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Kolmogorov complexity | Halting problem | Halting problem
The Kolmogorov complexity function is equivalent to deciding the halting problem.
If we have a halting oracle, then the Kolmogorov complexity of a string can be computed by simply trying every halting program, in lexicographic order, until one of them outputs the string.
The other direction is much more involved. It shows that given a Kolmogorov complexity function, we can construct a function , such that for all large , where is the Busy Beaver shift function (also denoted as ). By modifying the function at lower values of we get an upper bound on , which solves the halting problem.
Consider this program , which takes input as , and uses .
List all strings of length .
For each such string , enumerate all (prefix-free) programs of length until one of them does output . Record its runtime .
Output the largest .
We prove by contradiction that for all large .
Let be a Busy Beaver of length . Consider this (prefix-free) program, which takes no input:
Run the program , and record its runtime length .
Generate all programs with length . Run every one of them for up to steps. Note the outputs of those that have halted.
Output the string with the lowest lexicographic order that has not been output by any of those.
Let the string output by the program be .
The program has length , where comes from the length of the Busy Beaver , comes from using the (prefix-free) Elias delta code for the number , and comes from the rest of the program. Therefore,for all big . Further, since there are only so many possible programs with length , we have by pigeonhole principle.
By assumption, , so every string of length has a minimal program with runtime . Thus, the string has a minimal program with runtime . Further, that program has length . This contradicts how was constructed. |
Kolmogorov complexity | Universal probability | Universal probability
Fix a universal Turing machine , the same one used to define the (prefix-free) Kolmogorov complexity. Define the (prefix-free) universal probability of a string to beIn other words, it is the probability that, given a uniformly random binary stream as input, the universal Turing machine would halt after reading a certain prefix of the stream, and output .
Note. does not mean that the input stream is , but that the universal Turing machine would halt at some point after reading the initial segment , without reading any further input, and that, when it halts, its has written to the output tape.
Theorem. (Theorem 14.11.1) |
Kolmogorov complexity | Conditional versions | Conditional versions
The conditional Kolmogorov complexity of two strings is, roughly speaking, defined as the Kolmogorov complexity of x given y as an auxiliary input to the procedure.
There is also a length-conditional complexity , which is the complexity of x given the length of x as known/input. |
Kolmogorov complexity | Time-bounded complexity | Time-bounded complexity
Time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity is a modified version of Kolmogorov complexity where the space of programs to be searched for a solution is confined to only programs that can run within some pre-defined number of steps. It is hypothesised that the possibility of the existence of an efficient algorithm for determining approximate time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity is related to the question of whether true one-way functions exist. |
Kolmogorov complexity | See also | See also
Berry paradox
Code golf
Data compression
Descriptive complexity theory
Grammar induction
Inductive reasoning
Kolmogorov structure function
Levenshtein distance
Manifold hypothesis
Solomonoff's theory of inductive inference
Sample entropy |
Kolmogorov complexity | Notes | Notes |
Kolmogorov complexity | References | References |
Kolmogorov complexity | Further reading | Further reading
|
Kolmogorov complexity | External links | External links
The Legacy of Andrei Nikolaevich Kolmogorov
Chaitin's online publications
Solomonoff's IDSIA page
Generalizations of algorithmic information by J. Schmidhuber
Tromp's lambda calculus computer model offers a concrete definition of K()]
Universal AI based on Kolmogorov Complexity by M. Hutter:
David Dowe's Minimum Message Length (MML) and Occam's razor pages.
*
*
Category:Computability theory
Category:Descriptive complexity
Category:Measures of complexity
Category:Computational complexity theory
Category:Data compression |
Kolmogorov complexity | Table of Content | short description, Definition, Intuition, Plain Kolmogorov complexity ''C'', Prefix-free Kolmogorov complexity ''K'', Invariance theorem, Informal treatment, A more formal treatment, History and context, Basic results, Inequalities, Uncomputability of Kolmogorov complexity, A naive attempt at a program to compute ''K'', Formal proof of uncomputability of ''K'', Chain rule for Kolmogorov complexity, Compression, Chaitin's incompleteness theorem, Minimum message length, Kolmogorov randomness, Relation to entropy, Halting problem, Universal probability, Conditional versions, Time-bounded complexity, See also, Notes, References, Further reading, External links |
Hymn to Proserpine | Use dmy dates | "Hymn to Proserpine" is a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne, published in Poems and Ballads in 1866. The poem is addressed to the goddess Proserpina, the Roman equivalent of Persephone, but laments the rise of Christianity for displacing the pagan goddess and her pantheon.
The epigraph at the beginning of the poem is the phrase Vicisti, Galilaee, Latin for "You have conquered, O Galilean", the supposed dying words of the Emperor Julian.. He had tried to reverse the official endorsement of Christianity by the Roman Empire. The poem is cast in the form of a lament by a person professing the paganism of classical antiquity and lamenting its passing, and expresses regret at the rise of Christianity.
The line "Time and the Gods are at strife" inspired the title of Lord Dunsany's Time and the Gods.
The poem is quoted by Sue Bridehead in Thomas Hardy's 1895 novel Jude the Obscure, and also by Edward Ashburnham in Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier. |
Hymn to Proserpine | See also | See also
"The Garden of Proserpine", another poem by A. C. Swinburne
Poems and Ballads |
Hymn to Proserpine | References | References |
Hymn to Proserpine | External links | External links
Full text at the University of Toronto Library
Category:British poems
Category:1866 poems
Category:Victorian poetry
Category:Proserpina
Category:Poetry by Algernon Charles Swinburne |
Hymn to Proserpine | Table of Content | Use dmy dates, See also, References, External links |
The Triumph of Time | Short description | "The Triumph of Time" is a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne, published in Poems and Ballads in 1866. It is in adapted ottava rima and is full of elaborate use of literary devices, particularly alliteration. The theme, which purports to be autobiographical, is that of rejected love. The speaker deplores the ruin of his life, and in tones at times reminiscent of Hamlet, craves oblivion, for which the sea serves as a constant metaphor. |
The Triumph of Time | See also | See also
Poems and Ballads |
The Triumph of Time | Notes | Notes |
The Triumph of Time | External links | External links
Complete text of the poem
Victorian Web article on the poem
Category:British poems
Category:1866 poems
Category:Poetry by Algernon Charles Swinburne |
The Triumph of Time | Table of Content | Short description, See also, Notes, External links |
April 28 | pp-pc1 | |
April 28 | Events | Events |
April 28 | Pre-1600 | Pre-1600
224 – The Battle of Hormozdgan is fought. Ardashir I defeats and kills Artabanus V, effectively ending the Parthian Empire.
357 – Emperor Constantius II enters Rome for the first time to celebrate his victory over Magnus Magnentius.
1192 – Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I), King of Jerusalem, in Tyre, two days after his title to the throne is confirmed by election. The killing is carried out by Hashshashin.
1253 – Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk, propounds Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō for the first time and declares it to be the essence of Buddhism, in effect founding Nichiren Buddhism.
1294 – Temür, grandson of Kublai, is elected Khagan of the Mongols with the reigning title Oljeitu.
1503 – The Battle of Cerignola is fought. It is noted as one of the first European battles in history won by small arms fire using gunpowder. |
April 28 | 1601–1900 | 1601–1900
1611 – Establishment of the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, the Catholic University of the Philippines and the largest Catholic university in the world.
1625 – A combined Spanish and Portuguese fleet of 52 ships commences the recapture of Bahia from the Dutch during the Dutch–Portuguese War.
1758 – The Marathas defeat the Afghans in the Battle of Attock and capture the city.
1788 – Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the United States Constitution.
1789 – Mutiny on the Bounty: Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift, and the rebel crew returns to Tahiti briefly before setting sail for Pitcairn Island.
1792 – France invades the Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium and Luxembourg), beginning the French Revolutionary Wars.
1794 – Sardinians, headed by Giovanni Maria Angioy, start a revolution against the Savoy domination, expelling Viceroy Balbiano and his officials from Cagliari, the capital and largest city of the island.
1796 – The Armistice of Cherasco is signed by Napoleon Bonaparte and Vittorio Amedeo III, King of Sardinia, expanding French territory along the Mediterranean coast.
1859 – The sailing clipper ship Pomona wrecked on the coast of Ireland with the loss of 424 of the 448 passengers and crew aboard.
1869 – Chinese and Irish laborers for the Central Pacific Railroad working on the First transcontinental railroad lay ten miles of track in one day, a feat which has never been matched.
1881 – Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico.
1887 – A week after being arrested by the Prussian Secret Police, French police inspector Guillaume Schnaebelé is released on order of William I, German Emperor, defusing a possible war. |
April 28 | 1901–present | 1901–present
1910 – Frenchman Louis Paulhan wins the 1910 London to Manchester air race, the first long-distance aeroplane race in the United Kingdom.
1920 – The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic is founded.
1923 – Wembley Stadium is opened, named initially as the Empire Stadium.
1930 – The Independence Producers host the first night game in the history of Organized Baseball in Independence, Kansas.
1937 – South African medical researcher Max Theiler develops the yellow fever vaccine at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City.
1941 – The Ustaše massacre nearly 200 Serbs in the village of Gudovac, the first massacre of their genocidal campaign against Serbs of the Independent State of Croatia.
1944 – World War II: Nine German E-boats attack US and UK units during Exercise Tiger, the rehearsal for the Normandy landings, killing 946.
1945 – Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are shot dead by Walter Audisio, a member of the Italian resistance movement.
1945 – The Holocaust: Nazi Germany carries out its final use of gas chambers to execute 33 Upper Austrian socialist and communist leaders in Mauthausen concentration camp.
1947 – Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to demonstrate that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia.
1948 – Igor Stravinsky conducts the premiere of his American ballet, Orpheus at the New York City Center.
1949 – The Hukbalahap are accused of assassinating former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, while she is en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband; her daughter and ten others are also killed.
1952 – Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in order to campaign in the 1952 United States presidential election.
1952 – The Treaty of San Francisco comes into effect, restoring Japanese sovereignty and ending its state of war with most of the Allies of World War II.
1952 – The Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (Treaty of Taipei) is signed in Taipei, Taiwan between Japan and the Republic of China to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War.
1965 – United States occupation of the Dominican Republic: American troops land in the Dominican Republic to "forestall establishment of a Communist dictatorship" and to evacuate US Army troops.
1967 – Vietnam War: Boxer Muhammad Ali refuses his induction into the United States Army and is subsequently stripped of his championship and license.
1969 – Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France.
1970 – Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon formally authorizes American combat troops to take part in the Cambodian campaign.
1973 – The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, recorded in Abbey Road Studios goes to number one on the US Billboard chart, beginning a record-breaking 741-week chart run.
1975 – General Cao Văn Viên, chief of the South Vietnamese military, departs for the US as the North Vietnamese Army closes in on victory.
1977 – The Red Army Faction trial ends, with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe found guilty of four counts of murder and more than 30 counts of attempted murder.
1978 – The President of Afghanistan, Mohammad Daoud Khan, is overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by pro-communist rebels.
1983 – The West German news magazine Stern begins publishing excerpts from the purported diaries of Adolf Hitler, later revealed to be forgeries.
1986 – High levels of radiation resulting from the Chernobyl disaster are detected at Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden, leading Soviet authorities to publicly announce the accident.
1988 – Near Maui, Hawaii, flight attendant Clarabelle "C.B." Lansing is blown out of Aloha Airlines Flight 243, a Boeing 737, and falls to her death when part of the plane's fuselage rips open in mid-flight.
1991 – Space Shuttle Discovery launches on STS-39, the first unclassified shuttle mission for the United States Department of Defense.
1994 – Former Central Intelligence Agency counterintelligence officer and analyst Aldrich Ames pleads guilty to giving US secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia.
1996 – Whitewater controversy: President Bill Clinton gives a 4 hour videotaped testimony for the defense.
1996 – Port Arthur massacre, Tasmania: A gunman, Martin Bryant, opens fire at the Broad Arrow Cafe in Port Arthur, Tasmania, killing 35 people and wounding 23 others.
