The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great

by Benjamin R. Merkle

  With the battle of Edington won and the army of Guthrum decisively conquered, it would seem that the time for Alfred to begin his celebrations had come. Surely this hard-won peace deserved a great feast in the mead hall of one of Alfred’s great royal estates? But the Anglo-Saxon historian describing Alfred’s victory speaks of no celebrations until three weeks after Guthrum’s acceptance of Alfred’s terms, when the Christian king led the pagan Guthrum and thirty of the Viking king’s most trusted noblemen to a small church in the village of Aller to receive the sacrament of baptism.

  The choice of the seemingly insignificant church at Aller for this ceremony may seem, at first, difficult to explain. One would expect Alfred to choose a church whose size and splendor would impress upon Guthrum the greatness of Alfred’s kingdom and the glory of his reign. It would seem to make more sense for Alfred to have conducted this ceremony in the royal city of Winchester, where Alfred could have overwhelmed Guthrum with his own majesty and kingliness. Instead Alfred chose the very humble village church of Aller, a modest church constructed of wood rather than stone, set deep in the remote wilds of Wessex.

  Aller sits just a short walk to the east of Athelney, in the midst of the wastelands that had provided Alfred with shelter throughout his desperate winter exile. It was at this meager shack of a church that Alfred had worshiped as a hunted fugitive. For some reason, he felt a strong urge to share the scenery of his banishment with the Viking who had until recently hunted him. Perhaps he wanted to show Guthrum the landscape of his exile, pointing out where he had hidden as the Danish troops scoured the countryside for him. Or perhaps, having spent countless hours in prayer in the ramshackle church of Aller begging God for deliverance from the Viking invasion, now Alfred felt a strong pull to bring Guthrum back to this very church, an acknowledgment that those prayers were being answered in this baptism.

  Silently the mixed procession of Wessex noblemen and Viking chieftains wound their way upon the path alongside the river Parrett, leading to the village of Aller. Looming large on the horizon sat Burrow Mump, from whose heights Alfred’s men had regularly stood wary watch, ready to send word to the forces hidden at Athelney of approaching Danes. It had been five weeks since the great Saxon victory at Edington, and the wounds of the noblemen had largely healed.

  After the parade of warriors arrived at the church of Aller, they were greeted at the door by the priest who was to conduct the ceremony. For Guthrum and his men, the following ceremony must have felt bizarre and foreign. The ninth-century liturgy for baptism was filled with a number of symbolic ceremonies designed to portray the significance of taking on the Christian faith and the necessity of turning from all elements of paganism. But for the priest conducting the ceremony, as well as for the Christian noblemen who stood watching, this baptismal liturgy must have seemed entirely foreign as well. The Anglo-Saxons administered baptism as soon after birth as possible. A family who waited more than thirty days to baptize their newborn child could be subject to a fine. Thus, the spectacle of a crowd of grown men, seasoned warriors, all being escorted into a church in their white robes to receive baptism, must have been an almost humorous sight. It is likely that this was the first time any of the men of Wessex had ever seen a grown man baptized.

  In the early church, new converts to Christianity would spend a lengthy period of time as a catechumen before receiving baptism. A catechumen was someone who had made an initial commitment to the Christian faith but was still learning the basic elements of Christianity and searching his heart to ensure he was truly prepared to be baptized (which would usually be performed on either Easter or Pentecost). But for the Anglo-Saxons, whose lives were a little more uncertain and the odds of living until the next Easter or Pentecost seemed much slimmer, it was thought that baptism should be administered as soon as possible, so the church dispensed with the intervening months or years that many Christians spent as catechumens preparing for baptism. Therefore, the Anglo-Saxons combined the two ceremonies of being received as a catechumen and of receiving baptism. Becoming a catechumen was performed at the door of the church, and was referred to as the cristnung. Now a catechumen, the candidate for baptism was immediately led to the font for baptism.

