ALFRED AS A GEOGRAPHER

By Sir Clements Markham

ALFRED AS A GEOGRAPHER

The single-minded devotion of King Alfred to the service of his people is shown in every action of his life; and one of the greatest, certainly the most remarkable undertaking for that end, was the conveyance of knowledge to them in their own language, through paraphrased translations. It was thus that he strove to disseminate some acquaintance with theology, moral philosophy, history, and geography. It is a very striking and suggestive fact that a ruler who surpassed all others that the world has ever seen in wisdom and insight, as well as in complete abnegation of every selfish thought in his dealings with his people, should have given so high a place to geography. Alfred knew by experience that an acquaintance with the relative positions of places on the earth’s surface was the necessary foundation of the kind of knowledge required equally by the statesman, the soldier, and the merchant; and he therefore gave its due place to geography in his grand scheme for the enlightenment of Englishmen. In this he was centuries in advance of his age, and even now the standard in this, as in other respects, is below that of the wisest of our kings.

Alfred, as was his wont, when he had resolved to bring knowledge on any particular subject within the reach of his people, diligently sought out the best authority on geography. Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny were unknown to his generation, still hidden away in dark repositories and not to be unearthed until the dawn of the Renaissance. In the ninth century the best geographical work was that of Paulus Orosius, who had lived in the days of the Emperor Honorius. He was a native of Tarragona in Spain, and took orders in the Christian church. Perplexed by the controversies in his own country, the young Spanish deacon undertook a voyage to Africa, to receive the solution of his doubts from the famous Bishop of Hippo. Orosius secured the friendship of St. Augustine, who sent him to Palestine on two occasions before A.D. 416, and gave him opportunities for study. The result was a work intended to refute the pagan opinion that the sack of Rome by Alaric was due to the anger of the ancient gods. It, however, contained much more than mere polemics, and was in fact a summary of the world’s history from the creation to the days of Honorius, with a sketch of all that was then known of geography.

Alfred brought high qualifications to the task of translating and editing Orosius.[25] In his boyhood he had twice made journeys to Rome, which, as regards danger and hardships, may be compared to an expedition to Lhasa at the present day. In after life he had become very intimately acquainted with the topography of his native island, from the Humber to the shores of the Channel, and from the Severn to the East Anglian coast. As a military tactician he knew each river, valley, hill range, and plain; as an administrator he had examined the capabilities of every district; and as a naval commander, the harbours and estuaries, the tides and currents were familiar to him. So far as his personal knowledge extended, Alfred was a trained geographer. He was also in a position to increase the information derived from his own personal experiences by diligently collecting materials from those foreigners who frequented his court, and by reading. He had the gift of assimilating the knowledge thus acquired, and he studied most diligently. Above all, he was eager to investigate unknown things for the great end he always had in view—the good of his people.

Alfred’s design was to collect the best and most extensive geographical information, without confining himself to the text of Orosius. Thus he commences his geographical work with a very lucid account of the peoples of central Europe and of their relative positions, which is not in the work of Orosius, but was composed by the king himself from his own sources of information. It is the only account from which such details in that age can be derived.

The East Franks, he tells us, were established east of the Rhine and north of the source of the Danube. The Swabians were to the south and beyond the Danube, while the Bavarians were farther east round the town of Ratisbon, both peoples occupying the country up to the foot of the Alps. East of the Bavarians was Bohemia, and to the north-east was Thuringia. Turning to the north of Germany the king places the old Saxons round the mouth of the Elbe, and the Frisians farther west. North of the Elbe were the Angles, who nearly all came to people England, and the Danes on the mainland and in the island of Zeeland. King Alfred then gives some details respecting the Slavonic tribes in the eastern part of Germany. The Afdrede were established in what is now Mecklenburg, and the Wylte in that part of the mark of Brandenburg then called Hæfeldan. The Sysyle were in a part of Eastern Prussia then known as Wineda-land. Eastward from the countries of the Bohemians and Bavarians were the Moravians; and to the south, beyond the Danube again, and extending to the Alps, was Carinthia. A desert, by which the Karst may be intended, extended between Carinthia and the land of the Bulgarians, beyond which was the Byzantine empire. To the east of Moravia was Wisl-land, the region watered by the Vistula, Dalamensan, Horithi, and Surpe. These Slavonic peoples occupied Poland, and to the north-east was Sermende, the modern Livonia.