2004 – CBS News releases evidence of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse. The photographs show rape and abuse from the American troops over Iraqi detainees. |
April 28 | Births | Births |
April 28 | Pre-1600 | Pre-1600
AD 32 – Otho, Roman emperor (d. 69 AD)
1402 – Nezahualcoyotl, Acolhuan philosopher, warrior, poet and ruler (d. 1472)
1442 – Edward IV, king of England (d. 1483)
1545 – Yi Sun-sin, Korean commander (d. 1598)
1573 – Charles de Valois, Duke of Angoulême, son of Charles IX (d. 1650) |
April 28 | 1601–1900 | 1601–1900
1604 – Joris Jansen Rapelje, Dutch settler in colonial North America (d. 1662)
1623 – Wilhelmus Beekman, Dutch politician (d. 1707)
1630 – Charles Cotton, English poet and author (d. 1687)
1676 – Frederick I, prince consort and king of Sweden (d. 1751)
1715 – Franz Sparry, Austrian composer and educator (d. 1767)
1758 – James Monroe, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 5th President of the United States (d. 1831)
1761 – Marie Harel, French cheesemaker (d. 1844)
1765 – Sylvestre François Lacroix, French mathematician and academic (d. 1834)
1819 – Ezra Abbot, American scholar and academic (d. 1884)
1827 – William Hall, Canadian soldier, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1904)
1838 – Tobias Asser, Dutch lawyer and scholar, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1913)
1848 – Ludvig Schytte, Danish pianist, composer, and educator (d. 1909)
1854 – Hertha Marks Ayrton, Polish-British engineer, mathematician, and physicist. (d. 1923)
1855 – José Malhoa, Portuguese painter (d. 1933)
1863 – Josiah Thomas, English-Australian miner and politician, 7th Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs (d. 1933)
1863 – Nikolai von Meck, Russian engineer (d. 1929)
1865 – Charles W. Woodworth, American entomologist and academic (d. 1940)
1868 – Lucy Booth, English composer (d. 1953)
1868 – Georgy Voronoy, Ukrainian-Russian mathematician and academic (d. 1908)
1874 – Karl Kraus, Austrian journalist and author (d. 1936)
1874 – Sidney Toler, American actor and director (d. 1947)
1876 – Nicola Romeo, Italian engineer and businessman (d. 1938)
1878 – Lionel Barrymore, American actor and director (d. 1954)
1886 – Erich Salomon, German-born news photographer (d. 1944)
1886 – Art Shaw, American hurdler (d. 1955)
1888 – Walter Tull, English footballer and soldier (d. 1918)
1889 – António de Oliveira Salazar, Portuguese economist and politician, 100th Prime Minister of Portugal (d. 1970)
1896 – Na Hye-sok, South Korean journalist, poet, and painter (d. 1948)
1896 – Tristan Tzara, Romanian-French poet and critic (d. 1963)
1897 – Ye Jianying, Chinese general and politician, Head of State of the People's Republic of China (d. 1986)
1900 – Alice Berry, Australian activist (d. 1978)
1900 – Heinrich Müller, German SS officer (d. 1945)
1900 – Jan Oort, Dutch astronomer and academic (d. 1992) |
April 28 | 1901–present | 1901–present
1901 – H. B. Stallard, English runner and surgeon (d. 1973)
1902 – Johan Borgen, Norwegian author and critic (d. 1979)
1906 – Kurt Gödel, Czech-American mathematician, philosopher, and academic (d. 1978)
1906 – Paul Sacher, Swiss conductor and philanthropist (d. 1999)
1908 – Ethel Catherwood, American-Canadian high jumper and javelin thrower (d. 1987)
1908 – Jack Fingleton, Australian cricketer, journalist, and sportscaster (d. 1981)
1908 – Oskar Schindler, Czech-German businessman (d. 1974)
1909 – Arthur Võõbus, Estonian-American theologist and orientalist (d. 1988)
1910 – Sam Merwin, Jr., American author (d. 1996)
1911 – Lee Falk, American director, producer, and playwright (d. 1999)
1912 – Odette Hallowes, French soldier and spy (d. 1995)
1912 – Kaneto Shindō, Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012)
1913 – Rose Murphy, American singer (d. 1989)
1914 – Michel Mohrt, French author, historian (d. 2011)
1916 – Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian businessman, created Lamborghini (d. 1993)
1917 – Robert Cornthwaite, American actor (d. 2006)
1921 – Rowland Evans, American soldier, journalist, and author (d. 2001)
1921 – Simin Daneshvar, Iranian author and academic (d. 2012)
1923 – Carolyn Cassady, American author (d. 2013)
1923 – William Guarnere, American sergeant (d. 2014)
1924 – Dick Ayers, American author and illustrator (d. 2014)
1924 – Blossom Dearie, American singer and pianist (d. 2009)
1924 – Kenneth Kaunda, Zambian educator and politician, first president of Zambia (d. 2021)
1925 – T. John Lesinski, American judge and politician, 51st Lieutenant Governor of Michigan (d. 1996)
1925 – John Leonard Thorn, English lieutenant, author, and academic (d. 2023)
1926 – James Bama, American artist and illustrator (d. 2022)
1926 – Bill Blackbeard, American historian and author (d. 2011)
1926 – Harper Lee, American novelist (d. 2016)
1926 – Hulusi Sayın, Turkish general (d. 1991)
1928 – Yves Klein, French painter (d. 1962)
1928 – Eugene Merle Shoemaker, American geologist and astronomer (d. 1997)
1930 – James Baker, American lawyer and politician, 61st United States Secretary of State
1930 – Carolyn Jones, American actress (d. 1983)
1933 – Miodrag Radulovacki, Serbian-American neuropharmacologist and academic (d. 2014)
1934 – Lois Duncan, American journalist and author (d. 2016)
1935 – Pedro Ramos, Cuban baseball player
1936 – Tariq Aziz, Iraqi journalist and politician, Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 2015)
1937 – Saddam Hussein, Iraqi general and politician, 5th President of Iraq (d. 2006)
1937 – Jean Redpath, Scottish singer-songwriter (d. 2014)
1937 – John White, Scottish international footballer (d. 1964)
1938 – Madge Sinclair, Jamaican-American actress (d. 1995)
1941 – Ann-Margret, Swedish-American actress, singer, and dancer
1941 – Lucien Aimar, French cyclist
1941 – John Madejski, English businessman and academic
1941 – Karl Barry Sharpless, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1941 – Iryna Zhylenko, Ukrainian poet and author (d. 2013)
1942 – Mike Brearley, English cricketer and psychoanalyst
1943 – Aryeh Bibi, Iraqi-born Israeli politician
1944 – Elizabeth LeCompte, American director and producer
1944 – Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe, Belgian politician, 10th Minister-President of Wallonia
1944 – Alice Waters, American chef and author
1946 – Nour El-Sherif, Egyptian actor and producer (d. 2015)
1946 – Ginette Reno, Canadian singer-songwriter and actress
1946 – Larissa Grunig, American theorist and activist
1947 – Steve Khan, American jazz guitarist
1948 – Terry Pratchett, English journalist, author, and screenwriter (d. 2015)
1948 – Marcia Strassman, American actress and singer (d. 2014)
1949 – Jeremy Cooke, English lawyer and judge
1949 – Paul Guilfoyle, American actor
1949 – Bruno Kirby, American actor and director (d. 2006)
1950 – Willie Colón, Puerto Rican-American trombonist and producer
1950 – Jay Leno, American comedian, talk show host, and producer
1950 – Steve Rider, English journalist and sportscaster
1951 – Tim Congdon, English economist and politician
1951 – Larry Smith, Canadian football player and politician
1952 – Chuck Leavell, American singer-songwriter and keyboard player
1952 – Mary McDonnell, American actress
1953 – Roberto Bolaño, Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet, and essayist (d. 2003)
1953 – Kim Gordon, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1953 – Brian Greenhoff, English footballer and coach (d. 2013)
1954 – Timothy Curley, American educator
1954 – Michael P. Jackson, American politician, 3rd Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security
1954 – Vic Sotto, Filipino actor-producer, singer-songwriter, comedian and television personality
1954 – Ron Zook, American football player and coach
1955 – Saeb Erekat, Chief Palestinian negotiator (d. 2020)
1955 – Eddie Jobson, English keyboard player and violinist
1956 – Jimmy Barnes, Scottish-Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1958 – Hal Sutton, American golfer
1960 – Tom Browning, American baseball player (d. 2022)
1960 – Elena Kagan, American lawyer and jurist, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
1960 – Phil King, English bass player
1960 – Ian Rankin, Scottish author
1960 – Jón Páll Sigmarsson, Icelandic strongman and weightlifter (d. 1993)
1960 – Walter Zenga, Italian footballer and manager
1963 – Lloyd Eisler, Canadian figure skater and coach
1963 – Marc Lacroix, Belgian biochemist and academic
1964 – Stephen Ames, Trinidadian golfer
1964 – Noriyuki Iwadare, Japanese composer
1964 – Ajay Kakkar, Baron Kakkar, English surgeon and academic
1964 – Barry Larkin, American baseball player, manager, and sportscaster
1964 – L'Wren Scott, American model and fashion designer (d. 2014)
1966 – John Daly, American golfer
1966 – Too Short, American rapper, producer and actor
1967 – Chris White, English engineer and politician
1968 – Petra Bayr, Austrian politician
1968 – Howard Donald, English singer-songwriter and producer
1968 – Andy Flower, South-African-Zimbabwean cricketer and coach
1969 – LeRon Perry Ellis, American basketball player
1970 – Richard Fromberg, Australian tennis player
1970 – Nicklas Lidström, Swedish ice hockey player and scout
1970 – Diego Simeone, Argentinian footballer and manager
1971 – Bridget Moynahan, American actress
1972 – Violent J, American rapper
1972 – Jean-Paul van Gastel, Dutch footballer and manager
1973 – Jorge Garcia, American actor and producer
1973 – Andrew Mehrtens, South African-New Zealand rugby player
1974 – Penélope Cruz, Spanish actress and producer
1974 – Margo Dydek, Polish basketball player and coach (d. 2011)
1974 – Vernon Kay, English radio and television host
1974 – Dominic Matteo, Scottish footballer and journalist
1975 – Michael Walchhofer, Austrian skier
1977 – Titus O'Neil, American wrestler and football player
1978 – Lauren Laverne, English singer and television and radio host
1979 – Scott Fujita, American football player and sportscaster
1980 – Bradley Wiggins, English cyclist
1981 – Jessica Alba, American model and actress
1982 – Nikki Grahame, English model and journalist (d. 2021)
1982 – Chris Kaman, American basketball player
1983 – Josh Brookes, Australian motorcycle racer
1983 – David Freese, American baseball player
1983 – Roger Johnson, English footballer
1983 – Thomas Waldrom, New Zealand-English rugby player
1984 – Dmitri Torbinski, Russian footballer
1985 – Lucas Jakubczyk, German sprinter and long jumper
1985 – Deividas Stagniūnas, Lithuanian ice dancer
1986 – Roman Polák, Czech ice hockey player
1986 – Jenna Ushkowitz, Korean-American actress, singer, and dancer
1987 – Daequan Cook, American basketball player
1987 – Drew Gulak, American wrestler
1987 – Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Indian actress and model
1987 – Bradley Johnson, English footballer
1987 – Zoran Tošić, Serbian footballer
1988 – Jonathan Biabiany, French footballer
1988 – Juan Mata, Spanish footballer
1989 – Emil Salomonsson, Swedish footballer
1989 – Kim Sung-kyu, South Korean singer
1992 – Blake Bortles, American football player
1992 – DeMarcus Lawrence, American football player
1993 – Matt Chapman, American baseball player
1993 – Eva Samková, Czech snowboarder
1994 – Jakob Butturff, American bowler
1994 – Wonpil, South Korean musician
1995 – Connor Clifton, American ice hockey player
1995 – Melanie Martinez, American singer
1997 – Shane McClanahan, American baseball player
1997 – Denzel Ward, American football player
1998 – Song Yu-bin, South Korean singer and actor
2000 – Victoria De Angelis, Italian musician
2000 – Alek Thomas, American baseball player
2001 – Anthony Volpe, American baseball player |
April 28 | Deaths | Deaths |
April 28 | Pre-1600 | Pre-1600
224 – Artabanus IV of Parthia (b. 191)
948 – Hu Jinsi, Chinese general and prefect
988 – Adaldag, archbishop of Bremen
992 – Jawhar as-Siqilli, Fatimid statesman*
1109 – Abbot Hugh of Cluny (b. 1024)
1192 – Conrad of Montferrat (b. 1140)
1197 – Rhys ap Gruffydd, prince of Deheubarth (b. 1132)
1257 – Shajar al-Durr, sovereign sultana of Egypt
1260 – Luchesius Modestini, founding member of the Third Order of St. Francis
1400 – Baldus de Ubaldis, Italian jurist (b. 1327)
1489 – Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland, English politician (b. 1449)
1533 – Nicholas West, English bishop and diplomat (b. 1461) |
April 28 | 1601–1900 | 1601–1900
1643 – Francisco de Lucena, Portuguese politician (b. 1578)
1710 – Thomas Betterton, English actor and manager (b. 1630)
1716 – Louis de Montfort, French priest and saint (b. 1673)
1726 – Thomas Pitt, English merchant and politician (b. 1653)
1741 – Magnus Julius De la Gardie, Swedish general and politician (b. 1668)
1772 – Johann Friedrich Struensee, German physician and politician (b. 1737)
1781 – Cornelius Harnett, American merchant, farmer, and politician (b. 1723)
1813 – Mikhail Kutuzov, Russian field marshal (b. 1745)
1816 – Johann Heinrich Abicht, German philosopher, author, and academic (b. 1762)
1841 – Peter Chanel, French priest, missionary, and martyr (b. 1803)
1853 – Ludwig Tieck, German author and poet (b. 1773)
1858 – Johannes Peter Müller, German physiologist and anatomist (b. 1801)
1865 – Samuel Cunard, Canadian-English businessman, founded Cunard Line (b. 1787)
1881 – Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon, French sculptor and photographer (b. 1818)
1883 – John Russell, English hunter and dog breeder (b. 1795) |
April 28 | 1901–present | 1901–present
1902 – Cyprien Tanguay, Canadian priest and historian (b. 1819)
1903 – Josiah Willard Gibbs, American scientist (b. 1839)
1905 – Fitzhugh Lee, American general and politician, 40th Governor of Virginia (b. 1835)
1921 – Maurice Moore (Irish republican), executed member of the Irish Republican Army (b. 1894)MacEoin, Uinseann (1997), The IRA in the twilight years 1923-1948, Argenta Publications, Dublin, pg. 797, ISBN 9780951117248
1925 – Richard Butler, English-Australian politician, 23rd Premier of South Australia (b. 1850)
1928 – May Jordan McConnel, Australian trade unionist and suffragist (b. 1860)
1929 – Hendrik van Heuckelum, Dutch footballer (b. 1879)
1936 – Fuad I of Egypt (b. 1868)
1939 – Anne Walter Fearn, American physician (b. 1867)
1944 – Mohammed Alim Khan, Manghud ruler (b. 1880)
1944 – Frank Knox, American journalist and politician, 46th United States Secretary of the Navy (b. 1874)
1945 – Roberto Farinacci, Italian soldier and politician (b. 1892)
1945 – Hermann Fegelein, German general (b. 1906)
1945 – Benito Mussolini, Italian journalist and politician, 27th Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1883)
1946 – Louis Bachelier, French mathematician and academic (b. 1870)
1954 – Léon Jouhaux, French union leader, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1879)
1956 – Fred Marriott, American race car driver (b. 1872)
1957 – Heinrich Bär, German colonel and pilot (b. 1913)
1962 – Bennie Osler, South African rugby player (b. 1901)
1963 – Wilhelm Weber, German gymnast (b. 1880)
1970 – Ed Begley, American actor (b. 1901)
1973 – Clas Thunberg, Finnish speed skater (b. 1893)
1976 – Richard Hughes, American author and poet (b. 1900)
1977 – Ricardo Cortez, American actor (b. 1900)
1977 – Sepp Herberger, German footballer and coach (b. 1897)
1978 – Mohammed Daoud Khan, Afghan commander and politician, 1st President of Afghanistan (b. 1909)
1980 – Tommy Caldwell, American bass player (b. 1949)
1987 – Ben Linder, American engineer and activist (b. 1959)
1989 – Esa Pakarinen, Finnish actor and musician (b. 1911)
1991 – Steve Broidy, American film producer (b. 1905)
1992 – Francis Bacon, Irish painter (b. 1909)
1993 – Diva Diniz Corrêa, Brazilian zoologist (b. 1918)
1993 – Jim Valvano, American basketball player, coach, and sportscaster (b. 1946)
1994 – Berton Roueché, American journalist and author (b. 1910)
1996 – Lester Sumrall, American minister, founded LeSEA (b. 1913)
1997 – Ann Petry, American novelist (b. 1908)
1998 – Jerome Bixby, American author and screenwriter (b. 1923)
1999 – Rory Calhoun, American actor, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1922)
1999 – Rolf Landauer, German-American physicist and engineer (b. 1927)
1999 – Alf Ramsey, English footballer and manager (b. 1920)
1999 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1921)
2000 – Jerzy Einhorn, Polish-Swedish physician and politician (b. 1925)
2000 – Penelope Fitzgerald, English author and poet (b. 1916)
2002 – Alexander Lebed, Russian general and politician (b. 1950)
2002 – Lou Thesz, American wrestler and trainer (b. 1916)
2005 – Percy Heath, American bassist (b. 1923)
2005 – Chris Candido, American wrestler (b. 1971)
2005 – Taraki Sivaram, Sri Lankan journalist and author (b. 1959)
2006 – Steve Howe, American baseball player (b. 1958)
2007 – Dabbs Greer, American actor (b. 1917)
2007 – René Mailhot, Canadian journalist (b. 1942)
2007 – Tommy Newsom, American saxophonist and bandleader (b. 1929)
2007 – Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, German physicist and philosopher (b. 1912)
2007 – Bertha Wilson, Scottish-Canadian lawyer and jurist (b. 1923)
2009 – Ekaterina Maximova, Russian ballerina and actress (b. 1939)
2009 – Richard Pratt, Polish-Australian businessman (b. 1934)
2011 – Erhard Loretan, Swiss mountaineer (b. 1959)
2012 – Fred Allen, New Zealand rugby player and coach (b. 1920)
2012 – Matilde Camus, Spanish poet and author (b. 1919)
2012 – Al Ecuyer, American football player (b. 1937)
2012 – Patricia Medina, English actress (b. 1919)
2012 – Milan N. Popović, Serbian psychiatrist and author (b. 1924)
2012 – Aberdeen Shikoyi, Kenyan rugby player (b. 1985)
2013 – Brad Lesley, American baseball player (b. 1958)
2013 – Fredrick McKissack, American author (b. 1939)
2013 – John C. Reynolds, American computer scientist and academic (b. 1935)
2013 – Jack Shea, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1928)
2013 – János Starker, Hungarian-American cellist and educator (b. 1924)
2013 – Paulo Vanzolini, Brazilian singer-songwriter and zoologist (b. 1924)
2013 – Bernie Wood, New Zealand journalist and author (b. 1939)
2014 – Barbara Fiske Calhoun, American cartoonist and painter (b. 1919)
2014 – William Honan, American journalist and author (b. 1930)
2014 – Dennis Kamakahi, American guitarist and composer (b. 1953)
2014 – Edgar Laprade, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1919)
2014 – Jack Ramsay, American basketball player, coach, and sportscaster (b. 1925)
2014 – Idris Sardi, Indonesian violinist and composer (b. 1938)
2014 – Frederic Schwartz, American architect, co-designed Empty Sky (b. 1951)
2014 – Ryan Tandy, Australian rugby player (b. 1981)
2015 – Antônio Abujamra, Brazilian actor and director (b. 1932)
2015 – Marcia Brown, American author and illustrator (b. 1918)
2015 – Michael J. Ingelido, American general (b. 1916)
2016 – Jenny Diski, English author and screenwriter (b. 1947)
2017 – Mariano Gagnon, American Catholic priest and author (b. 1929)
2018 – James Hylton, American race car driver (b. 1934)
2019 – Richard Lugar, American politician (b. 1932)
2019 – John Singleton, American film director (b. 1968)
2021 – Michael Collins, American astronaut (b. 1930)
2021 – El Risitas, Spanish comedian (b. 1956)
2024 – Brian McCardie, Scottish actor and writer (b. 1965) |
April 28 | Holidays and observances | Holidays and observances
Christian feast day:
Aphrodisius and companions
Gianna Beretta Molla
Kirill of Turov (Orthodox, added to Roman Martyrology in 1969)
Louis de Montfort
Pamphilus of Sulmona
Peter Chanel
Vitalis and Valeria of Milan
April 28 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Mujahideen Victory Day (Afghanistan)
National Heroes Day (Barbados)
Restoration of Sovereignty Day (Japan)
Sardinia Day (Sardinia)
Workers' Memorial Day and World Day for Safety and Health at Work (international)
National Day of Mourning (Canada) |
April 28 | References | References |
April 28 | External links | External links
BBC: On This Day
Historical Events on April 28
Category:Days of April |
April 28 | Table of Content | pp-pc1, Events, Pre-1600, 1601–1900, 1901–present, Births, Pre-1600, 1601–1900, 1901–present, Deaths, Pre-1600, 1601–1900, 1901–present, Holidays and observances, References, External links |
Alfred the Great | Short description | Alfred the Great ( ; – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfred was young. Three of Alfred's brothers, Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred, reigned in turn before him. Under Alfred's rule, considerable administrative and military reforms were introduced, prompting lasting change in England.
