Alfred at Athelney

 

AD 878

This year about mid-winter, after twelfth night, the Danish army stole out to Chippenham, and rode over the land of the West Saxons; where they settled, and drove many of the people over the sea; and of the rest the greatest part they rode down, and subdued to their will; 

ALL BUT ALFRED THE KING,

He, with a little band, uneasily sought the woods and the fastness of the moors ...

In the Easter of this year King Alfred with his little force raised a work at Athelney; from which he assailed the army, assisted by that part of Somersetshire which was nighest to it.

Then, in the seventh week after Easter, he rode to Brixton by the eastern side of Selwood; and there came out to meet him all the people of Somersetshire, and Wiltshire, and that part of Hampshire which is on this side of the sea, and they rejoiced to see him. Then within one night he went from this retreat to Hey, and within one night after he proceeded to Heddington; and there fought with all the army, and put them to flight, riding after them as far as the fortress, where he remained a fortnight.

(The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, <gutenberg.org/cache/epub/657/pg657-images.html>)

Within Living Memory

This is a contemporary account, according to <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo_Saxon_Chronicle>.

"The lost first version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was created in the late ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of King Alfred the Great (r. 871-899)." 

"The Common Stock of the Chronicle dates to around 893, as it covers the Viking's return from the Continent in that year, and a version was available to Bishop Asser for his 893 Life of King Alfred ... the archetype is lost ... probably produced in the scholarly circle around King Alfred."

Part of the learned circle surrounding Alfred the Great is directly credited in Alfred's Preface to his Translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care ― "Thanks be to Almighty God that we have any teachers among us now ... When I remembered how the knowledge of Latin had formerly decayed throughout England and yet many could read English writing, I began ... to translate into English the book which is called in Latin Pastoralis, and in English Shepherd's Book, sometimes word by word, and sometimes according to the sense, as I had learned it from Plegmund my Archbishop, and Asser my bishop, and Grimbald my mass-priest, and John my mass-priest."

(Appendix I, Project Gutenberg eBook 63384)

In Asser's biography of Alfred, mentioned above, the king "sent messengers to beyond sea to Gaul, to procure teachers, and invited from thence Grimbald, priest and monk, a venerable man and an excellent singer, learned in every kind of ecclesiastical discipline and in holy Scripture, and adorned with all virtues. He also obtained from thence John, both priest and monk, a man of the keenest intellect, learned in all branches of literature, and skilled in many other arts. By the teaching of these men the king's mind was greatly enlarged and he enriched and honored them with much power."  

(ch. 78, Asser's Life of King Alfred, <gutenberg.org/files/63384/63384-h/63384-h.htm>)

Asser also expressly acknowledges the presence of "certain luminaries, namely, Werfrith, Bishop of the church of Worcester, a man well versed in divine Scripture, who, by the king's command, was the first to interpret with clearness and elegance the books of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory and Peter, his disciple, from Latin into Saxon, sometimes putting sense for sense; then Plegmund, a Mercian by birth, Archbishop of the church of Canterbury, a venerable man, endowed with wisdom; besides AEthelstan and Werwulf, learned priests and clerks, Mercians. These four King Alfred had called from Mercia, and he exalted them with many honors and powers in the kingdom of the West Saxons ..."

(ch. 77, Asser's Life of King Alfred, as above)

From the beginning , Alfred the Great was indebted to religiously trained men, firstly for his own literacy ― "Night and day, whenever he had any leisure, he commanded such men as these to read books to him ... [because] of himself he could not yet understand anything of books, since he had not yet learned to read anything" (ch. 78) ― and then, for the education and good government of his kingdom. The Isle of Athelney is a prime example of the king's gratitude in this respect. 

In or about 888 AD, "he ordered ... that two monasteries should be built, one of them being for monks at Athelney. This is a place surrounded by impassable fens and waters on every hand, where no one can enter but by boats, or by a bridge laboriously constructed between two fortresses, at the western edge of which bridge was erected a strong citadel, of beautiful work, by command of the aforesaid king. In this monastery he collected monks of all kinds from every quarter, and there settled them.

