Alfred the Great (Old English: Ælfrēd, Ælfrǣd, "elf counsel"; 849 – 26 October 899) was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.
Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, and by his death had become the dominant ruler in England. He is the only English monarch to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons". Details of his life are described in a work by the 10th century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser. Alfred was a learned and merciful man who encouraged education and improved his kingdom's legal system and military structure.
Read more about Alfred The Great: Childhood, Under Æthelred, Military Reorganisation, Legal Reform, Foreign Relations, Religion and Culture, Appearance and Character, Family, Ancestry, Death, Burial and Legacy, Wantage Statue
Famous quotes containing the word alfred:
“Not out of those, on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Berserkirs, come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)