After ascending the throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He won a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in 878 and made an agreement with the Vikings, dividing England between Anglo-Saxon territory and the Viking-ruled Danelaw, composed of Scandinavian York, the north-east Midlands and East Anglia. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of Viking leader Guthrum to Christianity. He defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, becoming the dominant ruler in England. Alfred began styling himself as "King of the Anglo-Saxons" after reoccupying London from the Vikings. Details of his life are described in a work by 9th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser.
Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, establishing a court school for both nobles and commoners to be educated in both English and Latin, and improving the legal system and military structure and his people's quality of life. He was given the epithet "the Great" from as early as the 13th century, though it was only popularised from the 16th century. Alfred is the only native-born English monarch to be labelled as such. |
Alfred the Great | Family | Family
Alfred was the youngest son of Æthelwulf, king of Wessex, and his wife Osburh. According to his biographer, Asser, writing in 893, "In the year of our Lord's Incarnation 849 Alfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons", was born at the royal estate called Wantage, in the district known as Berkshire ("which is so called from Berroc Wood, where the box tree grows very abundantly"). This date has been accepted by the editors of Asser's biography, Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, and by other historians such as David Dumville, Justin Pollard and Richard Huscroft. West Saxon genealogical lists state that Alfred was 23 when he became king in April 871, implying that he was born between April 847 and April 848. This dating is adopted in the biography of Alfred by Alfred Smyth, who regards Asser's biography as fraudulent, an allegation which is rejected by other historians. Richard Abels in his biography discusses both sources but does not decide between them and dates Alfred's birth as 847/849, while Patrick Wormald in his Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article dates it 848/849. Berkshire had been historically disputed between Wessex and the midland kingdom of Mercia, and as late as 844, a charter showed that it was part of Mercia, but Alfred's birth in the county is evidence that, by the late 840s, control had passed to Wessex.
He was the youngest of six children. His eldest brother, Æthelstan, was old enough to be appointed sub-king of Kent in 839, almost 10 years before Alfred was born. He died in the early 850s. Alfred's next three brothers were successively kings of Wessex. Æthelbald (858–860) and Æthelberht (860–865) were also much older than Alfred, but Æthelred (865–871) was only a year or two older. Alfred's only known sister, Æthelswith, married Burgred, king of Mercia in 853. Most historians think that Osburh was the mother of all Æthelwulf's children, but some suggest that the older ones were born to an unrecorded first wife. Osburh was descended from the rulers of the Isle of Wight. She was described by Asser as "a most religious woman, noble in character and noble by birth". She had died by 856 when Æthelwulf married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, king of West Francia.
In 868, Alfred married Ealhswith, daughter of the Mercian nobleman Æthelred Mucel, ealdorman of the Gaini, and his wife Eadburh, who was of royal Mercian descent. Their children were Æthelflæd, who married Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians; Edward the Elder, Alfred's successor as king; Æthelgifu, abbess of Shaftesbury; Ælfthryth, who married Baldwin, count of Flanders; and Æthelweard. |
Alfred the Great | Background | Background
thumb|upright=1.35|Map of Britain in 886
Alfred's grandfather, Ecgberht, became king of Wessex in 802, and in the view of the historian Richard Abels, it must have seemed very unlikely to contemporaries that he would establish a lasting dynasty. For 200 years, three families had fought for the West Saxon throne, and no son had followed his father as king. No ancestor of Ecgberht had been a king of Wessex since Ceawlin in the late sixth century, but he was believed to be a paternal descendant of Cerdic, the founder of the West Saxon dynasty. This made Ecgberht an ætheling – a prince eligible for the throne. But after Ecgberht's reign, descent from Cerdic was no longer sufficient to make a man an ætheling. When Ecgberht died in 839, he was succeeded by his son Æthelwulf; all subsequent West Saxon kings were descendants of Ecgberht and Æthelwulf, and were also sons of kings.
At the beginning of the ninth century, England was almost wholly under the control of the Anglo-Saxons. Mercia dominated southern England, but its supremacy came to an end in 825 when it was decisively defeated by Ecgberht at the Battle of Ellendun. Mercia and Wessex became allies, which was important in the resistance to Viking attacks. In 853, King Burgred of Mercia requested West Saxon help to suppress a Welsh rebellion, and Æthelwulf led a West Saxon contingent in a successful joint campaign. In the same year Burgred married Æthelwulf's daughter, Æthelswith.
In 825, Ecgberht sent Æthelwulf to invade the Mercian sub-kingdom of Kent, and its sub-king, Baldred, was driven out shortly afterwards. By 830, Essex, Surrey and Sussex had submitted to Ecgberht, and he had appointed Æthelwulf to rule the south-eastern territories as king of Kent. The Vikings ravaged the Isle of Sheppey in 835, and the following year they defeated Ecgberht at Carhampton in Somerset, but in 838 he was victorious over an alliance of Cornishmen and Vikings at the Battle of Hingston Down, reducing Cornwall to the status of a client kingdom. When Æthelwulf succeeded to the throne, he appointed his eldest son Æthelstan as sub-king of Kent. Ecgberht and Æthelwulf may not have intended a permanent union between Wessex and Kent because they both appointed sons as sub-kings, and charters in Wessex were attested (witnessed) by West Saxon magnates, while Kentish charters were witnessed by the Kentish elite; both kings kept overall control, and the sub-kings were not allowed to issue their own coinage.
Viking raids increased in the early 840s on both sides of the English Channel, and in 843 Æthelwulf was defeated at Carhampton. In 850, Æthelstan defeated a Danish fleet off Sandwich in the first recorded naval battle in English history. In 851, Æthelwulf and his second son, Æthelbald, defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Aclea and, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen raiding-army that we have heard tell of up to this present day, and there took the victory". Æthelwulf died in 858 and was succeeded by his oldest surviving son, Æthelbald, as king of Wessex and by his next oldest son, Æthelberht, as king of Kent. Æthelbald only survived his father by two years, and Æthelberht then for the first time united Wessex and Kent into a single kingdom. |
Alfred the Great | Childhood | Childhood
thumb|Alfred's father Æthelwulf of Wessex in the early 14th-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England
According to Asser, in his childhood Alfred won a beautifully decorated book of English poetry, offered as a prize by his mother to the first of her sons able to memorise it. He must have had it read to him because his mother died when he was about six and he did not learn to read until he was 12. In 853, Alfred is reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have been sent to Rome where he was confirmed by Pope Leo IV, who "anointed him as king". Victorian writers later interpreted this as an anticipatory coronation in preparation for his eventual succession to the throne of Wessex. This is unlikely; his succession could not have been foreseen at the time because Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a "consul" and a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could explain later confusion. It may be based upon the fact that Alfred later accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Rome where he spent some time at the court of Charles the Bald, king of the Franks, around 854–855. On their return from Rome in 856, Æthelwulf was deposed by his son Æthelbald. With civil war looming, the magnates of the realm met in council to form a compromise. Æthelbald retained the western shires (i.e. historical Wessex), and Æthelwulf ruled in the east. After King Æthelwulf died in 858, Wessex was ruled by three of Alfred's brothers in succession: Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred. |
Alfred the Great | The reigns of Alfred's brothers | The reigns of Alfred's brothers
thumb|A map of the route taken by the Viking Great Heathen Army which arrived in England from Denmark, Norway and southern Sweden in 865.
Alfred is not mentioned during the short reigns of his older brothers Æthelbald and Æthelberht. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the Great Heathen Army of Danes landing in East Anglia with the intent of conquering the four kingdoms which constituted Anglo-Saxon England in 865. Alfred's public life began in 865 at age 16 with the accession of his third brother, 18-year-old Æthelred. During this period, Bishop Asser gave Alfred the unique title of secundarius, which may indicate a position similar to the Celtic tanist, a recognised successor closely associated with the reigning monarch. This arrangement may have been sanctioned by Alfred's father or by the Witan to guard against the danger of a disputed succession should Æthelred fall in battle. It was a well known tradition among other Germanic peoples – such as the Swedes and Franks to whom the Anglo-Saxons were closely related – to crown a successor as royal prince and military commander. |
Alfred the Great | Viking invasion | Viking invasion
In 868, Alfred was recorded as fighting beside Æthelred in a failed attempt to keep the Great Heathen Army led by Ivar the Boneless out of the adjoining Kingdom of Mercia. The Danes arrived in his homeland at the end of 870, and nine engagements were fought in the following year, with mixed results; the places and dates of two of these battles have not been recorded. A successful skirmish at the Battle of Englefield in Berkshire on 31 December 870 was followed by a severe defeat at the siege and the Battle of Reading by Ivar's brother Halfdan Ragnarsson on 5 January 871. Four days later, the Anglo-Saxons won a victory at the Battle of Ashdown on the Berkshire Downs, possibly near Compton or Aldworth. The Saxons were defeated at the Battle of Basing on 22 January. They were defeated again on 22 March at the Battle of Merton (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire or Martin in Dorset). Æthelred died shortly afterwards in April 871. |
Alfred the Great | King at war | King at war |
Alfred the Great | Early struggles | Early struggles
In April 871, King Æthelred died and Alfred acceded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, even though Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. This was in accordance with the agreement that Æthelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at an unidentified place called Swinbeorg. The brothers had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King Æthelwulf had left jointly to his sons in his will. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches their father had settled upon them and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the Danish invasion and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested.
While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the Saxon army in his absence at an unnamed spot and then again in his presence at Wilton in May. The defeat at Wilton smashed any remaining hope that Alfred could drive the invaders from his kingdom. Alfred was forced instead to make peace with them. Although the terms of the peace are not recorded, Bishop Asser wrote that the pagans agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise.
The Viking army withdrew from Reading in the autumn of 871 to take up winter quarters in Mercian London. Although not mentioned by Asser or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably paid the Vikings silver to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year. Hoards dating to the Viking occupation of London in 871/872 have been excavated at Croydon, Gravesend and Waterloo Bridge. These finds hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings. For the next five years, the Danes occupied other parts of England.
In 876, under Guthrum, Oscetel and Anwend, the Danes slipped past the Saxon army and attacked and occupied Wareham in Dorset. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault. He negotiated a peace that involved an exchange of hostages and oaths, which the Danes swore on a "holy ring" associated with the worship of Thor. The Danes broke their word, and after killing all the hostages, slipped away under cover of night to Exeter in Devon.