  The cristnung began with the exsufflatio, in which the priest would blow on the face of the candidate. The blowing was attended with a prayer, which explained that the breath of God would terrify the devil and drive him out, freeing the candidate from the lusts of the flesh. Next, the priest placed a bit of salt under the man’s tongue, which by its pungency signified the power of divinely given wisdom. Then the priest wet the recipient’s ears and nostrils with his own spittle, to show that wisdom would come to him through hearing and smelling. Last, he anointed him with oil in the shape of the cross on his chest and on his back, to declare that the cross would form a shield for this man to protect him from Satan’s fiery darts from in front and from behind. With that, the cristnung was complete, and the Danes, now catechumens, proceeded on to the baptismal font.

  Here Guthrum was met by King Alfred, who stood next to the Dane as his sponsor while he renounced Satan and professed his new faith in Jesus Christ. At this, the priest plunged the Viking’s head into the font, immersing him three times, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And with this last immersion, Alfred, as his sponsor, grasped Guthrum by the shoulders and lifted him up from the water, now a Christian man. By doing so, Alfred received Guthrum from baptism, meaning he took the Dane as his own godson. In addition to his new faith, Guthrum also received a new name at his baptism, a Christian name. He was now called Æthelstan, godson of King Alfred.

  By taking Guthrum as his godson, Alfred intended to form a bond of kinship between himself and the conquered Viking ruler, a bond that would hopefully help maintain peace between the Saxons and the Danes. The creation of familial connections between the ruling families of two different kingdoms had been a common way of trying to create a fondness between nations. Alfred’s older sister, Æthelswith, had been given in marriage to Burgred, the Mercian king, in an attempt to maintain an alliance with that once great Saxon nation. Alfred’s wife, Ealswith, was descended from the Mercian royal family as well, and Alfred’s fondness for his wife helped to keep a fondness for Mercia in his heart.

  Of course these marriages merely worked to preserve an already healthy alliance between Wessex and Mercia. Other marriages were contracted with the goal of reconciling two estranged or warring kingdoms. When a king’s daughter was given to marry into the royal family of an enemy nation, she was considered to be a frithwebba, a “peace-weaver.” By being taken as a wife into the enemy’s family and producing children for her new husband, this woman wove the two warring factions together into one family. This practice of using marriage to secure international peace was used by the Viking nations just as much as by the Saxons. The theory of the custom was intuitively understood by all, though in actuality the practice often failed to bring about any lasting peace.

  Alfred’s sponsorship of Guthrum at his baptism drew upon the same principle as the frithwebba. The Christian church had long understood from Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3:5 that the entrance into the Christian faith was a kind of rebirth. Medieval Christians took this imagery seriously and insisted that this second spiritual birth included many of the same elements as the first physical birth. Since one had physical parents at that first birth, then one must also have spiritual parents at this second birth. Therefore, at baptism each candidate was accompanied by a man or woman who sponsored this new Christian as godparent and pledged to act as a spiritual mentor. The relationship of godfather to godson was considered to be every bit as real as the relationship between father and son. For instance, not long after Alfred’s time, it was considered a violation of biblical law if a man were to marry his goddaughter, since the marriage of a father to his daughter would be considered incestuous. To act as godfather at an Anglo-Saxon baptism was to invite the baptized man into one’s family.

 
By acting as Guthrum’s godfather, Alfred essentially adopted the conquered and converted the Dane, becoming his spiritual father. In doing so, Alfred sought to weave a true and lasting peace between the nation of Wessex and the invading Danes, bringing them into his church and into his home.

  After Guthrum, now Æthelstan, godson of King Alfred, had been baptized, the sign of the cross was marked upon his forehead with oil, confirming his baptism, and his head was bound with a white cloth. All the men receiving baptism were then robed entirely in white, symbolizing that the rags of their old lives had been removed and they were now united with the risen Christ through this second birth and were clothed with his glory. All the newly baptized Vikings were to wear these robes for the next week. Immediately after the service, Alfred led the host of new Christians to his royal estate in the village of Wedmore, one day’s journey to the north of Aller.

  At Wedmore, Alfred treated his godson, along with Guthrum’s thirty Danish companions, to twelve days of Anglo-Saxon feasting. The Viking guests, once the mortal enemies of the Wessex throne, now sat in Alfred’s raucous mead hall, white-robed, banqueting on roasted boar and venison, draining horns of mead, and listening to the Saxon scop thrumming on his lyre and singing poems of the glory of long-dead warriors, mingled with lyrics praising the most high God who had created the wonder-filled world.