At first he had no one of his own nation, noble and free by birth, who was willing to enter the monastic life ..., because for many years previous the love of a monastic life had utterly decayed ... no one kept the rule of that kind of life in an orderly way, whether because of the invasions of foreigners , which took so frequently by both sea and land ...

First he placed there John the priest and monk, an Old Saxon by birth, making him an abbot; and then certain priests and deacons from beyond sea ... he procured as many as possible of the same Gallic race, some of whom being children, he ordered to be taught in the same monastery, and at a later period be admitted to the monastic habit ..."

(chs. 92, 93, 94, Asser's Life of King Alfred, as above)

The Island of Athelney

According to the relevant Victorian County History compiled in 1911, the site of Alfred's abbey at Athelney was largely determined by its natural setting, marooned as it was in the wetlands of the Somerset Levels.

"The island of Athelney is on the north side of Stanmoor, and on the north bank of the River Tone ... It consists of two low hills divided by a shallow depression, containing 24 acres in extent, of which the eastern and slightly higher hill where was the monastery of our Blessed Saviour, St Peter, St Paul, and St Athelwine, comprises 11½ acres. It is still often in winter-time an island to which people have to go by boat."

The location of the monastery was sometimes commented on by medieval visitors.

"William of Malmesbury, writing in the first half of the 12th century, tells us of a church which was there built, which seems to have been erected on piles and to have had apsidal chapels attached. He says the monks there in his time were few in number and poor, but they were consoled in their poverty by their love of a quiet solitude."

The remoteness of the site may be partly explained by the spiritual significance of an earlier occupant.

"It has been questioned whether Alfred really founded the monastery ― or whether he did not enlarge a hermitage or monastery already in existence. The dedication of St Egelwine or Athelwine, the brother of King Kenewalch [in the 7th century], suggests a greater antiquity, and the charter which Alfred granted to the monastery suggests that he rather enlarged than founded the house."

However, it is most likely that the personal importance of the place to King Alfred over-rode other considerations. When he took refuge there, his 'crown' was newly inherited and he boasted no victories to his name. As a fugitive with few followers left, Athelney was his political and military low-point.

"It was to this place that Alfred retreated in the autumn of 877, and in the spring of 878 he built here a fortress called Ethelingaeigge."

('Houses of Benectine monks: The abbey of Athelney', A History of the County of Somerset, Volume 2, London 1911 <british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol2/pp99-103>) 

An Abbey at Athelney

"The Anglo-Saxon occupation site and site of Athelney Abbey, which encompasses the twin summits of Athelney Hill, are known to contain below ground archaeological remains on the eastern summit which relate to the post-Conquest monastery, which traditionally occupied a position directly above the site of the Benectine monastic foundation established by King Alfred, and further below ground remains relating to the Saxon occupation of the western summit on the site of the suspected Alfredian fort."

"The site occupies Athelney Hill, a natural island raised above the surrounding lower lying ground of Somerset Levels and moors ... It lies just to the east of the Anglo-Saxon bur[g]h of Lyng to which it was connected by a causeway, the course of which appears to have been overlain by the medieval Balt Moor Wall."

"It is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that in 878 King Alfred had a stronghold constructed on the Isle of Athelney, traditionally believed to have been sited on the western summit which would have been protected by the surrounding, but now drained, marshland. Geophysical survey undertaken in 1993 has demonstrated occupation in this area in the form of ditches which appear to have been filled, at least in part by ferrous material. Field walking of a metal working area identified in the survey produced iron slag which is considered to be of Saxon date."