Alfred blockaded the Viking ships in Devon, and with a relief fleet having been scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. The Danes withdrew to Mercia. In January 878, the Danes made a sudden attack on Chippenham, a royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas "and most of the people they killed, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made his way by wood and swamp, and after Easter he made a fort at Athelney in the marshes of Somerset, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe". Considering the fate of the Mercians' kingdom under similar Viking pressure and an analysis of charter signatories either side of the raid it has been suggested that Alfred may have fallen prey to a Witan coup at Chippenham rather than simply being surprised by a Viking attack. From his fort at Athelney, an island in the marshes near North Petherton, Alfred was able to mount a resistance campaign, rallying the local militias from Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. 878 was the nadir of the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. With all the other kingdoms having fallen to the Vikings, Wessex alone was resisting. |
Alfred the Great | Legend of burnt cake | Legend of burnt cake
Having fled to the Somerset Levels, Alfred was purportedly given shelter by a peasant woman who, unaware of his identity, asked him to mind some wheaten cakes she left baking by the fire. Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom, Alfred accidentally let the cakes burn, and was roundly scolded by the woman upon her return. The first written account of the legend appears a century after Alfred's death, though it may have earlier origins in folklore. |
Alfred the Great | Counter-attack and victory | Counter-attack and victory
thumb|upright=1.1|King Alfred's Tower (1772) in Somerset, on the supposed site of Egbert's Stone, the mustering place before the Battle of Edington
In the seventh week after Easter (4–10 May 878), around Whitsuntide, Alfred rode to Egbert's Stone east of Selwood where he was met by "all the people of Somerset and of Wiltshire and of that part of Hampshire which is on this side of the sea (that is, west of Southampton Water), and they rejoiced to see him". Alfred's emergence from his marshland stronghold was part of a carefully planned offensive that entailed raising the fyrds of three shires. This meant not only that the king had retained the loyalty of ealdormen, royal reeves and king's thegns, who were charged with levying and leading these forces, but that they had maintained their positions of authority in these localities well enough to answer his summons to war. Alfred's actions also suggest a system of scouts and messengers.
Alfred won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Edington which may have been fought near Westbury, Wiltshire. He then pursued the Danes to their stronghold at Chippenham and starved them into submission. One of the terms of the surrender was that Guthrum convert to Christianity. Three weeks later, the Danish king and 29 of his chief men were baptised at Alfred's court at Aller, near Athelney, with Alfred receiving Guthrum as his spiritual son.
According to Asser,
At Wedmore, Alfred and Guthrum negotiated what some historians have called the Treaty of Wedmore, but it was to be some years after the cessation of hostilities that a formal treaty was signed. Under the terms of the so-called Treaty of Wedmore, the converted Guthrum was required to leave Wessex and return to East Anglia. Consequently, in 879 the Viking army left Chippenham and made its way to Cirencester. The formal Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, preserved in Old English in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Manuscript 383), and in a Latin compilation known as Quadripartitus, was negotiated later, perhaps in 879 or 880, when King Ceolwulf II of Mercia was deposed.
That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. By its terms, the boundary between Alfred's and Guthrum's kingdoms was to run up the River Thames to the River Lea, follow the Lea to its source (near Luton), from there extend in a straight line to Bedford, and from Bedford follow the River Ouse to Watling Street.
Alfred succeeded to Ceolwulf's kingdom consisting of western Mercia, and Guthrum incorporated the eastern part of Mercia into an enlarged Kingdom of East Anglia (henceforward known as the Danelaw). By terms of the treaty, moreover, Alfred was to have control over the Mercian city of London and its mints—at least for the time being. In 825, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had recorded that the people of Essex, Sussex, Kent and Surrey surrendered to Egbert, Alfred's grandfather. From then until the arrival of the Great Heathen Army, Essex had formed part of Wessex. After the foundation of Danelaw, it appears that some of Essex would have been ceded to the Danes, but how much is not clear. |
Alfred the Great | 880s | 880s
With the signing of the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, an event most commonly held to have taken place around 880 when Guthrum's people began settling East Anglia, Guthrum was neutralised as a threat. The Viking army, which had stayed at Fulham during the winter of 878–879, sailed for Ghent and was active on the continent from 879 to 892.
There were local raids on the coast of Wessex throughout the 880s. In 882, Alfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish ships. Two of the ships were destroyed, and the others surrendered. This was one of four sea battles recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, three of which involved Alfred. Similar small skirmishes with independent Viking raiders would have occurred for much of the period as they had for decades.
In 883, Pope Marinus exempted the Saxon quarter in Rome from taxation, probably in return for Alfred's promise to send alms annually to Rome, which may be the origin of the medieval tax called Peter's Pence. The pope sent gifts to Alfred, including what was reputed to be a piece of the True Cross.
After the signing of the treaty with Guthrum, Alfred was spared any large-scale conflicts for some time. Despite this relative peace, the king was forced to deal with a number of Danish raids and incursions. Among these was a raid in Kent, an allied kingdom in South East England, during the year 885, which was possibly the largest raid since the battles with Guthrum. Asser's account of the raid places the Danish raiders at the Saxon city of Rochester, where they built a temporary fortress in order to besiege the city. In response to this incursion, Alfred led an Anglo-Saxon force against the Danes who, instead of engaging the army of Wessex, fled to their beached ships and sailed to another part of Britain. The retreating Danish force supposedly left Britain the following summer.
Not long after the failed Danish raid in Kent, Alfred dispatched his fleet to East Anglia. The purpose of this expedition is debated, but Asser claims that it was for the sake of plunder. After travelling up the River Stour, the fleet was met by Danish vessels that numbered 13 or 16 (sources vary on the number), and a battle ensued. The Anglo-Saxon fleet emerged victorious, and as Henry of Huntingdon writes, "laden with spoils". The victorious fleet was surprised when attempting to leave the River Stour and was attacked by a Danish force at the mouth of the river. The Danish fleet defeated Alfred's fleet, which may have been weakened in the previous engagement. |
Alfred the Great | King of the Anglo-Saxons | King of the Anglo-Saxons
thumb|upright=1.35|A plaque in the City of London noting the restoration of the Roman walled city by Alfred
A year later, in 886, Alfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to make it habitable again. Alfred entrusted the city to the care of his son-in-law Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia. Soon afterwards, Alfred restyled himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons". The restoration of London progressed through the latter half of the 880s and is believed to have revolved around a new street plan; added fortifications in addition to the existing Roman walls; and, some believe, the construction of matching fortifications on the south bank of the River Thames.
This is also the period in which almost all chroniclers agree that the Saxon people of pre-unification England submitted to Alfred. In 888, Æthelred, the archbishop of Canterbury, also died. One year later Guthrum, or Athelstan by his baptismal name, Alfred's former enemy and king of East Anglia, died and was buried in Hadleigh, Suffolk. Guthrum's death changed the political landscape for Alfred. The resulting power vacuum stirred other power-hungry warlords eager to take his place in the following years. |
Alfred the Great | Viking attacks (890s) | Viking attacks (890s)
After another lull, in the autumn of 892 or 893, the Danes attacked again. Finding their position in mainland Europe precarious, they crossed to England in 330 ships in two divisions. They entrenched themselves, the larger body at Appledore, Kent, and the lesser under Hastein, at Milton, also in Kent. The invaders brought their wives and children with them, indicating a meaningful attempt at conquest and colonisation. Alfred, in 893 or 894, took up a position from which he could observe both forces.
While he was in talks with Hastein, the Danes at Appledore broke out and struck north-westwards. They were overtaken by Alfred's eldest son Edward, and were defeated at the Battle of Farnham in Surrey. They took refuge on an island at Thorney, on the River Colne between Buckinghamshire and Middlesex, where they were blockaded and forced to give hostages and promise to leave Wessex. They then went to Essex and after suffering another defeat at Benfleet, joined with Hastein's force at Shoebury.
Alfred had been on his way to relieve his son at Thorney when he heard that the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes were besieging Exeter and an unnamed stronghold on the North Devon shore. Alfred at once hurried westward and raised the Siege of Exeter. The fate of the other place is not recorded.
The force under Hastein set out to march up the Thames Valley, possibly with the idea of assisting their friends in the west. They were met by a large force under the three great ealdormen of Mercia, Wiltshire and Somerset and forced to head off to the north-west, being finally overtaken and blockaded at Buttington. (Some identify this with Buttington Tump at the mouth of the River Wye, others with Buttington near Welshpool.) An attempt to break through the English lines failed. Those who escaped retreated to Shoebury. After collecting reinforcements, they made a sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined Roman walls of Chester. The English did not attempt a winter blockade but contented themselves with destroying all the supplies in the district.
Early in 894 or 895 lack of food obliged the Danes to retire once more to Essex. At the end of the year, the Danes drew their ships up the River Thames and the River Lea and fortified themselves north of London. A frontal attack on the Danish lines failed but later in the year, Alfred saw a means of obstructing the river to prevent the egress of the Danish ships. The Danes realised that they were outmanoeuvred, struck off north-westwards and wintered at Cwatbridge near Bridgnorth. The next year, 896 (or 897), they gave up the struggle. Some retired to Northumbria, some to East Anglia. Those who had no connections in England returned to the continent. |
Alfred the Great | Military reorganisation | Military reorganisation
thumb|Alfred the Great silver offering penny, 871–899. Legend: AELFRED REX SAXONUM ('Alfred King of the Saxons')
The Germanic tribes who invaded Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries relied upon the unarmoured infantry supplied by their tribal levy, or fyrd, and it was upon this system that the military power of the several kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England depended. The fyrd was a local militia in the Anglo-Saxon shire in which all freemen had to serve; those who refused military service were subject to fines or loss of their land. According to the law code of King Ine of Wessex, issued in :
Wessex's history of failures preceding Alfred's success in 878 emphasised to him that the traditional system of battle he had inherited played to the Danes' advantage. While the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes attacked settlements for plunder, they employed different tactics. In their raids the Anglo-Saxons traditionally preferred to attack head-on by assembling their forces in a shield wall, advancing against their target and overcoming the oncoming wall marshalled against them in defence. The Danes preferred to choose easy targets, mapping cautious forays to avoid risking their plunder with high-stake attacks for more. Alfred determined their tactic was to launch small attacks from a secure base to which they could retreat should their raiders meet strong resistance.
The bases were prepared in advance, often by capturing an estate and augmenting its defences with ditches, ramparts and palisades. Once inside the fortification, Alfred realised, the Danes enjoyed the advantage, better situated to outlast their opponents or crush them with a counter-attack because the provisions and stamina of the besieging forces waned.
The means by which the Anglo-Saxons marshalled forces to defend against marauders also left them vulnerable to the Vikings. It was the responsibility of the shire fyrd to deal with local raids. The king could call up the national militia to defend the kingdom but in the case of the Viking raids, problems with communication and raising supplies meant that the national militia could not be mustered quickly enough. It was only after the raids had begun that a call went out to landowners to gather their men for battle. Large regions could be devastated before the fyrd could assemble and arrive. Although the landowners were obliged to the king to supply these men when called, during the attacks in 878 many of them abandoned their king and collaborated with Guthrum.
With these lessons in mind Alfred capitalised on the relatively peaceful years following his victory at Edington with an ambitious restructuring of Saxon defences. On a trip to Rome Alfred had stayed with Charles the Bald, and it is possible that he may have studied how the Carolingian kings had dealt with Viking raiders. Learning from their experiences he was able to establish a system of taxation and defence for Wessex. There had been a system of fortifications in pre-Viking Mercia that may have been an influence. When the Viking raids resumed in 892 Alfred was better prepared to confront them with a standing, mobile field army, a network of garrisons and a small fleet of ships navigating the rivers and estuaries. |
Alfred the Great | Administration and taxation | Administration and taxation
Tenants in Anglo-Saxon England had a threefold obligation based on their landholding: the so-called "common burdens" of military service, fortress work, and bridge repair. This threefold obligation has traditionally been called trinoda necessitas or trimoda necessitas. The Old English name for the fine due for neglecting military service was . To maintain the burhs, and to reorganise the fyrd as a standing army, Alfred expanded the tax and conscription system based on the productivity of a tenant's landholding. The hide was the basic unit of the system on which the tenant's public obligations were assessed. A hide is thought to represent the amount of land required to support one family. The hide differed in size according to the value and resources of the land and the landowner would have to provide service based on how many hides he owned. |
Alfred the Great | Burghal system | Burghal system
thumb|A map of burhs named in the Burghal Hidage
thumb|The walled defence round a burh. The City Walls of Alfred's capital, Winchester. Saxon and medieval work on Roman foundations.
The foundation of Alfred's new military defence system was a network of burhs, distributed at tactical points throughout the kingdom. There were thirty-three burhs, about apart, enabling the military to confront attacks anywhere in the kingdom within a day.
Alfred's burhs (of which 22 developed into boroughs) ranged from former Roman towns, such as Winchester, where the stone walls were repaired and ditches added, to massive earthen walls surrounded by wide ditches, probably reinforced with wooden revetments and palisades, such as at Burpham in West Sussex. The size of the burhs ranged from tiny outposts such as Pilton in Devon, to large fortifications in established towns, the largest being at Winchester., which is referenced in
A document now known as the Burghal Hidage provides an insight into how the system worked. It lists the hidage for each of the fortified towns contained in the document. Wallingford had a hidage of 2,400, which meant that the landowners there were responsible for supplying and feeding 2,400 men, the number sufficient for maintaining of wall. A total of 27,071 soldiers were needed, approximately one in four of all the free men in Wessex. Many of the burhs were twin towns that straddled a river and were connected by a fortified bridge, like those built by Charles the Bald a generation before. The double-burh blocked passage on the river, forcing Viking ships to navigate under a garrisoned bridge lined with men armed with stones, spears or arrows. Other burhs were sited near fortified royal villas, allowing the king better control over his strongholds.
The burhs were connected by a road system maintained for army use (known as herepaths). The roads allowed an army quickly to be assembled, sometimes from more than one burh, to confront the Viking invader. The road network posed significant obstacles to Viking invaders, especially those laden with booty. The system threatened Viking routes and communications making it far more dangerous for them. The Vikings lacked the equipment for a siege against a burh and a developed doctrine of siegecraft, having tailored their methods of fighting to rapid strikes and unimpeded retreats to well-defended fortifications. The only means left to them was to starve the burh into submission but this gave the king time to send his field army or garrisons from neighbouring burhs along the army roads. In such cases, the Vikings were extremely vulnerable to pursuit by the king's joint military forces. Alfred's burh system posed such a formidable challenge against Viking attack that when the Vikings returned in 892 and stormed a half-built, poorly garrisoned fortress up the Lympne estuary in Kent, the Anglo-Saxons were able to limit their penetration to the outer frontiers of Wessex and Mercia. Alfred's burghal system was revolutionary in its strategic conception and potentially expensive in its execution. His contemporary biographer Asser wrote that many nobles balked at the demands placed upon them even though they were for "the common needs of the kingdom".Asser, translated by |
Alfred the Great | English navy | English navy
Alfred also tried his hand at naval design. In 896 he ordered the construction of a small fleet, perhaps a dozen or so longships that, at 60 oars, were twice the size of Viking warships. This was not, as the Victorians asserted, the birth of the English Navy. Wessex had possessed a royal fleet before this. Alfred's older brother sub-king Æthelstan of Kent and Ealdorman Ealhhere had defeated a Viking fleet in 851 capturing nine ships and Alfred had conducted naval actions in 882. The year 897 marked an important development in the naval power of Wessex. The author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle related that Alfred's ships were larger, swifter, steadier and rode higher in the water than either Danish or Frisian ships. It is probable that, under the classical tutelage of Asser, Alfred used the design of Greek and Roman warships, with high sides, designed for fighting rather than for navigation. the much more positive view of the capabilities of these ships in
Alfred had seapower in mind; if he could intercept raiding fleets before they landed, he could spare his kingdom from being ravaged. Alfred's ships may have been superior in conception, but in practice they proved to be too large to manoeuvre well in the close waters of estuaries and rivers, the only places in which a naval battle could be fought. The warships of the time were not designed to be ship killers but rather troop carriers. It has been suggested that, like sea battles in late Viking age Scandinavia, these battles may have entailed a ship coming alongside an opposing vessel, lashing the two ships together and then boarding the craft. The result was a land battle involving hand-to-hand fighting on board the two lashed vessels.