  Each of these twelve days of feasting was filled with festivities and entertainment—hunting, horse races, foot races, archery, wrestling, and all the sports that delighted the Saxons most. The nights were filled with feasting and the music of the scop. Then, well into the feasting, each night Alfred would open up his treasure hoard and begin to bestow on his guests mountains of splendid gifts. His largesse flowed unrestrained by any resentment of the previous years of hostility between himself and his guests. Rather than vengeance, Alfred offered forgiveness, a forgiveness made clear through the great Saxon virtue of gift giving. Pattern-welded swords with their serpentine-etched blades, magnificent helms crested with fierce boars, gilded and jewelled, finely crafted brooches and pendants—all these and more were handed over to the Viking guests.

  But most important of all, King Alfred gave his guests rings, the gift that most conveyed the relationship that Alfred had established with Guthrum. King Alfred was once again the ring-giver of Wessex, sitting enthroned in the mead hall, with his faithful thegns surrounding him, eating his meat, drinking his mead, taking his gifts, and pledging their allegiance to him. And here Guthrum sat, now a Christian named Æthelstan, receiving Alfred’s gifts and pledging faithfulness to the king of Wessex.

  On the eighth day, the Viking guests celebrated the crismlysing, that is, the removal of the white robes and chrism (the white cloth that had been bound over their foreheads, where they had been anointed after their baptism). The chrism of Æthelstan was removed by Æthelnoth, the ealdorman of Somerset. Æthelnoth had been one of Alfred’s most faithful companions throughout his exile and had worked closely with the king during his hiding at Athelney in Somerset. By removing Æthelstan’s chrism, Æthelnoth essentially became a second godfather to the baptized Viking, since sponsorship at the crismlysing was considered equivalent to sponsorship at baptism.

  After the crismlysing, the festivities continued another four days. At the end of the feasting and gift giving, the two kings went their separate ways. Alfred returned to Winchester, his capital city, to begin rebuilding his nation. Æthelstan returned to what remained of his army, still barricaded within the makeshift fortress of Chippenham. Alfred allowed Æthelstan to stay for several more months at Chippenham, giving him time to arrange for his next move. By October the Viking forces had left Wessex altogether and had marched north, to Cirencester in Mercia, on the northern border of Wessex. Mercia had been ruled by Ceolwulf, the puppet king whom Halfdan and Guthrum had left in charge when the Mercian king Burgred had fled to Rome. Now it was Ceolwulf ’s turn to realize that his presence was no longer necessary. Soon, Ceolwulf had been moved along, and Mercia was ruled by Æthelstan alone.

  In one sense, it would seem that Alfred had been thoroughly victorious in his struggle. He had triumphed in a battle that had seemed only a few months before to be utterly hopeless. Not only had he conquered his enemy, but he had conquered his enemy by converting his foe into a friend. But Alfred was not so gullible as to think that just because Guthrum had been conquered once, he would then submit ever and always to Alfred’s commands. Alfred knew his Viking opponent well enough to know that a Dane could say whatever was necessary to win peace and then, a moment later, betray all his promises and strike out once more. And although Alfred firmly believed that baptism into the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost worked a powerful mystery on all those who received that sacrament, he also knew that the wickedness of the human heart was fully capable of twisting even that great sacrament into a deceitful weapon, used to beguile the credulous Christian into an easily exploited complacency.

  Alfred still hoped that a lasting change had been worked on Æthelstan, though he watched his new godson closely with a sceptical eye. Alfred’s hopes turned to deep concern when Æthelstan’s army, still camped on the northern border of Wessex, was joined several months later by a new Viking army, recently arrived from plundering on the continent and now camped on the Mercian northern bank of the Thames at Fulham, just past London. Was this newly arrived army of fresh Viking troops a reinforcement for one more attack on Wessex? Would Æthelstan’s renouncing of his former life at the church of Aller prove to be only a temporary repentance? Had Æthelstan reverted to Guthrum?

