probably by paying a sum of money to the invaders. Wessex enjoyed a measure of peace for a few years, but about 875 the Danes renewed their attacks. They were repulsed then, and again in 876 and 877, on each occasion making solemn pledges of peace. In 878 came the great invasion under Guthrum. For a few months the Danes met with success, but about Easter Alfred established himself at Athelney and later marched to Brixton, gathering new forces on the way. In the battle of Ethandún (probably the present Edington, in Wiltshire) he defeated the Danes. Guthrum agreed to a peace and consented to be baptized. It is in connection with this struggle that many of the legends of Alfred have sprung up and been perpetuated—the story of the burnt cakes, the account of his visit to the Danish camp in the guise of a harper, and many others. For fifteen years Alfred's kingdom was at peace, but in 903 the Danes who had been driven out made another onslaught. This war lasted for four years and resulted in the final establishment of Saxon supremacy. These struggles had another result, hardly less important than the freedom from Danish oppression. The successive invasions had crushed out of existence most of the individual kingdoms. Alfred made Wessex a rallying point for all the Saxons and by freeing the country of the invaders unwittingly unified England and prepared the way for the eventual supremacy of his successors.
Popular fancy has been busy with other phases of Alfred's career than that which is concerned with his military achievements. He is generally credited with establishing trial by jury, the law of "frank-pledge", and many other institutions which were rather the development of national customs of long standing. He is represented as the founder of Oxford, a claim which recent research has disproved. But even the elimination of the legendary from Alfred's history does not in any way diminish his greatness, so much is there of actual, recorded achievement to his credit. His own estimate of what he did for the regeneration of England is modest beside the authentic history of his deeds. He endeavoured, he tells us, to gather all that seemed good in the old English laws, and adds: "I durst not venture much of mine own to set down, for I knew not what should be approved by those who came after us." Not only did he codify and promulgate laws, but he looked, too, to their enforcement, and insisted that justice should be dispensed without fear or favour. He devoted his energies to restoring what had been destroyed by the long wars with the invaders. Monasteries were rebuilt and founded, and learned men brought from other lands. He brought Archbishop Plegmund and Bishop Wetfrith from Mercia; Grimbold and John the Old-Saxon from other Teutonic lands; Asser, John Scotus Erigena and many others. He not only encouraged men of learning, but he laboured himself and gave proof of his own learning. He translated into Anglo-Saxon: "The Consolation of Philosophy" of Boëthius; "The History of the World" of Orosius; the "Ecclesiastical History" of Bede, and the "Pastoral Rule" and the "Dialogues" of St. Gregory the Great. The "Consolation of Philosophy" he not only translated but adapted, adding much of his own. The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", the record of the English race from the earliest time, was inspired by him.
Bowker, Editor, Alfred the Great (London, 1899); Plummer, Life of Alfred the Great (London, 1902); Schmid, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 2d ed. (1858). Contemporary authorities are the Life of Alfred by Asser and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. These and the later accounts by Ethelwerd, Simeon of Durham, etc. can be conveniently studied in Conybeare, Alfred in the Chroniclers (1900). For Alfred's writings see Bosworth, The Works of Alfred the Great (Jubilee edition, 1858, 2 vols.). Alfred's laws are printed in Liebermann's Laws of the Anglo-Saxons (1903). Among modern accounts see Pauli, Life of Alfred the Great. tr. Wright (1852); Lappenberg, England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings, tr. from the German by Thorpe (1881), II; Lingard, History of England, I; Knight, Life of King Alfred (1880). For a literary appreciation, see Brooke, History of English Literature to the Norman Conquest (London and New York, 1878).
Alfrida, Saint, virgin, and recluse, c. 795. This saint, whose name is variously written Elfthritha, Ælfleda, Æfthryth, Alfritha, Etheldreda, etc., was a daughter of King Offa of Mercia. According to a late and not very trustworthy legend she was betrothed to St. Ethelbert, King of the East Angles, but when he came to the court of Offa to claim her, he was treacherously murdered by the contrivance of Cynethritha, Offa's queen. After this Alfrida retired to the marshes of Crowland, where she was built into a cell and lived as a recluse to the end of her days. It is impossible not to suspect the existence of some confusion with Ælfleda, another daughter of Offa, whose husband was also murdered by treachery.
Acta SS., 2 August; Stubbs in Dict. Christ. Biog., II, 82, s.v. Elfthritha; ibid., 215 s.v. Ethelbert; Dunbar, Dict. of Sainted Women, I, 44; Stanton, Menology, 221. For Brompton's account see the Bollandists and the works of Giraldus Cambrensis, III, 411–420.
Alfwold, Saint, Bishop of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire; d. 1058. Alfwold, or Ælfwold, is a rather obscure English saint of whom we know little beside the few details preserved by William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont., Bk. II, § 82). Alfwold had been a monk of Winchester, and was consecrated Bishop of Sherborne in 1045, succeeding his own brother Brightwy. He gave great edification by the frugality of his way of life, which was in marked contrast to the riotous banquetings which the example of the Danish monarchs had rendered popular at that epoch. He was very devout to St. Swithun, his old patron of Winchester, and also to St. Cuthbert, to whose shrine at Durham he made a pilgrimage. He died while singing the antiphon of St. Cuthbert. He was, strictly speaking, the last Bishop of Sherborne, for after his death the see of Sherborne was united to that of Ramsbury.
Acta SS., 25 March, III; Stanton, English Menology (London, 1892), 134.
Alger of Liége, a learned French priest, b. at Liége, about 1055; d. at Cluny, 1132. He studied at Liége and was appointed Deacon of St. Bartholomew's. About 1100, he was made Canon of the cathedral of St. Lambert, where he remained for twenty years. In 1121, he retired to the Monastery at Cluny, and died there. He was well known as an ecclesiastical writer. A treatise directed against the heresy of Berengarius, "De sacramento corporis et sanguinis Domini" was highly esteemed by Peter of Cluny and Erasmus. He also wrote "De misericordia et justitia", extracts from the Fathers with brief commentaries on them; a work on Free Will, and one on the "Sacrifice of the Mass". This is contained in the "Collectio Scriptorum Veterum" of Angelo Mai.
De sacramentis corporis et sanguine Domini (Louvain, 1847; Innsbrück, 1878); De misericordia et justitia, in Martène's Thesaurus Anecdotorum (Paris, 1717), also in the collections of the brothers Pez, and also in Mabillon, P.L., 166; 1339.
Alghero, an Italian diocese comprising twenty-two communes in the province of Sassari, and four in that of Cagliari, Archdiocese of Sassari. The city was built by the Doria of Genoa in 1102. In 1106 John, Bishop of Alghero, assisted at the consecration of the Church of the Trinity in Sacargia. After a long period of decadence, the see was renewed and confirmed by Julius II in his Bull of 1503. Pietro Parens, a Genoese, became bishop; he was present at the Lateran Council in 1512, from the
