Alfred the Great - 871-901
Yesterday we studied about Charlemagne, aka, Charles the Great. Today we are going to learn about Alfred the Great. Both of these men had something in common, and that is why they were great.
The Kingdom of England was once called the Kingdom of Wessex. At this point, there were still battles with the Vikings, and Danish Vikings came over to England to take over the country. Alfred the Great ruled Wessex at this time. He had many battles with the Danes, and finally won the Battle of Edington in 878. Alfred captured London in 886. He also unified the south and south western parts of England. Supposedly, Olaf Tryggvesson, who was the King of Norway, became a Christian at this time. It happened while he was leading the Viking raids in England. Then he went back to Norway, and wanted Norway and Iceland to become Christian countries.
Because of the destructiveness of the Danish Vikings, education was almost lost in England, but Alfred restored the kingdom. One of the things he did was to promote Christian education in his kingdom. He started schools with the foundation of the tenets of the Christian faith. He also worked on Biblical translations in order to promote education. Some of the laws the he enforced came right out of the book of Exodus! It was a good thing that Alfred the Great accomplished many virtuous goals, for if he hadn't done that, England may have stayed in the darkness of paganism, and would have missed the glorious time of light that God allowed England to have in this time period.
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