In the one recorded naval engagement in 896, Alfred's new fleet of nine ships intercepted six Viking ships at the mouth of an unidentified river in the south of England. The Danes had beached half their ships and gone inland. Alfred's ships immediately moved to block their escape. The three Viking ships afloat attempted to break through the English lines. Only one made it; Alfred's ships intercepted the other two. Lashing the Viking boats to their own, the English crew boarded and proceeded to kill the Vikings. One ship escaped because Alfred's heavy ships became grounded when the tide went out. A land battle ensued between the crews. The Danes were heavily outnumbered, but as the tide rose, they returned to their boats which, with shallower drafts, were freed first. The English watched as the Vikings rowed past them but they suffered so many casualties (120 dead against 62 Frisians and English) that they had difficulty putting out to sea. All were too damaged to row around Sussex, and two were driven against the Sussex coast (possibly at Selsey Bill). The shipwrecked crew were brought before Alfred at Winchester and hanged. |
Alfred the Great | Legal reform | Legal reform
thumb|A coin of Alfred, London, 880 (based upon a Roman model)
In the late 880s or early 890s, Alfred issued a long domboc or law code consisting of his own laws, followed by a code issued by his late seventh-century predecessor King Ine of Wessex. Together these laws are arranged into 120 chapters. In his introduction Alfred explains that he gathered together the laws he found in many "synod-books" and "ordered to be written many of the ones that our forefathers observed—those that pleased me; and many of the ones that did not please me, I rejected with the advice of my councillors, and commanded them to be observed in a different way"."Alfred" Intro. 49.9, trans. .
Alfred singled out in particular the laws that he "found in the days of Ine, my kinsman, or Offa, king of the Mercians, or King Æthelberht of Kent who first among the English people received baptism". He appended, rather than integrated, the laws of Ine into his code and although he included, as had Æthelbert, a scale of payments in compensation for injuries to various body parts, the two injury tariffs are not aligned. Offa is not known to have issued a law code, leading historian Patrick Wormald to speculate that Alfred had in mind the legatine capitulary of 786 that was presented to Offa by the papal legate George of Ostia.
About a fifth of the law code is taken up by Alfred's introduction which includes translations into English of the Ten Commandments, a few chapters from the Book of Exodus, and the Apostolic Letter from the Acts of the Apostles (15:23–29). The introduction may best be understood as Alfred's meditation upon the meaning of Christian law. It traces the continuity between God's gift of law to Moses to Alfred's own issuance of law to the West Saxon people. By doing so, it linked the holy past to the historical present and represented Alfred's law-giving as a type of divine legislation.
Similarly Alfred divided his code into 120 chapters because 120 was the age at which Moses died and, in the number-symbolism of early medieval biblical exegetes, 120 stood for law. The link between Mosaic law and Alfred's code is the Apostolic Letter which explained that Christ "had come not to shatter or annul the commandments but to fulfill them; and he taught mercy and meekness" (Intro, 49.1). The mercy that Christ infused into Mosaic law underlies the injury tariffs that figure so prominently in barbarian law codes since Christian synods "established, through that mercy which Christ taught, that for almost every misdeed at the first offence secular lords might with their permission receive without sin the monetary compensation which they then fixed"."Alfred" Intro, 49.7, trans.
The only crime that could not be compensated with a payment of money was treachery to a lord "since Almighty God adjudged none for those who despised Him, nor did Christ, the Son of God, adjudge any for the one who betrayed Him to death; and He commanded everyone to love his lord as Himself". Alfred's transformation of Christ's commandment, from "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Matt. 22:39–40) to love your secular lord as you would love the Lord Christ himself, underscores the importance that Alfred placed upon lordship which he understood as a sacred bond instituted by God for the governance of man. cites "Alfred's Pastoral Care" ch. 28
When one turns from the domboc introduction to the laws themselves, it is difficult to uncover any logical arrangement. The impression is of a hodgepodge of miscellaneous laws. The law code, as it has been preserved, is singularly unsuitable for use in lawsuits. In fact, several of Alfred's laws contradicted the laws of Ine that form an integral part of the code. Patrick Wormald's explanation is that Alfred's law code should be understood not as a legal manual but as an ideological manifesto of kingship "designed more for symbolic impact than for practical direction". In practical terms the most important law in the code may well have been the first: "We enjoin, what is most necessary, that each man keep carefully his oath and his pledge" which expresses a fundamental tenet of Anglo-Saxon law."Alfred" 2, in .
Alfred devoted considerable attention and thought to judicial matters. Asser underscores his concern for judicial fairness. Alfred, according to Asser, insisted upon reviewing contested judgments made by his ealdormen and reeves and "would carefully look into nearly all the judgements which were passed [issued] in his absence anywhere in the realm to see whether they were just or unjust".Asser chap. 106, in A charter from the reign of his son Edward the Elder depicts Alfred as hearing one such appeal in his chamber while washing his hands.The charter is Sawyer 1445 and is printed in .
Asser represents Alfred as a Solomonic judge, painstaking in his own judicial investigations and critical of royal officials who rendered unjust or unwise judgments. Although Asser never mentions Alfred's law code he does say that Alfred insisted that his judges be literate so that they could apply themselves "to the pursuit of wisdom". The failure to comply with this royal order was to be punished by loss of office.Asser, chap. 106, in .
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, commissioned at the time of Alfred, was probably written to promote unification of England, whereas Asser's The Life of King Alfred promoted Alfred's achievements and personal qualities. It was possible that the document was designed this way so that it could be disseminated in Wales because Alfred had acquired overlordship of that country. |
Alfred the Great | Foreign relations | Foreign relations
Asser speaks grandiosely of Alfred's relations with foreign powers but little definite information is available. His interest in foreign countries is shown by the insertions which he made in his translation of Orosius. He corresponded with Elias III, the patriarch of Jerusalem, and embassies to Rome conveying the English alms to the pope were fairly frequent. Around 890, Wulfstan of Hedeby undertook a journey from Hedeby on Jutland along the Baltic Sea to the Prussian trading town of Truso. Alfred personally collected details of this trip.
Alfred's relations with the Celtic princes in the western half of Great Britain are clearer. Comparatively early in his reign, according to Asser, the southern Welsh princes, owing to the pressure on them from North Wales and Mercia, commended themselves to Alfred. Later in his reign, the North Welsh followed their example and the latter cooperated with the English in the campaign of 893 (or 894). That Alfred sent alms to Irish and Continental monasteries may be taken on Asser's authority. The visit of three pilgrim "Scots" (i.e., Irish) to Alfred in 891 is undoubtedly authentic. The story that, in his childhood, he was sent to Ireland to be healed by Saint Modwenna may show Alfred's interest in that island. |
Alfred the Great | Religion, education and culture | Religion, education and culture
thumb|Alfred depicted in a stained-glass window of c. 1905 in Bristol Cathedral
In the 880s, at the same time that he was "cajoling and threatening" his nobles to build and man the burhs, Alfred, perhaps inspired by the example of Charlemagne almost a century before, undertook an equally ambitious effort to revive learning. During this period, the Viking raids were often seen as a divine punishment, and Alfred may have wished to revive religious awe in order to appease God's wrath.
This revival entailed the recruitment of clerical scholars from Mercia, Wales and abroad to enhance the tenor of the court and of the episcopacy; an attempt to require literacy in those who held offices of authority; a series of translations into the vernacular of Latin works the king deemed "most necessary for all men to know"; the compilation of a chronicle detailing the rise of Alfred's kingdom and house, with a genealogy that stretched back to Adam, thus giving the West Saxon kings a biblical ancestry.
Very little is known of the church under Alfred. The Danish attacks had been particularly damaging to the monasteries. Although Alfred founded monasteries at Athelney and Shaftesbury, these were the first new monastic houses in Wessex since the beginning of the eighth century. According to Asser, Alfred enticed foreign monks to England for his monastery at Athelney because there was little interest for the locals to take up the monastic life.
Alfred undertook no systematic reform of ecclesiastical institutions or religious practices in Wessex. For him, the key to the kingdom's spiritual revival was to appoint pious, learned, and trustworthy bishops and abbots. As king, he saw himself as responsible for both the temporal and spiritual welfare of his subjects. Secular and spiritual authority were not distinct categories for Alfred.
He was equally comfortable distributing his translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care to his bishops so that they might better train and supervise priests and using those same bishops as royal officials and judges. Nor did his piety prevent him from expropriating strategically sited church lands, especially estates along the border with the Danelaw, and transferring them to royal thegns and officials who could better defend them against Viking attacks. |
Alfred the Great | Effect of Danish raids on education | Effect of Danish raids on education
The Danish raids had a devastating effect on learning in England. Alfred lamented in the preface to his translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care that "learning had declined so thoroughly in England that there were very few men on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English or even translate a single letter from Latin into English: and I suppose that there were not many beyond the Humber either". Alfred undoubtedly exaggerated, for dramatic effect, the abysmal state of learning in England during his youth. That Latin learning had not been obliterated is evidenced by the presence in his court of learned Mercian and West Saxon clerics such as Plegmund, Wæferth, and Wulfsige.
Manuscript production in England dropped off precipitously around the 860s when the Viking invasions began in earnest, not to be revived until the end of the century. Numerous Anglo-Saxon manuscripts burnt along with the churches that housed them. A solemn diploma from Christ Church, Canterbury, dated 873, is so poorly constructed and written that historian Nicholas Brooks posited a scribe who was either so blind he could not read what he wrote or who knew little or no Latin. "It is clear", Brooks concludes, "that the metropolitan church [of Canterbury] must have been quite unable to provide any effective training in the scriptures or in Christian worship". |
Alfred the Great | Establishment of a court school | Establishment of a court school
Alfred established a court school for the education of his own children, those of the nobility, and "a good many of lesser birth". There they studied books in both English and Latin and "devoted themselves to writing, to such an extent… they were seen to be devoted and intelligent students of the liberal arts". He recruited scholars from the Continent and from Britain to aid in the revival of Christian learning in Wessex and to provide the king personal instruction. Grimbald and John the Saxon came from Francia; Plegmund (whom Alfred appointed archbishop of Canterbury in 890), Bishop Wærferth of Worcester, Æthelstan, and the royal chaplains Werwulf, from Mercia; and Asser, from the Monastery of Saint David in southwestern Wales. |
Alfred the Great | Advocacy of education in English | Advocacy of education in English
thumb|upright|Line drawing of the Alfred Jewel, showing the socket at its base
Alfred's educational ambitions seem to have extended beyond the establishment of a court school. Believing that without Christian wisdom there can be neither prosperity nor success in war, Alfred aimed "to set to learning (as long as they are not useful for some other employment) all the free-born young men now in England who have the means to apply themselves to it". Conscious of the decay of Latin literacy in his realm, Alfred proposed that primary education be taught in English, with those wishing to advance to holy orders to continue their studies in Latin.
There were few "books of wisdom" written in English. Alfred sought to remedy this through an ambitious court-centred programme of translating into English the books he deemed "most necessary for all men to know". It is unknown when Alfred launched this programme, but it may have been during the 880s when Wessex was enjoying a respite from Viking attacks. Alfred was, until recently, often considered to have been the author of many of the translations, but this is now considered doubtful in almost all cases. Scholars more often refer to translations as "Alfredian", indicating that they probably had something to do with his patronage, but are unlikely to be his own work.
Apart from the lost Handboc or Encheiridio, which seems to have been a commonplace book kept by the king, the earliest work to be translated was the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, a book greatly popular in the Middle Ages. The translation was undertaken at Alfred's command by Wærferth, Bishop of Worcester, with the king merely furnishing a preface. Remarkably, Alfred – undoubtedly with the advice and aid of his court scholars – translated four works himself: Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, St. Augustine's Soliloquies and the first fifty psalms of the Psalter.; . Alfred's psalms have credibly been attested as surviving in the Paris Psalter.
One might add to this list the translation, in Alfred's law code, of excerpts from the Vulgate Book of Exodus. The Old English versions of Orosius's Histories against the Pagans and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People are no longer accepted by scholars as Alfred's own translations because of lexical and stylistic differences. Nonetheless, the consensus remains that they were part of the Alfredian programme of translation. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge suggest this also for Bald's Leechbook and the anonymous Old English Martyrology.
The preface of Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care explained why he thought it necessary to translate works such as this from Latin into English. Although he described his method as translating "sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense", the translation keeps very close to the original although, through his choice of language, he blurred throughout the distinction between spiritual and secular authority. Alfred meant the translation to be used, and circulated it to all his bishops. Interest in Alfred's translation of Pastoral Care was so enduring that copies were still being made in the 11th century.
Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy was the most popular philosophical handbook of the Middle Ages. Unlike the translation of the Pastoral Care, the Alfredian text deals very freely with the original and, though the late Dr. G. Schepss showed that many of the additions to the text are to be traced not to the translator himself but to the glosses and commentaries which he used, still there is much in the work which is distinctive to the translation and has been taken to reflect philosophies of kingship in Alfred's milieu. It is in the Boethius that the oft-quoted sentence occurs: "To speak briefly: I desired to live worthily as long as I lived, and after my life to leave to them that should come after, my memory in good works." The book has come down to us in two manuscripts only. In one of these the writing is prose, in the other a combination of prose and alliterating verse. The latter manuscript was severely damaged in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The last of the Alfredian works is one which bears the name Blostman ("Blooms") or Anthology. The first half is based mainly on the Soliloquies of St Augustine of Hippo, the remainder is drawn from various sources. The material has traditionally been thought to contain much that is Alfred's own and highly characteristic of him. The last words of it may be quoted; they form a fitting epitaph for the noblest of English kings. "Therefore, he seems to me a very foolish man, and truly wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear." Alfred appears as a character in the twelfth- or 13th-century poem The Owl and the Nightingale where his wisdom and skill with proverbs is praised. The Proverbs of Alfred, a 13th-century work, contains sayings that are not likely to have originated with Alfred but attest to his posthumous medieval reputation for wisdom.
thumb|The Alfred Jewel, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, commissioned by Alfred; probably a pointer to aid reading
The Alfred jewel, discovered in Somerset in 1693, has long been associated with King Alfred because of its Old English inscription AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN ("Alfred ordered me to be made"). The jewel is about long, made of filigreed gold, enclosing a highly polished piece of quartz crystal beneath which is set in a cloisonné enamel plaque with an enamelled image of a man holding floriate sceptres, perhaps personifying Sight or the Wisdom of God.
