General Notes

Alias:<ALIA> Aelfred of /Wessex/
Prevented the Danish conquest of England: Defeated conquest at Edington
(878). He took London in 886 thus gained control of all of England except
the Danish held areas in northern England.
According to the Encuclopaedia Britannica:" Also spelled Aelfred, byname
Alfred the Great king of Wessex (871-899), a Saxon kingdom in
southwestern England.  He prevented England from falling to the Danes and
promoted learning and literacy.  Compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
began during his reign, c. 890...He probably received the education in
military arts normal for a young man of rank.  OHe first appeared on
active service in 868, when he and his brother, King Aethelred (Ethelred)
I, went to help Burgred of Mercia (the kingdom between the Thames and the
Humber) against a great Danish army that had landed in East Anglia in 865
and taken possesion of Northumbria in 867.  The Danes refused to give
battle, and peace was made.  In this year Alfred married Ealhswith,
descended through her mother from Mercian kings...He promulgated an
imprtant code of laws, after studying the principles of lawgiving in the
Book of Exodus and the codes of Aethelbert of Kent, Ine of Wessex
(688-694) and Offa of Mercia (757-796), again with speacial attention to
the protection of the weak and dependent...Though not Alfdred's work, the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, one of the greatest sources of information about
Saxon England, which began to be circulated about 890, may have its
origin in the intellectual interests awakened by the revival of learning
under him.  His reign also saw activity in building and in art, and
foreign craftsmen were attracted to his court...Alfred, along of the
Anglo-Saxon kings, inspired a full-lenth biography, written in 893, by
the Welsh scholar Assere.  This work contains much valuable information,
and it reveals that Alfred laboured throughout under the burden of
recurrent, painful illness; and beneathAsser's rhetoric can be seen a man
of attractive character, full of compassion, able to inspire affection,
and intensely conscious of the responsibilities of kingly office.  This
picture is confirmed by Alfred's laws and writings..."
Some sources list his death in 901 while others list his death on 26
October 899.