here, who had explored the coast of Norway from where is now Christiania to far round the North Cape; and Wulfstan, who explored the southern coasts of the Baltic, and describes the strange customs of the Esthonians.

These three pieces taken together constitute one homologous group of ninth-century geography, which fully justifies Reinhold Pauli’s estimate, that the “Germania” of Alfred is more extensive and better defined than the “Germania” of Tacitus.

Besides this large insertion there are several smaller ones in the course of the work, and these may easily be found by observing where blanks occur on the Latin page of Dr. Sweet’s edition. Where Orosius tells how M. Fabius refused a Triumph when it was offered to him by the Senate, the translator inserts two paragraphs, one describing a Roman Triumph, and the other relating the origin and functions of the Roman Senate. In Cæsar’s invasion of Britain, where Orosius tells how he reached the river Thames, which (says he) is fordable in one place only; the translator adds that the ford is now called Wallingford. In such occasional insertions we see the beginnings of that vast apparatus of modern learning which is now relegated to footnotes or to separate books of reference.

The conditions under which Boethius produced that unique work _The Consolation of Philosophy_ may have tended to give the book a special attraction for the mind of the trouble-tossed king. He certainly seems to have made great use of the book as a text for his own reflections and meditations. “For although King Alfred professed to translate the work of Boethius, yet he inserted in various parts many of his own thoughts and feelings,” etc. These are the words of one who up to the moment of writing was the latest editor of Alfred’s _Boethius_;[29] but now he must share the ground with Mr. Sedgefield, whose new and greatly improved text has just issued from the Clarendon Press. On Alfred’s manner of dealing with his originals Mr. Sedgefield says: “Even in his most faithful translation, that of the _Cura Pastoralis_, King Alfred is by no means what in these days would be called literal; while in his _Boethius_ it is the exception to find a passage of even a few lines rendered word for word.” And, we may add, it is precisely this free handling which gives to the king’s translations their personal interest, and nowhere is this peculiar attraction so strongly felt as in his adaptation of Boethius.

German research has somewhat modified the inference which ascribed to Alfred everything in his version which is not found in the text. Old Latin commentaries and scholia upon the _De Consolatione_ have been discovered in continental libraries, which contain similar expansions, especially those in the direction of Christian doctrine. This discovery enlarges the literary interest, with small detraction from the work of the king. His glory is not of a kind to rise and fall by little gradations of more or less. The suggestions supplied by these commentaries are in their nature very obvious. For, as was observed by Mr. Stewart, the most casual reader of Boethius cannot fail to be struck with the strong theism which breathes through his pages, and invites the touch of paraphrase to give it the full Christian sound, as when the city of Truth, from which Boethius represents himself as exiled, becomes under the translator’s hand the heavenly Jerusalem; a thought which is expressed in the recently discovered scholia. But in Lib. ii. metr. 4, where the translator brings in the striking sentence, “Christ dwelleth in the vale of Humility and at the monumental stone of Wisdom,” the old Latin annotator contributes only this—“The stone is Christ.” Of the famous simile which likens the world to an egg, there is this much found in the scholia—“That the sky and the earth and the sea are in configuration like an egg.” See how this is developed by the poet:[30]—

Ðu gestaðoladest Thou didst establish þurh þa strongan meaht, through strong might, weroda wuldor cyning, glorious king of hosts, wunderlice wonderfully eorðan swa fæste the earth so fast þæt hio on ænige that she on any healfe ne heldeð, side heeleth not, ne mæg hio hider ne þider nor can hither or thither sigan þe swiðor any more decline þe hio symle dyde. than she ever did. Hwæt hi þeah eorðlices Lo nothing earthly auht ne haldeð, at all sustains her, is þeah efn eþe it is equally easy up and of dune upwards and downwards to feallanne that there should be a fall foldan þisse: of this earth: þæm anlicost likest in fashion to þe on æge bið how in an egg gioleca on middan, middlemost is the yolk, glideð hwæþre and withal gliding free æg ymbutan. the egg round about. Swa stent eall weoruld So standeth the world stille on tille, still in its place, streamas ymbutan, while streaming around, lagufloda gelac, water-floods play, lyfte and tungla, welkin and stars, and sio scire scell and the shining shell scriðeð ymbutan circleth about dogora gehwilce; day by day now dyde lange swa. as it did long ago.

Book iii. metre 9; p. 182, ed. Sedgefield.

