Alfred The Great: War, Culture And Kingship In Anglo-Saxon England; Author: Abels, Richard Philip; Hardback; Book

Author: Abels, Richard Philip
Medieval World; Hardback; Book; Table, Maps, Bibliography
192 pages
Published: October 1998
Pearson Professional Education
ISBN: 0582040485
This item non-returnable. Order may not be canceled.

Alfred -- a great warrior king who was also an effective & inventive ruler -- revolutionized the governance of Wessex which started a process that would culminate in the emergence of a single kingdom of England. He confined the invading Danes to a limited territory in the east, ordered the building of a defensive network of fortified towns, turned a military system of ad hoc levies intoa standing army, founded a navy and still had time to make Wessex a leading center of Anglo-Saxon learning and culture.One of the great virtues of Abel's new study is to strip away the varnish of more recent interpretations, those which strove to recreate the King in their own image, to recover the historical figure - pragmatic, generous, brutal, pious, scholarly - within the context of Alfred'During his reign (871-899), King Alfred revolutionized the governance of Wessex, advancing the process that would end in the creation of the kingdom of England. This book offers an analysis of Alfred's achievement. In doing so it illuminates the character and meaning of Anglo-Saxon kingship.