Barry Shurlock - Winchester: the cradle of England and English

WINCHESTER has often “dined out” on the assertion that it was the first capital of England. It’s a fair claim: after all, it was here that Alfred the Great, who drew together the Saxon kingdoms against the Danish threat, morphed from King of the Wessex to Rex anglorum.

In 1901 the unveiling by the Early of Rosebery of the celebrated statue in the Broadway to mark the millennium of his death strengthened his and his city’s claim to greatness – though he actually died two years earlier in 899. And that label “great” is relatively modern, apparently first used by Matthew Paris in the 13th century.

Also, the city was late in acknowledging him. The first to make any sort of public statement about him anywhere seems to have been publicans in his birthplace of Wantage who in 1763 opened an inn, The King Alfred’s Head, which is still there, described as a “warm local pub”.

Wantage also got into the act with a statue before Winchester, unveiled by the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1877. The date may have been an early commemoration of the millennium of his decisive victory over the Vikings at Edington in Wiltshire in 878.

Unfortunately, the Wantage statue has not always been treated kindly.  On New Year’s Eve 2007 in an act of vandalism Alfred’s axe and part of his right arm were torn off. They were dutifully replaced but the axe disappeared again a year later on Christmas Eve. Tracey Sheppard’s original panel in Hyde Abbey Gardens, Winchester, suffered a similar fate.

The “greatness” of Alfred can largely be attributed to his success at the Battle of Edington, which led the country to relative peace and averted Danish domination – at least until the reign of Cnut. He did this by making a deal with warlord Guthrum. A treaty between them allowed the Scandinavian to rule in East Anglia under Viking law – the so-called Danelaw – provided he converted to Christianity and paid homage to Alfred.

Alfred is also glorified for the many other advances he championed. He promoted walled cities or burghs – forerunners of boroughs – connected by military roads or herepaths. And he devised rules for defending them – four men per pole, or one man for every four feet of wall. Winchester’s Roman walls with a circuit of 3,318 yards therefore required nearly 2,500 men.

Winchester in particular gained from its fortifications as it offered security to merchants and traders, including those from Hamwic – the Saxon port, forerunner to Southampton - which suffered a devastating Viking attack.

One consequence of his policy to develop and refortify towns after the Danish threat would ultimately hasten Winchester’s chances of capital status. This was the resettlement of London, where. with the help of his son-in-law, Æthelred, he put the town on its feet as a trading centre, with a new harbour and market

Many of the accolades heaped on him stem largely from Life of King Alfred, a biography by Asser, a Welsh monk from St David’s, Dyfed. In about 885 he joined a coterie of learned men that Alfred was assembling in his court. Unfortunately, the least corrupt copy of the work went up in flames in 1731, though others survive.

Much of the Life is a translation from Latin of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that Alfred founded in Winchester. The biography was completed during the king’s lifetime, and is therefore regarded as factually correct, though Asser could hardly write anything that was not complimentary!

What is clear is that Alfred was an advocate of literacy and scholarship. He himself was keen to learn Latin – perhaps an ambition fuelled as a young child, when his father took him twice to Rome (yes!).  At about the same time that he recruited Asser, he also invited Grimbald from the Benedictine monastery of St Bertin, Saint Omer, to join him in Winchester.

Amongst his many literary pursuits, Grimbald is said to have helped Alfred to compose Latin. More importantly, the king is said to have translated into English a number of key works from Latin.  These included two by Gregory the Great, the Pope who in 596 charged Augustine with converting the British to Christianity.

Also translated were Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and History Against the Pagans by the Roman priest Orosius, written to refute the pagan writers who blamed conversion to Christianity in Rome for its sacking by Goths in 410.

Although it clear that Alfred inspired these translations, modern scholars have chipped away at his record and judged that the claim that he actually did the work is a myth. In 2007, Malcolm Gidden, Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University even wrote a paper entitled “Did King Alfred write anything?”.

As Marc Morris suggests in his The Anglo-Saxons, “the reality was that the king would have lacked both the time and the depth of understanding to have done any of the intellectual heavy lifting that such complex texts required …[though he] could have done at least some translating, backed up by his team of internationally renowned experts”.

One significant consequence for Winchester of Alfred’s literary enthusiasm, which he certainly had, was that when his son Edward actioned his plans to build the New Minster (forerunner of Hyde Abbey) alongside the Old Minster, Grimbald was appointed its first abbot (apparently he turned down an offer of the Archbishopric of Canterbury), though within the year he had died.

Also, the fact that Alfred wanted classic works to be put into everyday English demonstrated an understanding that had long been evident in the law courts, where vernacular language – Old English – had been used since about 600. Laws written at this time in Kent were later adopted and modified by Alfred in formulating his code.

Much later, under the Normans, the court language became French and it was only in 1362, after the Pleading in English Act had been passed under Edward III that Englishmen once again could use their native language in court. It took another 50 years under Henry V for English to be used in Chancery proceedings.

This quirk of history has been adopted by the English Project chaired by Professor Bill Lucas at the University of Winchester, which has designated October 13, just gone, as English Language Day. It was on this day in 1362 that the first speech in English was made in parliament. Another contender for English Language Day is the United Nations, which has chosen April 23, the date on which Shakespeare was both born and died. 

They both make attractive claims for the language that Alfred championed. According to the UN: “English is one of the languages of international communication. People from different countries and cultures are increasingly able to communicate with each other in English, even if it is not their first language. This makes it an essential tool for global cooperation and diplomacy.”

As regards the English Project, its patron, author Sir Phillip Pullman, has written: “Every speaker of English has the right to bring new words or expressions into being, or give new meanings to old ones. I hope The English Project will help many people to realise what a treasure we have in our language.” 

Whichever English Language Day you favour, it is clear that Winchester has a special role, not only as a central place in Anglo-Saxon England, but also where its language was endorsed and used for administrative and cultural purposes. Had it remained largely an unwritten language, we might now all be speaking French.

CAPTIONS

Alfred the Great, Wantage, sculpted by Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg

Panel at Hyde Abbey Gardens, where Alfred’s long-gone remains lay (arrowed)

[Ed: The other image if you select it is captioned:

Hyde Abbey Gardens, where Alfred’s long-gone remains lay in front of the altar]

Winchester the Alfredian burgh, its layout evident in Speed’s plan of 1611

Still remembered in the Hyde suburb of Winchester

ends