This simile occurs only in the poetical version of the Metres, for there are two versions, one in prose and another in verse, and it is agreed that the versification has been done after and from the prose; but there is a question (into which we cannot now enter) whether Alfred is the author of both, or only of the prose version.

But before we quit Alfred’s _Boethius_, we must notice his treatment of Lib. ii. prosa 7, where we may discover something more than free handling. In the first three lines of that section he found a profession of disinterestedness which he could honestly appropriate to himself. The Latin speaks thus: “Thou knowest, said I, that I was never governed by the ambition of transitory wealth. But material for action I did covet, that my talents might not rust in idleness.” Upon these lines for a text the king made his chapter xvii., in which it is evident that he forgets Boethius and speaks for himself and of himself throughout. Applying his author’s words to himself, he expands them into a veritable apology, explaining why a king needs a great revenue, and ending thus: “I resolved to live honourably as long as I lived, and after my time to leave to the men who should come after me my memorial in good works.”

Now we come to the translation of the _Cura Pastoralis_, a work of high and manifold interest.[31] A copy of it was sent to every bishop in England. The very copy which was addressed to Werferth, Bishop of Worcester, is still in our possession. It is preserved in the Bodleian Library, and may be seen under glass by every visitor. This wonderful relic, like the Alfred Jewel, seems to bring us into personal contact with the great king himself.

In Alfred’s Epistle to the bishops, which forms his Preface to the _Pastoralis_, the mind of the king is laid open in a very remarkable manner. Among the many precious evidences which time has spared for the perpetuation of a noble memory, the first place must certainly (on the whole) be accorded to this Preface. It exhibits in the clearest light the reflections of the king upon the past and present condition of his country, his deep sense of the vast losses that had been sustained, his meditation on the means of repair at his command, and the direction of his thoughts to that which is the only root of effective reform, an enlightened and instructed national conscience. In his contemplation of this vital principle, he perceives the value of religious education, and the necessity of beginning there. At this point his discourse enters more into detail, the practical drift of which is, that the Latin schools being lost, and being (for the present at least) irreplaceable, it will be necessary to institute a system of education through the medium of the English language. Some scholars thought that education could only be properly conducted through Latin, and that the vernacular would lower its dignity and value. They could not wholly approve of the method of translations. Here Alfred had nearly the same battle to fight as Jerome fought before him, and in his apology he drew materials from Jerome’s store, adding the further inference that if Scripture might be had in the vulgar tongue, why not other good books?

Children (he thought) should be taught to read English, and this elementary stage of education should be common to all of free birth. For the sons of those who could afford to prolong the education of their children, Latin studies should follow, and such boys should be trained for the higher offices. Here the English basis of education is propounded as a course which was dictated by necessity; but if ever it should be demonstrated that this course is absolutely the best, the credit of having been the first to open the right path must not on that account be denied to King Alfred. In the good old times, Wessex had been far behind Northumbria in the culture of the classics, but this had led to a fuller development of the vernacular, and Alfred found his mother tongue not inadequate to the occasion, and large specimens of Latin literature were rendered in West Saxon, and thus it happened that the dialect of Wessex became to the after literature of England what the Attic dialect was to the literature of Greece.

The king’s letter to the bishops begins thus:—

ÐEOS BÔC SCEAL TO WIOGORA CEASTRE

THIS BOOK IS TO GO TO WORCESTER

Alfred, king, commandeth to greet Wærferth, bishop, with his words in loving and friendly wise: and I would have you informed that it has often come into my remembrance, what wise men there formerly were among the Angle race, both of the sacred orders and the secular; and how happy times those were throughout the Angle race; and how the kings who had the government of the folk in those days obeyed God and His messengers; and they on the one hand maintained their peace and their customs and their authority within their borders, while at the same time they spread their territory outwards; and how it then went well with them both in war and in wisdom; and likewise the sacred orders, how earnest they were, as well about teaching as about learning, and about all the services that they owed to God; and how people from abroad came to this land for wisdom and instruction; and how we now should have to get them abroad if we were going to have them. So clean was it fallen away in the Angle race, that there were very few on this side Humber who would know how to render their services in English, or just read off an epistle out of Latin into English; and I wean that not many would be on the other side Humber. So few of them were there that I cannot think of so much as a single one south of Thames when I took to the realm. God Almighty be thanked that we have now any teachers in office.