Having given the relative positions of the peoples inhabiting central Europe, King Alfred turns to the north, and takes us to the countries bordering on the British sea and the Baltic, or Ost-sæ as he calls it. The north Danes were then in the provinces of Halland and Scania, now part of Sweden, as well as in the islands. To the eastward were the Afdrede already mentioned as occupying Mecklenburg, the Burgendas apparently on the island of Bornholm, and Osti or Easterlings, a Finnish race, inhabited Esthonia. On the Scandinavian peninsula were the Sweon or Swedes, the Northmen, and the Scride-Finnas or “striding Finns.” Far to the north, between the Gulf of Bothnia and the Arctic Sea, including Finmarken, was the waste country called Cwenland.

Having given this most valuable summary of the inhabitants of Central and Northern Europe during the ninth century, King Alfred proceeds to relate the particulars of two important voyages made by distinguished seamen who had come to his court and recited their adventures to him. The first was an influential Northman or Norwegian named Oht-here, or in old Norwegian, Ottar. The name is derived from the two words oht (dread or fear) and hær or here (an army), hærmand, a warrior. The right meaning of Oht-here is, therefore, “terror-causing warrior.” This able navigator “told his Lord King Alfred that he dwelt northmost of all Northmen, on the land by the west sea.” The district in which he dwelt was called Halgoland, the land of fire, or more probably “the land of the northern lights.” Oht-here’s home has been placed on the shores of Lerivik Sound, between the Island of Senjen and the mainland. “He said no man abode north of him. He was a wealthy man in those possessions in which their wealth consists,” possessing 600 tame reindeer of his own breeding, 20 horned cattle, as many sheep and swine, and horses with which he ploughed a small extent of tilled land. But his revenues were chiefly derived from tribute paid to him by the Laplanders, called Finns by the Norwegians, in furs and skins, birds’ feathers, whalebone, and ropes made from walrus hide. Oht-here called his country Northweg (Norway), and described it as being very long and narrow, with all the pasture and culturable land near the sea, which, however, is very rocky in some places. Inland, he said that there were high mountains, and farther to the eastward were Sweden in the south and Cwenland in the north. He added that to the north of Halgoland the country was waste and desert, except in a few places, where the Laplanders were encamped for hunting, or on the sea-coast for fishing in the summer.

Oht-here was evidently a man of high position and great influence, one who was worthy of the friendship and confidence of King Alfred. He was inspired by the noble desire for Arctic exploration and discovery, or, as he expressed himself to the king, he desired to find out how the land lay far to the north. So he undertook a most adventurous voyage to the northward, coasting along the land, keeping the wild, rocky coast on his starboard side and the wide Arctic Sea on what he called his bæc-bord. Continuing this course for three days, he passed beyond the most northern point to which the whale-hunters ever went in those days. Still pressing onwards, he attained the most northern point ever reached by man, in about 71° 15′ N. The land then trended eastward, and, after waiting a short time for a westerly wind, he shaped a course along the coast to the eastward until he reached the entrance of the White Sea on the fourth day. Here he waited for a northerly breeze, which enabled him to coast round the Kola peninsula to the mouth of the Varzuga river, and thus to discover the White Sea. Here he stopped owing to fear of hostilities from the natives beyond. These were the North Carelians, on the western coast of the White Sea. Oht-here calls them Beormas, and says that they had a well-peopled land.

Oht-here’s discoveries included the whole of the Arctic coast of Finmarken and the shores of the White Sea as far as the mouth of the Varzuga. He was the first to double the North Cape, and Oht-here’s farthest north held its ground for nearly seven hundred years, until the voyage of Willoughby and Chancellor in 1553.