"The earliest known reference to the monastic site comes from a contemporary document in which is mentioned that Alfred founded a monastery around the year AD 879, or a little later, on the eastern summit of the Isle of Athelney. More details of the monastery were recorded in the 12th century by William of Malmesbury who described the church as a unique structure being centrally planned with four apses. Further references to the monastic site appear in the 14th and 15th centuries where details of its disrepair and subsequent rebuilding have been described ... 

Antiquarian excavations of the site on or close to the summit of the hill have recorded the remains of graves and revealed the foundations of the church, a medieval chapel (possibly the oratory which is specifically mentioned in a document of 1462), and a vault containing human remains. Pillar bases, masonry fragments (some painted), and fragments of window tracery have also been recorded.

The 1993 geophysical survey confirmed the location of the medieval church and also detected the presence of other ancillary buildings indicating that the post-Conquest remains extended further to the south east than had previously been known. 

Following the dissolution of the abbey in 1539, the buildings had become derelict by 1633 and totally demolished by the 1670s, the stone probably being used in the construction of nearby Athelney Farm at this time.

Also located ... on the east summit of the monastic site is the Alfred Monument ... an inscribed obelisk set on a plinth and erected in 1801 to commemorate the site of the monastery founded by King Alfred. Two medieval floor layers were revealed during restoration work on the obelisk in 1985, one of which was tiled."

('Anglo-Saxon occupation site and site of Athelney Abbey on Athelney Hill', Historic England, Scheduled Monument - List Entry Number 1019099)

Documentary Archaeology

"Assessment of the Alfredian church in relation to other tower-nave churches suggest possible parallels with Charlemagne's royal chapel at Aachen."

(Somerset Historic Environment Record, Site 11117, Athelney Abbey and settlement Lyng)

"Athelney Abbey, Somerset (St AEthelwine?)

 ... It appears to have consisted of a square timber tower surrounded by four apses, and may have been inspired by Carolingian architecture ...

Aachen's westwerk aside, the main centrally-planned turriform rotunda of Charlemagne's chapel was part of a tradition of imperial centrally-planned churches dating to the time of Constantine. Alfred seems to have engaged with this when, at Athelney:

     '...he constructed a church, of only moderate size because of the confined site, but put together in a new architectural style : four posts fixed in the ground hold up the whole fabric, and four apses surround it in a circle.'

     [William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, 92]

11th century accounts describe the church as a tower, which is also indicated by the use of the term machinum. Alfred installed there an abbot from Saxony and populated it with Continental monks in adherence to Carolingian monastic life."

(MG Shapland, 2012, 'Buildings of Secular and Religious Lordship: Anglo-Saxon Tower-nave Churches', PhD Thesis, University College London)

"Synthesis of the development of Anglo-Saxon tower-naves  : The earliest tower-naves.

The first known Anglo-Saxon tower-nave was constructed by Bishop Wilfred in the very early 8th century at Hexham Abbey, in fulfillment of a sick-bed promise made on the threshold of his slow rehabilitation into Northumbrian politics. It stood apart from the main abbey church, adjacent to a cemetery flanking the probable entrance to the monastic precinct.

The second, St Michael-le-Belfry, was built in York perhaps a century later, also adjacent to a cemetery guarding the entrance to the cathedral precinct.

The third tower-nave was constructed at the end of the 9th century by King Alfred at the royal vill and re-founded abbey at Athelney ...

The earliest tower-nave churches are all monastic, and it is unfortunate that we are ignorant of their dimensions, and, in the case of St Michael-le-Belfry ... of their form as well ... Hexham and Athelney are not dissimilar in their documented form, comprising of central turriform spaces with four smaller, apsidal, porticus ...

When Wilfred constructed his tower-nave of St Mary at Hexham, in the twilight of his career, he had become a great secular lord as well as a powerful ecclesiastic. He may have been inspired during his several travels to Rome and the Continent to bolster his declining status with a new church whose iconography conveyed the power and authority of the emperor at Milan or the Archbishop of Ravenna. When King Alfred constructed his turriform church in 'a new architectural style' at the royal vill of Athelney, he was heralding a resurgence in his royal power and laying the foundations for the dominion of Wessex over England."