It was at one time attached to a thin rod or stick based on the hollow socket at its base. The jewel certainly dates from Alfred's reign. Although its function is unknown, it has been often suggested that the jewel was one of the æstels – pointers for reading – that Alfred ordered sent to every bishopric accompanying a copy of his translation of the Pastoral Care. Each æstel was worth the princely sum of 50 mancuses which fits in well with the quality workmanship and expensive materials of the Alfred jewel.
Historian Richard Abels sees Alfred's educational and military reforms as complementary. Restoring religion and learning in Wessex, Abels contends, was to Alfred's mind as essential to the defence of his realm as the building of the burhs. As Alfred observed in the preface to his English translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, kings who fail to obey their divine duty to promote learning can expect earthly punishments to befall their people. The pursuit of wisdom, he assured his readers of the Boethius, was the surest path to power: "Study wisdom, then, and, when you have learned it, condemn it not, for I tell you that by its means you may without fail attain to power, yea, even though not desiring it".
The portrayal of the West-Saxon resistance to the Vikings by Asser and the chronicler as a Christian holy war was more than mere rhetoric or propaganda. It reflected Alfred's own belief in a doctrine of divine rewards and punishments rooted in a vision of a hierarchical Christian world order in which God is the Lord to whom kings owe obedience and through whom they derive their authority over their followers. The need to persuade his nobles to undertake work for the 'common good' led Alfred and his court scholars to strengthen and deepen the conception of Christian kingship that he had inherited by building upon the legacy of earlier kings including Offa, clerical writers including Bede, and Alcuin and various participants in the Carolingian Renaissance. This was not a cynical use of religion to manipulate his subjects into obedience but an intrinsic element in Alfred's worldview. He believed, as did other kings in ninth-century England and Francia, that God had entrusted him with the spiritual as well as physical welfare of his people. If the Christian faith fell into ruin in his kingdom, if the clergy were too ignorant to understand the Latin words they butchered in their offices and liturgies, if the ancient monasteries and collegiate churches lay deserted out of indifference, he was answerable before God, as Josiah had been. Alfred's ultimate responsibility was the pastoral care of his people. |
Alfred the Great | Appearance and character | Appearance and character
Asser wrote of Alfred in his Life of King Alfred:
It is also written by Asser that Alfred did not learn to read until he was 12 years old or later, which is described as "shameful negligence" of his parents and tutors. Alfred was an excellent listener and had an incredible memory and he retained poetry and psalms very well. A story is told by Asser about how his mother held up a book of Saxon poetry to him and his brothers, and said; "I shall give this book to whichever one of you can learn it the fastest." After excitedly asking, "Will you really give this book to the one of us who can understand it the soonest and recite it to you?" Alfred then took it to his teacher, learned it, and recited it back to his mother.
Alfred is noted as carrying around a small book, probably a medieval version of a small pocket notebook, that contained psalms and many prayers that he often collected. Asser writes: these "he collected in a single book, as I have seen for myself; amid all the affairs of the present life he took it around with him everywhere for the sake of prayer, and was inseparable from it." An excellent hunter in every branch of the sport, Alfred is remembered as an enthusiastic huntsman against whom nobody's skills could compare.
He was the youngest of his brothers, and he was probably the most open-minded. He was an early advocate for education. His desire for learning could have come from his early love of English poetry and inability to read or physically record it until later in life. Asser writes that Alfred "could not satisfy his craving for what he desired the most, namely the liberal arts; for, as he used to say, there were no good scholars in the entire kingdom of the West Saxons at that time". |
Alfred the Great | Family | Family
In 868, Alfred married Ealhswith, daughter of a Mercian nobleman, Æthelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini. The Gaini were probably one of the tribal groups of the Mercians. Ealhswith's mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal family.
They had five or six children together, including Edward the Elder who succeeded his father as king; Æthelflæd who became lady of the Mercians; and Ælfthryth who married Baldwin II, Count of Flanders. Alfred's mother was Osburga, daughter of Oslac of the Isle of Wight, Chief Butler of England. Asser, in his Vita Ælfredi asserts that this shows his lineage from the Jutes of the Isle of Wight.
Osferth was described as a relative in King Alfred's will and he attested charters in a high position until 934. A charter of King Edward's reign described him as the king's brother – mistakenly according to Keynes and Lapidge, but in the view of Janet Nelson, he probably was an illegitimate son of King Alfred.
NameBirthDeathNotes Æthelflæd 12 June 918 Married , Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians d. 911; had issue Edward 17 July 924 Married (1) Ecgwynn, (2) Ælfflæd, (3) 919 Eadgifu Æthelgifu Abbess of Shaftesbury Æthelweard 16 October 922(?) Married and had issue Ælfthryth 929 Married Baldwin II d. 918; had issue |
Alfred the Great | Death and burial | Death and burial
thumb|upright|Alfred's will
Alfred died on 26 October 899 at the age of 50 or 51. How he died is unknown, but he suffered throughout his life with a painful and unpleasant illness. His biographer Asser gave a detailed description of Alfred's symptoms, and this has allowed modern doctors to provide a possible diagnosis. It is thought that he had either Crohn's disease or haemorrhoids. His grandson King Eadred seems to have had a similar illness.
Alfred was temporarily buried at the Old Minster in Winchester with his wife Ealhswith and, later, his son Edward the Elder. Before his death he had ordered the construction of the New Minster hoping that it would become a mausoleum for him and his family. Four years after his death, the bodies of Alfred and his family were exhumed and moved to their new resting place in the New Minster and remained there for 211 years. When William the Conqueror rose to the English throne after the Norman conquest in 1066, many Anglo-Saxon abbeys were demolished and replaced with Norman cathedrals. One of those unfortunate abbeys was the very New Minster abbey where Alfred was laid to rest. Before demolition, the monks at the New Minster exhumed the bodies of Alfred and his family to safely transfer them to a new location. In 1110, the New Minster monks moved to Hyde Abbey, a little north of the city, taking with them Alfred's body and those of his wife and children, which were interred before the high altar.
Many churches were vandalised during the English Reformation, including Hyde. The Abbey was dissolved in 1538, the church and cloister were demolished and treated like a quarry, and the stones that made up the abbey were then re-used in local architecture. The stone graves housing Alfred and his family stayed underground, and the land returned to farming. These graves remained intact until 1788 when the site was acquired by the county for the construction of a town jail.
Before construction began, convicts who would later be imprisoned at the site were sent in to prepare the ground, ready for building. While digging the foundation trenches, the convicts discovered the coffins of Alfred and his family. A local Roman Catholic priest, Dr Milner recounted this event: The convicts broke the stone coffins into pieces. The lead, which lined the coffins, was sold for two guineas, and the bones within scattered around the area.
The prison was demolished between 1846 and 1850. Further excavations, in 1866 and 1897, were inconclusive. In 1866, amateur antiquarian John Mellor claimed to have recovered a number of bones from the site which he said were those of Alfred. These came into the possession of the vicar of nearby St Bartholomew's Church who reburied them in an unmarked grave in the church graveyard.
Excavations conducted by the Winchester Museums Service of the Hyde Abbey site in 1999 located a second pit dug in front of where the high altar would have been located, which was identified as probably dating to Mellor's 1866 excavation. The 1999 archaeological excavation uncovered the foundations of the abbey buildings and some bones, suggested at the time to be those of Alfred. They proved instead to belong to an elderly woman.
In March 2013, the Diocese of Winchester exhumed the bones from the unmarked grave at St Bartholomew's and placed them in secure storage. The diocese made no claim that they were the bones of Alfred, but intended to secure them for later analysis, and from the attentions of people whose interest may have been sparked by the recent identification of the remains of Richard III. The bones were radiocarbon-dated but the results showed that they were from the 1300s and therefore not of Alfred.
In January 2014, a fragment of pelvis that had been unearthed in the 1999 excavation of the Hyde site, and had subsequently lain in a Winchester museum store room, was radiocarbon-dated to the correct period. It has been suggested that this bone may belong to either Alfred or his son Edward, but this remains unproven. |
Alfred the Great | Legacy | Legacy
thumb|upright|Eighteenth century portrait of Alfred by Samuel Woodforde
Henry VI of England attempted unsuccessfully to have Alfred canonised by Pope Eugene IV in 1441. The current "Roman Martyrology" does not mention Alfred. The Anglican Communion venerates him as a Christian hero, with a Lesser Festival on 26 October, and he may often be found depicted in stained glass in Church of England parish churches.
In 2007, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church canonised "All Saints of the British Isles" including King Alfred.British and Western European Diocese (ROCOR) He is honoured during the Feast of all Saints of the British Isles on the third Sunday after Pentecost and on his feast day of 26 October.
Alfred commissioned Bishop Asser to write his biography, which inevitably emphasised Alfred's positive aspects. Later medieval historians such as Geoffrey of Monmouth also reinforced Alfred's favourable image. By the time of the Reformation, Alfred was seen as a pious Christian ruler who promoted the use of English rather than Latin, and so the translations that he commissioned were viewed as untainted by the later Roman Catholic influences of the Normans. Consequently, while Alfred's epithet, "the Great", was in regular use from the 13th century, it was writers of the 16th century who popularised it. There is no evidence of Alfred's contemporaries using the sobriquet. The epithet was retained by succeeding generations who admired Alfred's patriotism, success against barbarism, promotion of education, and establishment of the rule of law.
The Royal Navy named one ship and two shore establishments HMS King Alfred, and one of the early ships of the U.S. Navy was named USS Alfred in his honour. In 2002, Alfred was ranked number 14 in the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote. |
Alfred the Great | Statues | Statues |
Alfred the Great | Pewsey | Pewsey
thumb|upright=1.05|1913 statue of Alfred in Pewsey, Wiltshire
A prominent statue of King Alfred the Great stands in the middle of Pewsey, where he was a landowner. It was unveiled in June 1913 to commemorate the coronation of King George V. |
Alfred the Great | Southwark | Southwark
thumb|left|upright=0.9|Hybrid ancient and modern statue of Alfred in Southwark
A statue of Alfred the Great located in Trinity Church Square, Southwark is considered to be the oldest outdoor statue in London, and part of it has been found to date to Roman times. The sculpture was thought to be medieval until 2021 conservation work. The lower half was then discovered to be Bath Stone and part of a colossal ancient sculpture dedicated to the goddess Minerva. It is typical of the 2nd Century, dating to around the reign of Hadrian. The lower older half is likely to have been carved by a continental craftsman used to working with British stone. The upper half dates to the late 18th or early 19th century, cast from artificial Coade stone to fit the lower portion. |
Alfred the Great | Wantage | Wantage
thumb|upright|Statue of Alfred the Great in Wantage, Oxfordshire
A statue of Alfred the Great, situated in the Wantage market place, was sculpted by Count Gleichen, a relative of Queen Victoria, and unveiled on 14 July 1877 by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The statue was vandalised on New Year's Eve 2007, losing part of its right arm and axe. After the arm and axe were replaced, the statue was again vandalised on Christmas Eve 2008, losing its axe. |
Alfred the Great | Winchester | Winchester
A bronze statue of Alfred the Great stands at the eastern end of The Broadway, close to the site of Winchester's medieval East Gate. The statue was designed by Hamo Thornycroft, cast in bronze by Singer & Sons of Frome and erected in 1899 to mark one thousand years since Alfred's death. The statue is placed on a pedestal consisting of two immense blocks of grey Cornish granite. |
Alfred the Great | Alfred University, New York | Alfred University, New York
The centerpiece of Alfred University's quad is a bronze statue of the king, created in 1990 by then-professor William Underhill. It features the king as a young man, holding a shield in his left hand and an open book in his right. |
Alfred the Great | Cleveland, Ohio | Cleveland, Ohio
A marble statue of Alfred the Great stands on the North side of the Cuyahoga County Courthouse in Cleveland, Ohio. It was sculpted by Isidore Konti in 1910."Alfred the Great", Isidore Konti, 1910 , Sculpture Center, Retrieved 3 October 2017. |
Alfred the Great | Chronology | Chronology
thumb|Alfred's sister, Queen Æthelswith of Mercia, in a manuscript of 1220
Date Event Alfred is born in Wantage, Berkshire. Alfred's oldest brother Æthelstan of Kent dies. Alfred's sister, Æthelswith marries Burgred, the king of Mercians. Alfred's father Æthelwulf sends Alfred and his youngest older brother Æthelred on a pilgrimage to Rome. Alfred's mother Osburh dies. Æthelwulf goes on a pilgrimage with Alfred, after dividing his realm between his sons, Æthelbald and Æthelberht. Preteen Judith of Flanders becomes the stepmother of Alfred after Æthelwulf marries her. Æthelwulf returns home, but Æthelbald refuses to give up his position, forcing Æthelwulf to retire to Kent with Æthelberht. Æthelwulf dies. Æthelbald dies and is succeeded by his brother Æthelberht. Æthelberht dies and is succeeded by his brother Æthelred. The Great Heathen Army lands in East Anglia. Æthelred aids Burgred against the Danes. Alfred marries Ealhswith in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. Alfred's first child Æthelflæd is born. Æthelred dies and is succeeded by Alfred. Alfred makes peace with the Danes and takes Winchester as his residence. Burgred pays tribute to the Danes. The Danes invade Mercia and seize Repton. Danes sack Tamworth, exiling Burgred. Alfred's first son Edward is born. The Great Heathen Army splits as Halfdan retires to Northumbria. Guthrum invades Alfred's realm. Guthrum takes Wareham, but is besieged by Alfred. The Danes abandon Wareham, only to take Exeter instead. Alfred besieges Exeter and is able to expel the Danes from his realm. Alfred is forced to flee to Somerset Levels and begin guerilla warfare. Alfred defeats Guthrum decisively in the Battle of Edington, causing Guthrum's conversion to Christianity. Alfred's subject defeats another Danish invasion in the Battle of Cynwit. Alfred conquers London and declares himself the king of the Anglo-Saxons. Æthelswith dies in Pavia. Edward marries Ecgwynn. Alfred becomes a grandfather when Ecgwynn gives birth to Æthelstan, the son of Edward. 899 Alfred dies. |
Alfred the Great | Notes | Notes |
Alfred the Great | References | References |
Alfred the Great | Sources | Sources
— "Note: This electronic edition [of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle] is a collation of material from nine diverse extant versions of the Chronicle. It contains primarily the translation of Rev. James Ingram, as published in the [1847] Everyman edition". It was "Originally compiled on the orders of King Alfred the Great, approximately A.D. 890, and subsequently maintained and added to by generations of anonymous scribes until the middle of the 12th Century".
