{"product_id":"king-alfred-the-great","title":"King Alfred the Great","description":"\u003cp\u003eSoldier, statesman, and scholar, Alfred the Great was a fascinating and highly successful king, pushing back the Vikings to command what is now thought of as the heart of England as ruler of Wessex from 871-899. In this, the first major biography of King Alfred since 1902, his life, career and enduring legacy are given a radical new interpretation, putting into question most of our assumptions about this singular monarch.\u003cbr\u003e\nAlfred P. Smyth's portrait of King Alfred rejects the image of a neurotic and invalid king who supposedly remained a pious illiterate until he was almost 40. Instead, we are shown a man of remarkable energy and intelligence who took necessary steps to defend his people from the Norsemen. We see, too, a king who had been a scholar all his life and who used his great knowledge to bolster the powers of his own kingship. Smyth also provides a detailed examination of the much-disputed medieval biography of King Alfred, attributed to the King's tutor, Asser. Alfred Smyth argues that Asser's Life may, in fact, have been a late medieval forgery--a revelation with profound implications for our understanding of the whole of Anglo-Saxon history.\u003cbr\u003e\nSmyth's King Alfred also contains major studies on the writings of this gifted king, on the controversial charters of his reign, and on the origins of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. (Smyth shows this work to have been much more closely connected with the court of King Alfred than previously realized and suggests a new date for the completion of the earliest Alfredian section of the Chronicle.) A monumental and intriguing work of historical scholarship, King Alfred the Great will dramatically change the way we understand this early period of western civilization., ISBN13: 9780198229896 ISBN10: 0198229895 Material Type: hardcover\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CheapBookDepot","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46126592819363,"sku":"U1.11.7-K_STR_H0000CBC","price":69.82,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0607\/9227\/5107\/files\/71EJCihHa1L.jpg?v=1754895232","url":"https:\/\/usedbookdepot.com\/products\/king-alfred-the-great","provider":"Used Book Depot","version":"1.0","type":"link"}