Oht-here calls the country between the Gulf of Bothnia and the Arctic Sea, Terfinna land, Ter being the ancient name of the Kola peninsula. Terfinna therefore means the Finns in Ter. He describes it as entirely waste and uninhabited, except where the Laplanders were encamped for hunting or fishing. He was told many tales respecting their country by the Beormas, but King Alfred did not record them, because they were only from hearsay, and not things the explorer could testify to from personal knowledge. Besides discovery, another object of Oht-here’s voyage was the capture of walrus, for the sake of their hides and tusks. He calls the walrus a horse whale, but says that it is much smaller than other whales; thus correctly including whales, usually supposed to be fish in ancient times, under the head of mammalia, by classing them with the walrus. The length of a walrus is given, with approximate accuracy, at 14 feet. Oht-here told King Alfred that the great whales were from 96 to 100 feet long, and that the best whale-hunting was off his own country of Halgoland. The skill and energy of those old Norsemen must have been most remarkable, for Oht-here says that his was one of six vessels which killed sixty whales in two days. The ships must have had very large crews, and a considerable number of boats for each ship, to have achieved such an unequalled feat, probably without a rival in the whole history of whaling. But it is more likely that Oht-here alluded to walrus or “horse whales.”

Oht-here also described to the king a voyage to the south from Halgoland, along the coast of Norway, to Denmark and Slesvig. He said that with a fair wind, and anchoring each night, the voyage from Halgoland to a port he calls Sciringesheal, might be made in a month. Sciringesheal is in old Norwegian Scirings-salr, which, in the ninth century, was a town on the shores of a small bay in Larviks-fjord, called Viks-fjord. In the English of Alfred the termination salr (a large room) is changed into heal (a hall). On the bæc-bord is Norway, and on the starboard side is Iraland and other islands. He then describes a great sea running inland, the Kattegat and the Baltic, with Jutland and Zeeland on the other side. The Baltic, he adds, runs several hundred miles up into the land. Oht-here sailed from Sciringesheal southwards, through the Danish islands to the coast of Slesvig, and reached the port of Haddeby. Alfred adds the interesting fact that the Angles dwelt in these lands round Haddeby before they came into England.

Oht-here made a present of walrus ivory to King Alfred; but he was not the only adventurous seaman who brought welcome information to the king. A Dane named Wulfstan gave him an account of a voyage in the Baltic from Haddeby to Truso, in what is now Eastern Prussia, and described to him the manners and customs of the people he visited.

Haddeby, mentioned both by Oht-here and Wulfstan, was no doubt an important trading port in the ninth century. The word, as given by Alfred, is æt Hæthum, meaning “at the Heaths.” “The town at the heaths” is the same as Hedeby or Haddeby, the ancient name of Slesvig. It is now a pretty little village, with a very ancient granite church, on the banks of the river Schley, just opposite the more recent town of Slesvig. Wulfstan made the voyage from Haddeby to Truso in seven days. He had the Danish islands on the bæc-bord, and the land of the Wends, now Mecklenburg, and Pomerania on his starboard side; then the Swedish provinces of Bleking and Smaland, and the isles of Bornholm, Öland, and Gothland, to the north; and the mouth of the Vistula to the south. Wulfstan finished his voyage by entering the inland sea, called Frische Haff, by a narrow strait, and going up the Elbing river to the town of Truso on the Drausen lake in East Prussia.

Wulfstan gave a very full account of this country of Estum or Esthonia to King Alfred. There are kings in every town, he says, and the richer folk drink mare’s milk (probably the fermented kumiss made from milk), while the poor people drink mead. The custom of treating their dead is to keep the bodies preserved in ice for a long time before they are burnt, during which there is drinking and festivities. The dead man’s property is then divided into several lots, and placed along a course to be raced for, so that swift horses become uncommonly dear. King Alfred was also much struck by Wulfstan’s account of the way in which the Esthonians could produce cold, both for preserving the dead during the period of festivities, and for icing their liquors.

In recording the information received from his two sailor visitors, Oht-here and Wulfstan, the clearness and perspicacity of the narrative, and the rejection of all hearsay evidence, show that King Alfred was most careful and conscientious, anxious to secure accuracy, and only to present to his people what was reliable. The voyages themselves are interesting, because they prove that, although the seas were alive with the piratical fleets of Rolf the Ganger, Hasting, and many other warriors bent only on pillage and rapine, there were at the same time peaceful ventures and even expeditions of discovery.

