A Commentary on the Laws of King Alfred, 871-901 A.D.

The law-codes themselves give us an insight into the mindset of their author, King Alfred, who writes the introduction in the first person singular. Alfred, along with Asser and other writers saw the Vikings as punishment for sins on an unworthy people. It was this that saw Alfred employ two key policies in his reign to counter the threat to Christianity posed by the Vikings: an educational programme and the burghal system. Alfred would have seen the education of his subjects as a task which would please God and would be the right action in making the people more worthy. Along with this educational programme came the law-codes which were written in Old English so that they were much more accessible to the majority of the people. ‘Many copies must have been circulated’ so that it could be known to all it would effect. As well as encouraging learning this would also enable people to know the law as set out by Alfred. However it should be noted that Alfred did not forbid people seeking out their own vengeance when they had been wronged, but instead, tried to control it as far as possible by replacing the blood feud with ‘justice administered in a court of law’.

        One major theme that can be drawn out of the law-codes is that treason is regarded as worse than murder. This can be seen in Chapter four of the code and Chapters 27-31 where plotting against the king is punishable with death whereas the murder of another member of society, the punishment is a fine with the value varying dependent upon who that man is, be he ‘kinless’, ‘a two/six/twelve-hynde man’ or ‘a man thus circumstanced.’ Lawsuits were brought before public assemblies; however there was little investigation and the evidence used would be that of using oath-helpers. A certain number of oaths would be required depending upon the crime. Generally speaking the number of hides in the oath would be equal to the number of shillings in the fine for the offence.’ This is why Keynes and Lapidge have said ‘Alfred’s law-code affords valuable evidence of those matters which the king considered to be of particular importance for ensuring social and political order.’ For example, the emphasis on oath making and the severe punishments if one was treacherous to a lord or the king. 

        Religion was a key aspect within Alfred’s Wessex. He was a very pious man and believed that a righteous man needed no other law-book that the ethic of the Decalogue. This was ‘an acceptable basis for all law’ but as men are not righteous, they did need more laws which Alfred made. He ‘began his code by emphasising the sanctity and solemnity of a man’s oath.’ From this we can learn that oath’s are what made a man. They were sacred and an oath-breaker was a man who simply could not be trusted at all in anything that he did in life. It could even be seen as an act against God. If a man had been accused of breaking a contract that had been witnessed and blessed by the church, could prove himself to be innocent if he made his oath in 12 churches. The accuser would do the same in four churches. ‘Whichever of the two parties was eventually held to be lying, incurred punishment not only for the offence but also for the perjury’ of lying in the churches. Alfred was ‘seriously considering the law of Exodus in relation to the conditions of his own time as shown by his introduction’, which is shown with the beginning with the Decalogue along with statements of Hebrew Law from the Book of Exodus, including quotes such as ‘Think not I have come to destroy the law’. Alfred, as aforementioned, did not completely disallow people to take their own vengeance, but would rather there were a more civilised society and so instead of ‘destroying the law’, has in fact created it.

Alfred’s legislation, according to Keynes and Lapidge,   was the ‘first attempt at a codification of law for the best part of a century,’ This would they argue, represents the ‘dramatic assertation of his role as the shepherd and guardian of an amalgamated English people.’ Alfred was showing them the light in how to live in order to get rid of the Viking threat; the punishment from God for living sinful lives. King Alfred and his law-codes were the dawning of a new era in the making of the kingdom of England, thus with this, the new society that he built, Alfred deserves his title of ‘the Great’.

Bibliography.

Alfred’s Law-Codes,

D. Whitelock (ed.), English Historical Documents c.500-1042, Volume 1, (London, 1979)

J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, Early Germanic Kingship in England and on the Continent, (Oxford, 1971)

N. Brooks, Communities and Warfare 700-1400, (London, 2000)

S. Keynes and M. Lapidge (trans.), Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, (St. Ives, 1983)

E.G. Stanley, ‘On the Laws of King Alfred: the End of the Preface and the Beginning of the Laws’, in J. Roberts, J.L. Nelson, and M. Godden (eds), Alfred the Wise: Studies in honour of Janet Bately, (Cambridge, 1997)

D. Sturdy, Alfred the Great, (London, 1995)

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