Saint of the Week: Alfred the Great
10/29/2025
King Alfred the Great
849 – 899
King of Wessex, Unifier of Faith
When the Gospel first reached Britain, Celts were the predominant ethnic group. In the 400’s, though, pagan Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, invaded Britain, driving the Christian Celts into what is now Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Eventually, Celtic evangelists from the west and Roman missionaries from mainland Europe converted the Anglo-Saxon invaders to Christ. In the 9th century, the cycle repeated itself when pagan Danish Vikings rapidly conquered northeast England from the now-Christian Anglo-Saxons. They likely would have overrun Britain and eliminated all resistance had not a determined King Alfred of Wessex’s Anglo-Saxons stopped them. Born at Wantage, Berkshire as the youngest of King Aethelwulf’s five sons, Alfred aspired to become a monk. But the death of his father and elder siblings in military encounters with the Danes left him as sole heir to the throne. Crowned king in 871, Alfred became a skilled military tactician, devising a defensive formation which Danish charges were unable to break. After Alfred’s decisive victory over Guthrum’s Danes at Edington in 878, he reached an agreement with the Vikings that allowed them to retain part of northeastern England and allowed other concessions if they agreed to accept baptism and Christian instruction. Alfred’s diplomatic gamble paid off and his judgement proved sound. Guthrum agreed to become “a vassal of Christ,” obligating his men to swear feudal allegiance as well. That opened the door for conversions on a more personal level then and in later generations. Having secured a modicum of military security for his people, Alfred devoted his later years to repairing the damage that war had imposed on his people and their culture. He translated Boethius' Consolations of Philosophy into Old English and employed scholars from Wales and the Continent with whose help writings of Bede, Augustine of Canterbury, and Gregory the Great were likewise translated. Impressed by provisions in the Law of Moses for the protection of the rights of ordinary citizens, Alfred ordered like provisions to be made part of English law. He also promoted the education of parish clergy. In one of his treatises, he wrote: "He seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear.“ He died at age 50 and is buried in the Old Minster at Winchester. He is the only English monarch known as "the Great."