(MG Shapland 2012, as above).

Elusive St Æthelwine

There is no clear link between the 7th century saint Æthelwine of Athelney and the earliest recognised lists of Anglo-Saxon saints ― the Old English Secgan Manuscript (early 11th century, naming 89 saints) or John Leland's List (copied in mid 16th century, with 51 saints). Claims for John es wisa (Iohannes of Malmesbury) in the former and St Aldwyn of Coln St Aldwyn in the latter are both unlikely. These speculations relied on a confusion of the older recluse (mid 600s) with John the Old Saxon, who was the first abbot at Athelney (late 800s), and the pseudo-Latinisation of Æthelwine into Aldwyn (but Coln St Aldwyn is in Gloucestershire, not Somerset).

(DW Rollason, 1978, 'Lists of Saints' resting-places in Anglo-Saxon England', Anglo-Saxon England, 7, 61-93; Nicholas Grant, 2004, 'John Leland's List of Places Where Saints Rest in England', Analecta Bollandiana, 122.2, 373-88)

The most contemporary references in a historical sense belong to copies of original charters granting lands to the abbey and abbot of Athelney (medieval manuscripts from the 11th and 13th centuries are themselves now lost), and a more descriptive report made by the monk William of Malmesbury on his visit to Athelney in the first half of the 12th century (contained in his Deeds of the English Bishops ― Gesta pontificum anglorum).

Evidence from the cartularies rest on Alfred the Great's association of the monastic site with the former saint:

2. "... Wherefore, I, Alfred, by divine permission King of the West Saxons, for the benefit of my soul and the forgiveness of my sins, have given willingly a small portion of land, that is ten cassates, in the place which is called Suthtun, to the Island of Nobles, which is in English named Athelingaie as help to the monastic life of the monks there under a regular rule serving God devoutly ... The charter of this donation was written in 852 AD [error, 892?] ..."

212. "Alfred the King of glorious memory, son of Athelwlph King of England, received the royal anointing and the crown from Pope Leo iv; was founder of the monasteryt of the Saviour, the Apostles Peter and Paul, and the holy Athelwin confessor at Athelneye; in the eight hundred and seventy-second year from the Incarnation of Christ, 4 indict. [error, 892?]; he gave to his monastery aforesaid the Island in which the abbey is situated, in pure and perpetual alms ... ten acres of arable and twenty acres of meadow ... And to it belong rights of common in Statemore as well for pasture as for fuel ... There also belongs to said Abbey common of pasture in Saltmore ..."

('Extracts from the Register of the Abbey of Athelney', in EH Bates, Two Cartularies of the Benectine Abbeys of Muchelney and Athelney in the County of Somerset, 1899, Somerset Record Society, 14, pp 126-7 & 190-1)

The significance of these names lies in their shared roots. The place-name Athelney translates as isle of æthelings where 'ætheling' means a member of the royal family or nobility, hence the alternatives "island of princes" or "island of nobles". This refers to the saint's high status in Anglo-Saxon society before he retreated into prayerful isolation. Æthelwine, sometimes spelt Egelwine, was born the son of Cynegils, king of the West Saxons, who reigned from 611 to 642 AD, and brother of Cenwealh, king of the West Saxons from 642 to 672 AD. The two charters of King Alfred assume that the "the Island of Nobles which is in the English named Athelingaie" is the same as the residence of "the holy Athelwin confessor at Athelneye" from 2½ centuries before.

It would not be possible to discern the character of the saint, or the nature of his holiness, from brief notes in lists or charters. Fortunately the site was visited by a monk from another monastery in the 12th century, William of Malmesbury, who observed that the Athelney congregation continued to honour their patron St Æthelwine. A shrine in the abbey church containing the hermit's bones would have been central to this. His 'cult' was probably practiced at Athelney Abbey until King Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1540s, when the relics would have been discredited and dispersed (destroyed).