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Alfred the Great | Further reading | Further reading
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Alfred the Great | External links | External links
Alfred the Great at the official website of the British monarchy
Alfred the Great at BBC History
Category:840s births
Category:899 deaths
Category:Year of birth uncertain
Category:9th-century Christians
Category:9th-century English monarchs
Category:9th-century translators
Category:Boat and ship designers
Category:House of Wessex
Category:Medieval legislators
Category:British patrons of literature
Category:People from Wantage
Category:Translators from Latin
Category:Translators of the Bible into Old English
Category:Translators of philosophy
Category:West Saxon monarchs |
Alfred the Great | Table of Content | Short description, Family, Background, Childhood, The reigns of Alfred's brothers, Viking invasion, King at war, Early struggles, Legend of burnt cake, Counter-attack and victory, 880s, King of the Anglo-Saxons, Viking attacks (890s), Military reorganisation, Administration and taxation, Burghal system, English navy, Legal reform, Foreign relations, Religion, education and culture, Effect of Danish raids on education, Establishment of a court school, Advocacy of education in English, Appearance and character, Family, Death and burial, Legacy, Statues, Pewsey, Southwark, Wantage, Winchester, Alfred University, New York, Cleveland, Ohio, Chronology, Notes, References, Sources, Further reading, External links |
Alessandro Algardi | short description | thumb|Terracotta modello of Cardinal Paolo Emilio Zacchia, c. 1650
Alessandro Algardi (July 31, 1598 – June 10, 1654) was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome. In the latter decades of his life, he was, along with Francesco Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, one of the major rivals of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in Rome. He is now most admired for his portrait busts that have great vivacity and dignity. |
Alessandro Algardi | Early years | Early years
Algardi was born in Bologna, where at a young age, he was apprenticed in the studio of Agostino Carracci. However, his aptitude for sculpture led him to work for Giulio Cesare Conventi (1577–1640), an artist of modest talents. His two earliest known works date back to this period: two statues of saints, made of chalk, in the Oratory of Santa Maria della Vita in Bologna. By the age of twenty, Ferdinando I, Duke of Mantua, began commissioning works from him, and he was also employed by local jewelers for figurative designs. After a short residence in Venice, he went to Rome in 1625 with an introduction from the Duke of Mantua to the late pope's nephew, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, who employed him for a time in the restoration of ancient statues. |
Alessandro Algardi | Tomb of Pope Leo XI | Tomb of Pope Leo XI
Propelled by the Borghese and Barberini patronage, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his studio garnered most of the major Roman sculptural commissions. For nearly a decade, Algardi struggled for recognition. In Rome he was aided by friends that included Pietro da Cortona and his fellow Bolognese, Domenichino. His early Roman commissions included terracotta and some marble portrait busts, while he supported himself with small works like crucifixes. In the 1630s he worked on the tombs of the Mellini family in the Mellini Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo.
left|thumb|Tomb of Leo XI
Algardi's first major commission came about in 1634, when Cardinal Ubaldini (Medici) contracted for a funeral monument for his great-uncle, Pope Leo XI, the third of the Medici popes, who had reigned for less than a month in 1605. The monument was started in 1640, and mostly completed by 1644. The arrangement mirrors the one designed by Bernini for the Tomb of Urban VIII (1628–47), with a central hieratic sculpture of the pope seated in full regalia and offering a hand of blessing, while at his feet, two allegorical female figures flank his sarcophagus. However, in Bernini's tomb, the vigorous upraised arm and posture of the pope is counterbalanced by an active drama below, wherein the figures of Charity and Justice are either distracted by putti or lost in contemplation, while skeletal Death actively writes the epitaph. Algardi's tomb is much less dynamic. The allegorical figures of Magnanimity and Liberality have an impassive, ethereal dignity. Some have identified the helmeted figure of Magnanimity with that of Athena and iconic images of Wisdom.Harriet F. Senie, "The Tomb of Leo XI by Alessandro Algardi", The Art Bulletin (1978); pp. 90–95. Liberality resembles Duquesnoy's famous Santa Susanna, but rendered more elegant. The tomb is somberly monotone and lacks the polychromatic excitement that detracts from the elegiac mood of Urban VIII's tomb.Boucher pp. 121–2
In 1635–38, Pietro Boncompagni commissioned from Algardi a colossal statue of Philip Neri with kneeling angels for Santa Maria in Vallicella, completed in 1640.Bruce Boucher, Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova (Yale University Press) 2001:47. Immediately after this, Algardi produced a sculptural group of the beheading of Saint Paul with two figures: a kneeling, resigned saint and the executioner poised to strike the sword-blow, for the church of San Paolo, Bologna. These works established his reputation, alongside two reliefs of The Martyrdom of St Paul and The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (a contemporary replica of the latter is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum). Like Bernini's characteristic works, they often express the Baroque aesthetic of depicting dramatic attitudes and emotional expressions, yet Algardi's sculpture has a restraining sobriety in contrast to those of his rival. |
Alessandro Algardi | Papal favour under Innocent X and Spanish commissions | Papal favour under Innocent X and Spanish commissions
thumb|right|Pope Innocent X, Capitoline Museums.
With the death of the Barberini Pope Urban VIII in 1644 and the accession of the Pamphilj Pope Innocent X, the Barberini family and fell into disrepute, resulting in fewer commissions for Bernini. Algardi, on the other hand, was embraced by the new pope and the pope's nephew, Camillo Pamphilj. Algardi's portraits were highly prized, and their formal severity contrasts with Bernini's more vivacious expression. A large hieratic bronze of Innocent X by Algardi is now to be found in the Capitoline Museums.
Algardi was not renowned for his architectural abilities. Although he was in charge of the project for the papal villa, the Villa Pamphili, now Villa Doria Pamphili, outside the Porta San Pancrazio in Rome, he may have had professional guidance on the design of the casino from the architect/engineer Girolamo Rainaldi and help with supervising its construction from his assistant Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi.Montagu, Jennifer. Alessandro Algardi, Vol. 1, Yale, 1985, pp. 94–6, The casino was a showcase for the Pamphili collection of sculpture, ancient and contemporary, on which Algardi was well able to advise. In the villa grounds, Algardi and his studio executed sculpture-encrusted fountains and other garden features, where some of his free-standing sculpture and bas-reliefs remain.
In 1650 Algardi met Diego Velázquez, who obtained commissions for his work from Spain. As a consequence there are four chimney-pieces by Algardi in the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, and in the gardens, the figures on the fountain of Neptune are also by him. The Augustinian monastery at Salamanca contains the tomb of the Count and Countess de Monterey, another work by Algardi. |
Alessandro Algardi | Fuga d'Attila relief | Fuga d'Attila relief
thumb|left|Fuga d'Attila, St. Peter's Basilica.
Algardi's large, dramatic, high-relief marble panel of Pope Leo and Attila, created from 1646 to 1653, is commonly referred to as Fuga d'Attila or Flight of Attila. It was created for St Peter's Basilica, and it reinvigorated the use of such marble reliefs. There had been large marble reliefs used previously in Roman churches, but for most patrons, sculpted marble altarpieces were far too costly. In this relief, the two principal figures, the stern and courageous pope and the dismayed and frightened Attila, surge forward from the center into three dimensions. Only they two see the descending angelic warriors rallying to the pope's defense, while all others in the background reliefs, persist in performing their respective earthly duties.
The subject was apt for a papal state seeking to increase its power, since it depicts the historical legend wherein Saint Leo the Great, the first pope to receive the epithet, with supernatural aid, deterred the Huns from looting Rome. From a baroque standpoint, the incident is common theme: a moment of divine intervention in the affairs of man. Algardi's patron's message through the relief would be that all viewers should be sternly reminded of the papal capacity to invoke divine retribution against enemies.Italian Baroque Sculpture, Bruce Boucher, pages 152-153.
In his later years Algardi controlled a large studio and amassed a great fortune. Algardi's classicizing manner was carried on by pupils, including Ercole Ferrata and Domenico Guidi, and Antonio Raggi initially trained with him. The latter two completed his design for an altarpiece of the Vision of Saint Nicholas at San Nicola da Tolentino, Rome, using two separate marble pieces linked together in one event and place, yet successfully separating the divine and earthly spheres. Other lesser known assistants from his studio include Francesco Barrata, Girolamo Lucenti, and Giuseppe Peroni.
Algardi died in Rome within a year of completing his famous relief, which was admired by contemporaries. |
Alessandro Algardi | Critical assessment and legacy | Critical assessment and legacy
Algardi was also known for his portraiture which shows an obsessive attention to details of psychologically revealing physiognomy in a sober but immediate naturalism, and minute attention to costume and draperies, such as in the busts of Laudivio Zacchia, Camillo Pamphilj, and of Muzio Frangipane and his two sons Lello and Roberto.
In temperament, his style was more akin to the classicized and restrained baroque of Duquesnoy than to the emotive works of other baroque artists. From an artistic point of view, he was most successful in portrait-statues and groups of children, where he was obliged to follow nature most closely. His terracotta models, some of them finished works of art, were prized by collectors. An outstanding series of terracotta models is at the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. |
Alessandro Algardi | Gallery | Gallery |
Alessandro Algardi | Sources | Sources
Alessandro Algardi in the "History of Art"
Artnet Resource Library: Alessandro Algardi
Web Gallery of Art: Algardi, sculptures
Roderick Conway-Morris, "Casting light on a Baroque sculptor", International Herald Tribune, March 20, 1999: Review of exhibition "Algardi: The Other Face of the Baroque,", 1999
A landscape pen-and-ink drawing by Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, c 1650, to which Algardi has added figures of the Holy Family (Getty Museum)
Images of nearly all works
Roberto Piperno, "Three busts by Alessandro Algardi" Busts of members of the Frangipane family in S. Marcello al Corso
Works by Algardi in Europeana |
Alessandro Algardi | Notes | Notes |
Alessandro Algardi | References | References
Category:1598 births
Category:1654 deaths
Category:Italian Baroque sculptors
Category:Sculptors from Bologna
Category:17th-century Italian sculptors
Category:Italian male sculptors |
Alessandro Algardi | Table of Content | short description, Early years, Tomb of Pope Leo XI, Papal favour under Innocent X and Spanish commissions, Fuga d'Attila relief, Critical assessment and legacy, Gallery, Sources, Notes, References |
Alger of Liège | Use dmy dates | Alger of Liège (1055–1131), known also as Alger of Cluny and Algerus Magister, was a learned clergyman and canonist from Liège, author of several notable works.
Alger was first deacon and scholaster of church of St Bartholomew in his native Liège and was then appointed () as a canon in St. Lambert's Cathedral. Moreover, he acted as the personal secretary of bishop Otbert from 1103.F.P.C. De Jong, "A Comparative Study of Schoolmasters in Eleventh Century Normandy and the Southern Low Countries", Ph.D. thesis, 2018 He declined offers from German bishops and finally retired to the monastery of Cluny after 1121, where he died at a high age, leaving behind a solid reputation for piety and intelligence. This cites:
Migne, Patrol Ser. Lat. vol. clxxx. pp. 739–972
Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. für prot. Theol., art, by S. M. Deutsch.
He played a leading role in the trial of Rupert of Deutz in 1116.
His History of the Church of Liège, and many of his other works, are lost. The most important remaining are:
De Misericordia et Justitia (On Mercy and Justice), a collection of biblical extracts and sayings of Church Fathers with commentary (an important work for the history of church law and discipline), which is to be found in the Anecdota of Martène, vol. v. This work has been suggested as influential on Gratian's Decretum
De Sacramentis Corporis et Sanguinis Domini; a treatise, in three books, against the Berengarian heresy, highly commended by Peter of Cluny and Erasmus, who published it in 1530. In this book, Alger also took on Rupert of Deutz' views on the Eucharist and predestination.John H. Van Engen, "Rupert of Deutz", University of California Press, 1983, pp. 163,169
De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio; given in Bernard Pez's Anecdota, vol. iv.
De Sacrificio Missae; given in the Collectio Scriptor. Vet. of Angelo Mai, vol. ix. p. 371.
De dignitate ecclesie Leodiensis, which established the reciprocal obligations of the primary and secondary churches; inserted in the Liber officiorum ecclesie Leodiensis (1323).J.L.Kupper "Liège et l'église impériale XIe-XIIe siècles",1981. Pp. 329-330
A biography was written by Nicholas of Liège: De Algero veterum testimonia. |
Alger of Liège | References | References
Category:12th-century Roman Catholic priests
Category:1055 births
Category:1131 deaths
Category:11th-century Roman Catholic priests
Category:Clergy from the Prince-Bishopric of Liège
Category:Clergy from Liège |
Alger of Liège | Table of Content | Use dmy dates, References |
Algiers | Short description | Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques de l'Algérie (web). and an estimated 3,004,130 residents in 2025 in an area of , Algiers is the largest city in Algeria, the third largest city on the Mediterranean, sixth in the Arab World, and 11th in Africa. Located in the north-central portion of the country, it extends along the Bay of Algiers surrounded by the Mitidja Plain and major mountain ranges. Its favorable location made it the center of Ottoman and French cultural, political, and architectural influences for the region, shaping it to be the diverse metropolis it is today.
Algiers was formally founded in 972 AD by Buluggin ibn Ziri, though its history goes back to around 1200-250 BC when it was a small settlement of Phoenicians that practiced trade. It was caught under control of many nations and empires such as Numidia, the Roman Empire and the Islamic caliphates, as it went on to become the capital of the Regency of Algiers from 1516 to 1830 AD, then under the control of France due to an invasion that ranked Algiers as capital of French Algeria from 1830 to 1942 AD which temporarily merged with Free France from 1942 to 1944 AD, then back again to French Algeria from 1944 to 1962 AD, and finally capital of Algeria from 1962 to present day after the Algerian Revolution.
Algiers is the main tourist destination in Algeria due to its many museums, art galleries and cultural centers, but most notably the historic center that is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Casbah which houses many traditional Algerian and Ottoman/Andalusian style buildings, while the French side of the city is bigger and has many distinct architectural styles that showcase trends over the decades whether they were local or international; Al bidha meaning « the white » is what the city's called because of its white washed buildings whether they originated from colonial powers or local populations. The Host city of the 1975 Mediterranean Games and other major African and international sports events, Algiers is also the seat of the Consultative Council of the Arab Maghreb Union. Numerous Algerian multinational companies are based in the city, such as Sonatrach Petroleum Corporation and Air Algérie. |
Algiers | Name origin | Name origin
The present name of the city is the Arabic name (), meaning "The Islands", this name's origin is related to the 4 main islands off the western Cape (geography) where people settled, looking on a map we can notice that the islands were eventually connected to the mainland in 1525 AD via a pier now named Kheireddine pier. This name is a truncated form of the name that was used first by Buluggin ibn Ziri when he established the modern city in 972 AD which was (), meaning "islands of Mazghanna", this term was used by the Hammadid dynasty as well as early medieval geographers such as Muhammad al-Idrisi and Yaqut al-Hamawi. Before that, from French and Catalan Origins of Algiers by Louis Leschi, speech delivered June 16, 1941, published in El Djezair Sheets, July 1941 History of Algeria . from the Arabic name . is , used by . The name was given by Buluggin ibn Ziri after he established the city on the ruins of the Phoenician city of Icosium in 950. During Ottoman rule, the name of the capital, al-Jazā'ir, was extended over the entire country, giving it the English name Algeria derived from the French name Algérie.
