In Alfred’s time, education and ‘wisdom’ were Christian pursuits, sought through the church, and teaching was part of the profession of a monk. The curriculum was fundamentally religious and designed to promote the transmission of Latin Christianity. Libraries were kept in monasteries, and to access the knowledge kept there one would have had to learn Latin, which was only taught to the clergy. As the pursuit of wisdom was seen as so intrinsically Christian, Alfred would have viewed ‘wise’ leaders as those possessing Christian traits. In fact, Alfred cites the acquisition of ‘wisdom’ as an explicit ‘duty’ of Christianity in his preface to Pastoral Care, supporting the connection between the two.
The association of wisdom with written scholarship was a similarly Christian one; books and other written texts were vital for the continued growth of Christianity and ensured approved teaching practices could be replicated widely. For example, after the Lindisfarne raid in 793 C.E., the community of St. Cuthbert managed to remain an important religious centre and retain relevance thanks to their surviving relics and books – they kept their power and influence by preserving and upholding Christian knowledge.
King Alfred believed that those in authority required ‘wisdom’ in order to exercise power justly and effectively; such ‘wisdom’ likely included a detailed knowledge of key Christian texts and a firm conviction in acting according to them. Alfred’s rule also saw increased levels of power granted to the clergy as they began to serve as judges, building and enforcing a common law code based on biblical teachings. As a profoundly religious ruler, the equation of wisdom with Christian piety clearly influenced Alfred’s value of it in those who exercised authority: as demonstrated, the promotion of wisdom was synonymous with the promotion of Christianity.
The growth of Christianity was of particular concern for King Alfred, who would have perceived the devastation of his kingdom by a century of Viking raids to be a divine punishment sent by God as a consequence of the decline of Christian morality in Britain. The obvious remedy to such a plight was to return Britain to its status as a centre of Christian learning. Alfred laments this decline of wisdom and its grave impacts in his preface to Pastoral Care: ‘before the land had been ravaged and burnt’ by the Norse raiders, ‘men came from oversea in search of wisdom and instruction’, whereas now ‘few there are on this side Humber who understand the English of their service or can translate a letter from Latin’. Alfred’s solution to such a state was to launch an ambitious re-education program, aiming to ‘make all the youth in England of free men…able to read English’. This would begin with the King’s own education in Latin by the bishop Asser, followed by a series of translations of ‘needful’ Latin texts into English by the King himself. Alfred set up schools, including in his own court, and is even associated with the foundation of the University of Oxford.
The apparent need for such a re-education suggests that Alfred’s value of wisdom was relatively unique at the time. His goal was to almost single-handedly foster a renewed emphasis on scholarship in England – particularly among noble society and circles with large amounts of power and influence. To Alfred, such a shift was imperative if he were to save his kingdom from God’s wrath, and his keen personal involvement (through his own education and academic contributions) with the cause is testament to how firmly he believed this to be the solution to England’s strife. Although some scholars doubt the authenticity of his translations and other writings, the fact that Alfred at least wanted to portray himself as a scholar indicates the great importance he attributed to academia and wisdom. Furthermore, the act of translating key Latin texts into English, regardless of their true authorship, demonstrates Alfred’s genuine desire to improve education across his kingdom; these texts would become significantly more accessible once they were available in the common tongue (particularly if he succeeded in his ambition to make every free-born man literate), increasing the level of general intellectual attainment but at the expense of traditional ecclesiastical authority. When the only people who could read these Latin writings were clergymen, they held complete control over how such texts were understood by their congregations, and could include or omit information as suited their intentions. However, by translating these texts into English, Alfred considerably decreased such power, demonstrating his instinctive understanding that by increasing the literacy of his people as a whole, he gave them advantages that would outweigh the loss of clerical power. If we then consider Alfred’s unique admiration of wisdom as part of a wider plan to end Viking encroachment through the spread of Christian education to appease a wrathful Christian God, his distinctive emphasis on ‘wisdom’ amongst rulers is entirely logical and pragmatic. In parallel to his desire to promote Christianity through ‘wise’ leadership, Alfred’s veneration of wisdom was, at the same time, an attempt to protect his nation from further destruction and restore it to God’s favour.
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