(Inner side panel of Mortuary Box, originally at Old Minster, now at New Minster, Winchester, containing remains of seven Anglo-Saxon kings including Cynegils and Cenwealh. Mixed bones of 23 kings and bishops in 6 Mortuary Boxes have recently been removed, sorted, dated, and restored to elevated positions within Winchester Cathedral)

Defensive Athelney (and Lyng)

"52. In the year of our Lord's incarnation 878, being the thirtieth of King Alfred's life, the oft-mentioned [heathen] army left Exeter and went to Chippenham, a royal vill situated on the north of Wiltshire, on the east bank of the river which is called Avon in Welsh, and there wintered. And they drove many of that people by their arms, by poverty, and by fear, to voyage beyond the sea, and reduced almost all the inhabitants of that district to subjection.

"53. At that same time the above-mentioned King Alfred, with a few of his nobles, and certain soldiers and vassals, was leading in great tribulation an unquiet life among the woodlands and swamps of Somersetshire; for he had nothing that he needed except what by frequent sallies he could forage openly or stealthily from the heathen or from the Christians who had submitted to the rule of the heathen.

"54. ...

"55. The same year, after Easter, King Alfred, with a few men, made a stronghold in a place called Athelney, and from thence sallied to his vassals of Somerset to make frequent and unwearied assaults upon the heathen. And again, the seventh week after Easter, he rode to Egbert's Stone, which is in the eastern part of Selwood Forest (in Latin 'Great Forest' and in Welsh 'Coit Maur'), Here he was met by all the neighbouring folk of Somersetshire and Wiltshire, and such of Hampshire as had not sailed beyond the sea for fear of the heathen; and when they saw the king restored alive, as it were, after such a great tribulation, they were filled, as was meet, with immeasurable joy, and encamped there for the night. At daybreak of the following morning, the king struck his camp and came to Aegla, where he encamped for one night."

(Asser's Life of King Alfred, AS Cook trans. 1906, Project Gutenberg eBook 63384)

"Lyng ... a small burh [aka 'burgh' or 'borough'] assessed at 100 hides in the Burghal Hidage, which was situated immediately to the west of Athelney, a fort occupying an island surrounded by marshes. It is this fort to which King Alfred retreated after his rout at Chippenham in early 878. These two sites were connected by a causeway and a bridge over the former line of the river Yeo (the Baltmoor wall) which is referred to by both Asser and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Asser's  description implies that the causeway and the fort built by Alfred were new constructions at the time, but the archaeological and other evidence suggests that both the fort and the causeway were preceded by already existing structures ...

The 2002 excavations [by Time Team] ... demonstrated the presence of a ring-ditch of the Iron Age on the western part of the island, which continued into use in the early to middle Saxon period. The existence of this defended area would have ... formed the basis for its reconstruction as a fort in the late Saxon period during Alfred's occupation of the island. The importance of the site in the Iron Age is emphasised by the possible Iron-Age origin of the cross-promontory defences on the western side of Lyng ... which would have formed a double defence of the island as a whole. The connecting causeway appears to have had beginnings as a Bronze-age trackway ...

The bank and ditch to the south of the church [at Lyng] ... extend some 250-350m from the northern to the southern edge of the spur. The bank is around 25m in width, with a ditch of the same order of magnitude immediately to its west ... which would appear to be more typical of an Iron-Age cross-promontory defence than that of a late Saxon burh ...

On this interpretation, King Alfred would have taken occupation of a site in early 878 which was already defended by a ditched enclosure on Athelney itself ... This site would already have been connected to the mainland by a causeway and bridge, and its defences would, furthermore, have been augmented by the massive outworks crossing the promontory of land to the west. The complex as a whole would have taken little work to bring to defensive readiness.