In classical antiquity, the ancient Greeks knew the town as (), which was Latinized as Icosium under Roman rule. The Greeks explained the name as coming from their word for "twenty" (, ), supposedly because it had been founded by 20 companions of Hercules when he visited the Atlas Mountains during his labors.
Algiers is also known as (, "The Joyous") ("the good-guarded"), or "Algiers the White" () for its whitewashed buildings..The city possesses many surnames al-ʿāṣima signifies « the capital », al bahdja : « the joyous », al bidha : « the white ».Hocine Mezali, Alger, 32 siècles d'histoire, ENAG/Synergie Éd., Alger, 2000. |
Algiers | History | History |
Algiers | Early history | Early history
The city's history is believed to date back to 1200 BC, but it was a small settlement without any significance until around the 3rd century BC when "Ikosim" became a small port town in Carthage where Phoenicians were trading with other Mediterranean ports. After the Battle of Cirta, Numidia got a hold of the town along with its neighboring regions at around 202 BC, after which the Punic Wars started weakening the Berber nation. On 104 BC, following the capturing of Jughurta and executing him in Rome, the western half of his nation was given to Mauretania under the rule of Bocchus I. At around 42 AD, Claudius divided Mauretania into two provinces, Mauretania Caesariensis that included Icosium as one of its towns; the second province was Mauretania Tingitana and were deemed as Roman Municipiums, additionally they were given Latin rights by the emperor Vespasian. In 371-373 AD, Mauretania revolted with the help of Firmus, in hopes of establishing an independent state. Icosium was raided and damaged. Some clues show the presence of bishops in the region at this time.
In 435 AD, the Vandal Kingdom took control of northern Africa along the coasts of today's Tunisia and Algeria. The Western Roman Empire that was ruling the area allowed the Vandals to settle when it became clear that they could not be defeated by Roman military forces. Though the city was damaged again due to the fighting between the two armies, the town was still slowly growing in population. |
Algiers | Medieval history | Medieval history
In 534 AD, the Vandal kingdom was subjugated by the general Belisarius of the Eastern Roman Empire, making Icosium a part of the empire. In the early 7th century, "Beni Mezghenna" who are a Berber tribe belonging to the Sanhaja as cited by Ibn Khaldoun, settled on the plains of Icosium and the surrounding areas.entre MIHOUB et TABLAT Histoire et des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l'Afrique … De ʻAbd al-Raḥman b. Muḥammad Ibn Khaldûn, Lire en ligne Shortly after, in the late 7th century, the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb brought the Umayyad Caliphate into the region, but were faced with resistance from Berber forces led by Kahina and Kusaila in the 680s, who opposed the advancing Islamic armies. However, Hassan ibn al-Nu'man and Musa ibn Nusayr later defeated both Berber leaders, killing Kusaila at the Battle of Mamma (688) and killing Dihya at the Battle of Tabarka (702), leading to the subjugation of the Berber tribes, bringing Islamic rule into North Africa. The Abbasid Caliphate succeeded Umayyad Caliphate at around 750 AD. Independence movements across the Maghreb resulted in the breaking of two nations, the Idrisid dynasty and the Aghlabid Emirate but acted as agents of the Abbasids in Baghdad. Icosium fell into the hands of Aghlabids and abandoned the town. They were then overthrown by the Fatimids in 909 AD, who went on to control all of Ifriqiya by 969 AD.
The present city was re-founded in 972 AD by Buluggin ibn Ziri, who was appointed by the Faṭimid caliph al-Muʿizz as governor of al-Qayrawān and any other territory his nation, the Zirid Dynasty might reclaim from its enemies, the Zenata tribesmen. His state accordingly expanded its boundaries westward. In approximately 1014 AD, under the reign of Badis ibn al-Mansur, the dynasty was divided between the Zirids at al-Qayrawan in the east, and the Hammadid dynasty at Qal'at Bani Hammad; "Jazaʾir Banī Mazghanna", commonly known as "Algiers" as the new name of Icosium was absorbed into the Hammadid dynasty who in 1067 AD relocated to Béjaïa and carried on a lively trade while most of North Africa was under a state of anarchy.
In 1079 AD, Ibn Tashfin, a Sanhaja leader of the Almoravid Empire sent an army of 20,000 men from Marrakesh to push towards what is now Tlemcen to attack the "Banu Ya'la", the Zenata tribe occupying the area. Led by Mazdali ibn Tilankan, the army defeated the Banu Ya'la in battle near the valley of the Moulouya River and executed their commander, the son of Tlemcen's ruler. However, Mazdali ibn Tilankan did not push to Tlemcen right away as the city of Oujda was too strong to capture. Instead, Ibn Tashfin himself returned with an army in 1081 AD that captured Oujda and then conquered Tlemcen, massacring the Maghrawa forces there and their leader; He pressed on and by 1082 AD he had captured "Jazaʾir Banī Mazghanna".
In 1151 AD, Abd al-Mu'min launched an expedition to the east, conquering Béjaïa in August 1152, the capital of the Hammadids; on their way, Beni Mezghanna did not succumb and was now under the Almohad Caliphate's control. The caliphate suffered from states breaking out of its rule, most notably, the Kingdom of Tlemcen in 1235 AD. The town once again came under the dominion of the Ziyanid sultans of the Kingdom but experienced a large measure of independence under Thaaliba amirs who settled the Mitidja plain at around 1200 AD. |
Algiers | Early modern history | Early modern history
thumb|Illustration of the islets off the coast of Algiers before Pier "Kheireddine" was built.
The Kingdom of Tlemcen was the target of the Spanish Empire's and the Portuguese Empire's campaigns and conquests against its coasts, beginning in 1501 AD. However, Algiers continued to be of comparatively little importance until after the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, many of whom sought asylum in the city, after which the Spanish led by Pedro Navarro established a fortified base and garrison on one of the islets off the coast of Algiers, and named it "Peñón de Argel" or Peñón of Algiers, . By that time, Algiers had an emir, Salim al-Thumi who had to "swear obedience and loyalty" to Ferdinand II of Aragon who also imposed a levy intended to suppress the Barbary pirates. |
Algiers | Ottoman rule | Ottoman rule
thumb|Algiers by Antonio Salamanca, circa 1540, published in Civitates Orbis Terrarum
thumb|Abraham Duquesne delivering Christian captives in Algiers after the bombing in 1683.
In 1516, the amir of Algiers, Selim b. Teumi, invited the corsair brothers Oruç Reis and Hayreddin Barbarossa to expel the Spaniards. Oruç Reis came to Algiers, ordered the assassination of Selim, and seized the town and ousted the Spanish in the Capture of Algiers (1516). Hayreddin, succeeding Oruç after the latter was killed in battle against the Spaniards in the 1518 fall of Tlemcen, was the founder of the pashaluk, which subsequently became the beylik, of Algeria. Barbarossa lost Algiers in 1524 but regained it with the 1529 Capture of Peñón of Algiers, and then formally invited the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to accept sovereignty over the territory and to annex Algiers to the Ottoman Empire.
thumb|left|upright|Historic map of Algiers by Piri Reis
Algiers from this time became the chief seat of the Barbary pirates. In October 1541 in the Algiers expedition, the King of Spain and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor sought to capture the city, but a storm destroyed a great number of his ships, and his army of some 30,000, chiefly made up of Spaniards, was defeated by the Algerians under their pasha, Hassan.
right|thumb|Ornate Ottoman cannon found in Algiers on 8 October 1581 by Ca'fer el-Mu'allim. Length: 385 cm, cal:178 mm, weight: 2910 kg, stone projectile. Seized by France during the invasion of Algiers in 1830. Army Museum, Paris.
Formally part of the Ottoman Empire but essentially free from Ottoman control, starting in the 16th century Algiers turned to piracy and ransoming. Due to its location on the periphery of both the Ottoman and European economic spheres, and depending for its existence on a Mediterranean that was increasingly controlled by European shipping, backed by European navies, piracy became the primary economic activity. Repeated attempts were made by various nations to subdue the pirates that disturbed shipping in the western Mediterranean and engaged in slave raids as far north as Iceland. By the 17th century, up to 40% of the city's 100,000 inhabitants were enslaved Europeans. The United States fought two wars (the First and Second Barbary Wars) over Algiers' attacks on shipping.
Among the notable people held for ransom was the future Spanish novelist, Miguel de Cervantes, who was held captive in Algiers for almost five years, and wrote two plays set in Algiers of the period. The primary source for knowledge of Algiers of this period, since there are no contemporary local sources, is the Topografía e historia general de Argel (1612, but written earlier), published by Diego de Haedo, but whose authorship is disputed. Others have disputed Eisenberg's attribution of the work to Cervantes. This work describes in detail the city, the behavior of its inhabitants, and its military defenses, with the unsuccessful hope of facilitating an attack by Spain so as to end the piracy.
A significant number of renegades lived in Algiers at the time, Christians converted voluntarily to Islam, many fleeing the law or other problems at home. Once converted to Islam, they were safe in Algiers. Many occupied positions of authority, such as Samson Rowlie, an Englishman who became Treasurer of Algiers.
thumb|The Casbah of Algiers under Ottoman rule in 1690.
The city under Ottoman control was enclosed by a wall on all sides, including along the seafront. In this wall, five gates allowed access to the city, with five roads from each gate dividing the city and meeting in front of the Ketchaoua Mosque. In 1556, a citadel, Palace of the Dey was constructed at the highest point in the wall. A major road running north to south divided the city in two: The upper city (al-Gabal, or 'the mountain') which consisted of about fifty small quarters of Andalusian, Jewish, Moorish and Kabyle communities, and the lower city (al-Wata, or 'the plains') which was the administrative, military and commercial centre of the city, mostly inhabited by Ottoman Turkish dignitaries and other upper-class families.Celik, Zeynep, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Algiers Under French Rule, University of California Press, 1997, pp. 13–14.
thumb|left|The bombardment of Algiers under Viscount Exmouth, August 1816, painted by Thomas Luny
On August 27, 1816, the Bombardment of Algiers took place city by a British squadron under Lord Exmouth (a descendant of Thomas Pellew, taken in an Algerian slave raid in 1715), assisted by men-of-war from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, destroying the corsair fleet harboured in Algiers.
thumb|Portrait of Hussein Dey, the last Dey of the Deylik of Algiers.
France and the Regency of Algiers had a commercial–political conflict called the Bakri-Busnach affair which has been bothering both nations in the 19th century.
On April 29, 1827, foreign consuls and diplomatic agents gathered in the Palace of the Dey for a conference with the Regency of Algiers ruler Hussein Dey. Tensions were high because of France's failure to pay outstanding debts. In a heated moment later referred to as "fly-whisk incident", the Dey struck the French consul in the face with the handle of a fly-whisk.
In an attempt by Charles X of France to increase his popularity amongst the French, he sought to bolster patriotic sentiment, and turn eyes away from his domestic policies, by treating the incident as a public insult and demanded an apology. Failure to respond was met by operations against the dey. A naval siege on the port of Algiers by the French Navy began the following days which lasted 3 years and impacted the French and Algerian economies due to their former extensive trade treaties.
thumb|The keys of the city of Algiers, which were handed to the French Army on 5 July 1830.
thumb|Bombardment of Algiers by sea on July 3, 1830
Tensions only continued rising while the French Armed Forces were preparing for the 1830 invasion of Algiers. The naval fleet departed from Toulon on May 25, 1830, and successfully reached the western coast of the Regency near what is today Sidi Fredj on June 14, 1830. The Algerian forces met their French opponents in the Battle of Staouéli on June 19, 1830, to which the Dey's forces were defeated, this enabled the colonial army to advance into the city and made Hussein Dey surrender to French General de Bourmont on 5 July 1830. |
Algiers | French rule | French rule
Under French rule, Algiers became the capital of French Algeria, "an integral part of the French Republic" according to a formal annexation declared on June 22, 1834. Following this, interest turned into the completion of the French conquest of Algeria that shared goals with its pacification efforts; Establishing a European cultural, economic and political presence in Africa without considering the indigenous population's lifestyle or connection to their land. Plans to transform the face of the city to match French standards and architectural trends began shortly after obtaining the city. Originally, the Casbah extended to the sea, but it was pushed back to the hills above after demolishing the walls and lower half of the old city and erecting the current "Place des Martyrs",. constructing promenades and boulevards that circle the city or face the Mediterranean, tracing new streets and building apartments that are characterized by their "Haussmanian" Style..
Settlers of European descent marked a majority of the city's population,Albert Habib Hourani, Malise Ruthven (2002). "A history of the Arab peoples ". Harvard University Press. p.323. some constituted a minority of "Pieds-noirs" who were granted French citizenship and rights under the Crémieux Decree. On the other hand, Code de l'indigénat enforced inferiority of the "Arabs" and "Muslims" which were getting forcibly removed from their homes and were banned from entering various parts of "Alger" to segregate by race, religion and language.The Code d'Indigénat was promulgated by the French government for Algeria on 28 June 1881. It was officially abolished during 1946, but parts of it remained in force until independence during the early 1960s. The senatus consulte of 14 July 1865 implemented many of the elements of the future Code d'Indigénat in Algeria, and prior to 1887, other colonial subjects lived under similar conditions Added to that, mosques were repurposed to churches, stables, or demolished/closed permanently, examples of this are Ketchoua Mosque and Ali Bitchin Mosque..
+ French casualties in Algeria (1830–1851)J. Ch. M. Boudin, Histoire statistique de la colonisation en Algérie (Paris, Bailliers, 1853), p. 53. Year Active Died in hospital Killed in battle 1831 71,190 1,005 55 1832 21,511 1,998 48 1833 26,681 2,512 1834 29,858 1,991 24 1835 29,485 2,335 310 1836 29,897 2,139 606 1837 40,147 4,502 121 1838 48,167 2,413 150 1839 50,367 3,600 163 1840 61,204 9,567 227 1841 72,000 7,802 349 1842 70,853 5,588 225 1843 75,034 4,809 84 1844 82,037 4,664 167 1845 95,000 4,664 601 1846 99,700 6,862 116 1847 87,704 4,437 77 1848 75,017 4,406 13 1849 70,774 9,744 1850 71,496 4,098 1851 65,598 3,193
During the 1930s, the architect Le Corbusier drew up plans for a complete redesign of the colonial city. Le Corbusier was highly critical of the urban style of Algiers, describing the European district as "nothing but crumbling walls and devastated nature, the whole a sullied blot". He also criticised the difference in living standards he perceived between the European and African residents of the city, describing a situation in which "the 'civilised' live like rats in holes" whereas "the 'barbarians' live in solitude, in well-being".Celik, Zeynep, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Algiers Under French Rule, University of California Press, 1997, p. 5. However, these plans were ultimately ignored by the French administration.
During World War II, Algiers was the first city to be seized from the Axis by the Allies in Operation Terminal, a part of Operation Torch.
thumb|left|City and harbour of Algiers, |
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