  1 One description of the onset of the berserker rage recounted how the trance began with shivering, chattering of teeth, and a chill all over the body. Then the warrior’s face flushed with color and began to swell as he was carried away by the rage. At this point, the berserker received superhuman strength and could bite through a shield or cut down anything in his path. So relentless was the murderous rage that berserkers could be severely wounded innumerable times without noticing that they had been so much as scratched.

  CHAPTER 6

  Rebuilding Wessex

  And I said to them, “You see the trouble that we are in, how Jerusalem lies desolate and her gates have burned with fire. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, so that we are no longer a reproach.”

  —NEHEMIAH 2:17

  Guthrum’s sudden conversion to the Christianity of the Anglo-Saxons and the taking of the Saxon name Æthelstan may have been difficult to believe. Was the Viking king’s sudden embracing of the Christian faith a genuine and heartfelt repentance of his pagan past? Or was it a pragmatic decision, cunningly chosen to exploit the weakness and gullibility of Alfred’s faith? The scholarly method tends to veer toward the more cynical interpretation, presupposing that only the basest motivations lay behind every decision: Guthrum must have received baptism because it bought him time to remove his troops peacefully, only to strike again at a later date. Or possibly, Guthrum had resigned himself to the fact that Alfred would remain in control of Wessex, and the conquered Viking saw that as a godson to the only reigning Saxon king he would be woven into the web of Saxon nobles and given opportunities to increase his own power and wealth.

  Jesus described in a parable the problem of the short-lived conversion, likening the temporary convert to seed thrown onto rocky soil where its roots could not grow deep (Matthew 13:3–9). The seed sprouts at first, but with such shallow roots and impeded by the rocky soil, it is unable to endure the heat of the afternoon sun and quickly withers and shrivels away. Other seed is eaten up immediately by the birds or choked to death by crowding thorns. But some seed falls on good soil and endures throughout the growing season, bringing in a bountiful harvest.

  The true convert, Jesus later explained, was like this enduring seed. His faith persevered to the end of his fruitful life. So what kind of seed was Æthelstan? Was this new faith to be quickly choked out by the cares of the world? Would it lack perseverance? Or would his profession of faith endure to the end
? With great concern, Alfred waited for the answer to this question.

  The arrival of a fresh band of plunder-eager Vikings provided the first test of Æthelstan’s sincerity. In the late autumn of 878, this new Danish army camped at Fullham, on the northern bank of the Thames, just west of London. Then, having settled in for the winter, the Fullham Vikings sent word to Æthelstan in Cirencester, seeking to form a mutually profitable alliance with the Viking by which they might plunder the kingdom of Wessex.

  In Winchester, Alfred received regular messages from his thegns about the movements of this new band of Vikings and of Æthelstan, who was still camped at Cirencester, perched menacingly on Alfred’s northern border. From the intelligence he was able to gather, it seemed likely he would soon be facing his godson in battle once more, reinforced with a fresh supply of Danish warriors. Then, doubling his suspicions, one afternoon shortly after the Vikings made their camp on the bank of the Thames, all of Wessex fell under a shadow of terrible darkness as a shield as black as death slowly swallowed the sun and all its brightness and heat.

  This solar eclipse was reported by a number of contemporary Anglo-Saxon historians. And though it was understood by Alfred and all the thegns of his court that the eclipse of the sun was always a significant portent, it was unclear just how this particular omen should be interpreted. Did it signal the apostasy of Æthelstan and one more devastating Danish assault on the nation of Wessex? Or was it a confirmation that Alfred’s victory at Edington had made his rule over Wessex sure and unequivocal?

  The answer to these questions was soon made clear. Æthelstan refused the invitation from the Vikings at Fullham and sent their emissaries away from his court empty-handed. The Vikings of Fullham, seeing there was no chance of an alliance with Æthelstan and realizing the resolve of Alfred and his battle-hardened men, abandoned their hopes for easy Saxon plunder and at the end of winter climbed back into their ships to sail for the European continent where resistance to plundering bands was less resolute.