Apart from the lost Handboc or Encheiridio, which seems to have been a commonplace book kept by the king, the earliest work to be translated was the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, a book greatly popular in the Middle Ages. The translation was undertaken at Alfred's command by Wærferth, Bishop of Worcester, with the king merely furnishing a preface. [70] Remarkably, Alfred – undoubtedly with the advice and aid of his court scholars – translated four works himself: Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, St. Augustine's Soliloquies and the first fifty psalms of the Psalter. [138] There were local raids on the coast of Wessex throughout the 880s. In 882, Alfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish ships. Two of the ships were destroyed, and the others surrendered. This was one of four sea battles recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, three of which involved Alfred. [57] Similar small skirmishes with independent Viking raiders would have occurred for much of the period as they had for decades. [58] In April 871 King Æthelred died and Alfred acceded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, even though Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. This was in accordance with the agreement that Æthelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at an unidentified place called Swinbeorg. The brothers had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King Æthelwulf had left jointly to his sons in his will. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches their father had settled upon them and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the Danish invasion and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested. [38] Documents and coins from the 890s refer to Alfred as 'King of the English', as opposed to 'King of Wessex'.

That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. By its terms, the boundary between Alfred's and Guthrum's kingdoms was to run up the River Thames to the River Lea, follow the Lea to its source (near Luton), from there extend in a straight line to Bedford, and from Bedford follow the River Ouse to Watling Street. [51]But eventually Alfred regrouped and raised an Anglo-Saxon army that defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Edington.

The Danish raids had a devastating effect on learning in England. Alfred lamented in the preface to his translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care that "learning had declined so thoroughly in England that there were very few men on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English or even translate a single letter from Latin into English: and I suppose that there were not many beyond the Humber either". [128] Alfred undoubtedly exaggerated, for dramatic effect, the abysmal state of learning in England during his youth. [32] That Latin learning had not been obliterated is evidenced by the presence in his court of learned Mercian and West Saxon clerics such as Plegmund, Wæferth, and Wulfsige. [129] In 886, Alfred negotiated with the Vikings, recapturing London and establishing the territory of 'Danelaw'.According to Asser, learning was something which fascinated Alfred even when he was very young. Asser tells the story of a book, given to Alfred by his mother. Coins are really useful primary sources as they contain lots of information and are really strong, which means they can often stay intact for thousands of years. King of the Kingdoms The text was translated into Latin during the reign of Cnut as the third part of the Instituta Cnuti, and survives in the following manuscripts: [6] :8 Realising the importance of education, Alfred wanted to improve literacy. He translated a number of important texts to Anglo-Saxon English. Years later a story was told of the time when Alfred was in hiding. It was said that for many weeks he stayed in the house of an old woman. Alfred was disguised as a poor man so that she had no idea the King was living in her house.

Alfred became king in the middle of nine huge battles with the Vikings.It was crucial that Wessex had a stable ruler and great fighter during this tumultuous time. This is a great-o-meter to help you keep score. Plus meet the man himself, Alfred, born in 849 and the youngest of five brothers.He was never expected to be king. What do we think now, great or not? Narrator: Alfred escaped from the Vikings and with a small group of followers, hid in a village surrounded by marshes.Narrator: Alfred was in his early 20s when he became king and although it was true that he was often ill, he certainly wasn’t ‘weak’. The greatest challenge the young king faced came from the Vikings, who had invaded in the north and were moving south… Alfred's brothers each ruled in succession following their father's death until Alfred was officially named successor to his brother Aethelred in c. 865 CE and elevated to the rank of military commander. It may be that Alfred's family had low expectations of him as a warrior-king as he was more given to books than action and was often ill as a young man (possibly afflicted with Crohn's disease). If so, they were mistaken as Alfred proved himself a capable leader in battle, between c. 865-871 CE, alongside his brother and on his own after Aethelred died. The Viking Wars