... Alfred found at Athelney and Lyng an arrangement which was in essence a double burh connected with a bridge, a strategic device which had been used  in Francia by Charlemagne in the 860s ... It is hardly surprising that the pre-existing defensive system at Lyng/Athelney ... was then strengthened through public obligations for labour, after Alfred's success in battle against the Viking forces, to form a burh in Alfred's new system. 

[Note: Alfred the Great's Burghal Hideage document  gives a list of newly fortified settlement sites established during his reign, (33 in Wessex, including at least 4 in Somerset; Axbridge, Langport, Lyng, Watchet), a key strategy in the late 9th century against invasion.]"

(Jeremy Haslam, 2014, 'The late Saxon burhs of Somerset - a review', in GR Owen-Crocker & SD Thompson (eds), Towns and Topography: Essays in Memory of David Hill, Oxford, 46-57)

The Brother Monk

As noted above, King Alfred's abbey at Athelney was visited in the early 12th century by the historian-monk William of Malmesbury. The first version of the manuscript source that relates his impressions, De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum ('On the Deeds of the English Bishops'), was completed in about 1125. Living in a Norman age, William is therefore 'looking back' at an institution founded in an Anglo-Saxon time. There is a historical gap between what he sees in 1125 and the circumstances that prevailed in 888 AD at Athelney's foundation.

Early on in the brief account of his visit, William makes clear that the small monastic church and associated monk's buildings were established by Alfred in fulfilment of a promise he made to God: "The former was built by King Alfred, who was on one occasion driven out of his province by the Danes but for some time found safe refuge there. Later, when St Cuthbert in a dream went bail for his restoration to power, Alfred promised God that he would build a monastery there. Accordingly," as previously noted, "he constructed a church, of only moderate size because of the confined site, but put together in a new architectural style: four columns fixed in the ground hold up the whole fabric, and four apses surround it in a circle."

The point here is that when William surveyed the original and possibly rundown tower-nave church he did not express disappointment.  The benefit of being able to read the brother from Malmesbury's report is that it was not written to serve a prescribed religious agenda. He is not inspecting Athelney Abbey in the formal role of an episcopal 'visitor, to insist on this reform or that improvement. Nor is he seeking to portray monastic life at this location in a hagiographic light, exaggerating the miracles of its collection of relics to boost the foot-traffic of a growing pilgrim-public. Instead William provides something that perhaps only another monk could (albeit a sincere and humble one!), and that is a relatively honest summary of the spiritual health of that community.

William recognises the limitations of the site: "Athelney is not an island in the sea, but thanks to flooding and swamps it is so inaccessible that it can only be approached on shipboard. A large older grove there is home to stags, roe deer, and many beasts of the kind. The solid land [is] only a few hundred feet across ..."  He acknowledges that "the monks there are few in number and poor".  And yet, "they are the sort to value their neediness, or find consolation for for it, thanks to their love of peace and quiet."

This finding, that remoteness and simply being out of the way of normal busy Church life in medieval England can actually create conditions closer to the ideals of a holy life, is echoed in his remarks on the nearby and similarly situated Muchelney Abbey. William saw no disadvantage there because "the place is not easy to access", or that "one can normally get through in summertime on foot or by horse, but not in winter". This was "especially because monks can then more readily give their attention to the mysteries of heaven the less occasion they have to mingle with men".

William's readers can assume that it is with genuine respect for the remaining brothers at Athelney that he concludes his account: "They send up to heaven praises of their patron St Æthelwine, and feel the benefit of his holiness in the services he does them. He was brother of Cenwealh king of the West Saxons, and he exalted his noble birth to a higher plane by the holiness of his character. Tied down by chronic illness, he nonetheless served God with devotion. He came to a good end, and is at hand to help all who call on him. That is the story that goes on finding credit."

(William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, Volume I: Text and Translation, M.  Winterbottom with RM Thomson (trans & ed), 2007, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 'Athelney' ii.92.1-3, and 'Muchelney' ii.93.1, pp 312-313)