The first voyage of Oht-here is memorable as the first Arctic expedition undertaken for the sake of discovery and exploration. There is nothing to show that it was undertaken under the auspices, or even with the knowledge, of Alfred. But it is certain that it received the cordial approval of our great king, and that its motives had the sympathy and appreciation of one who, in regenerating the navy of England, knew well that such training was of vital importance to a naval power. The welcome he extended to his Arctic visitor, and the care with which he elicited his information and recorded it, leave no doubt of what Alfred’s feelings were upon this subject. When it is remembered that Alfred the Great rebuilt the English navy from his own designs, improving upon the lines of Danish and Norse ships, it ought not to be forgotten, in the same connection, how highly he valued the work of Arctic exploration. He at least knew that a training in deeds of seaman-like daring and adventure is as important as the building of ships for securing and maintaining power on the sea. We have no further knowledge of the personal intercourse between the first Arctic explorer and “his Lord King Alfred.” He was cordially received at the English court, he presented the king with an offering of walrus ivory, and there must have been conversations in the course of which the king received and sifted the evidence of his guest, until he was able to record the lucid and accurate narrative which has been preserved and handed down to us.

After recording the events of the voyages of Oht-here and Wulfstan, King Alfred returns to the text of Orosius, where the geography of Greece and the islands is discussed, as well as that of the countries on the shores of the Adriatic. Thence Orosius passes to Italy, France, and Spain; and in the latter country Cadiz and Betanzos in Galicia are mentioned. France was personally known to Alfred, who had visited the court of Charles the Bald, but he gives no reminiscence of his journeys. Nearly all Spain was then under the enlightened rule of the powerful western Khalifas Almondhir and Abdallah, while the Christian kings of Oviedo fought to maintain a struggling existence in the mountains of Asturias. Even Leon was not occupied by them until after the death of Alfred. In his reference to Britain and the surrounding islands, including the Orkneys, there is an allusion to “the uttermost land that men call Thule,” north-west of Ireland. Alfred held it to be Iceland, apparently.

Africa is then treated of, with rather more fulness. The positions of Egypt and Libya Cyrenaica, of the Nasamones, near the Syrtis Major, of Numidia, Mauritania, and the Atlas Mountains, are laid down; and after a passage where Orosius remarks on the ingratitude of the Egyptians to the memory of Joseph, King Alfred inserts an interesting reflection of his own: “So also it is still in all the world. If God for a very long time grants any one his will, and he then takes it away for a less time, he soon forgets the good which he had before, and thinks only upon the evil which he then hath.”

The concluding part of the work refers to the Mediterranean islands. Sicily is described with its three points, Pelorus, Pachynum, and Lilybæum; but there is a serious mistake as regards its size, perhaps due to an error in transcription. Finally, there are notices of Scythia and Bactria, of Arabia and India, of Palestine and the Jordan, and of Cilicia, Isauria, and other places in Asia Minor, this part being from the text of Orosius. Africa seems to have been conceived to be a long, narrow continent, smaller than Europe, with no very great extension towards the south.

When we consider the ignorance which prevailed in England before Alfred’s time, we can form an idea of the immense importance of his geographical labours and of the brightness of the light with which he dispelled outer darkness in the minds of his countrymen. His work was more especially useful in his own time, owing to the intercourse he encouraged with foreign lands, and to the frequent missions he despatched and received. Every year there was intercourse with Rome, when the alms for St. Peter were despatched, generally in charge of an alderman or a dignitary of the Church. Embassies were received from Germany and the northern countries, from France, and probably from the Emperor Leo the Philosopher at Constantinople, and from the great western Khalifa at Cordova. King Alfred even despatched a mission to India, at the head of which was Sighelm or Suithelm, the Bishop of Sherburn. In those days there were native dynasties at the principal seats of Hindu civilisation. The Chohan kings were reigning at Delhi and Ajmir. At Ujjayana the Malwa Rajas held a brilliant court, where literature flourished, and where Kalidasa and his school reached the highest flights of poetic imagination. At Madura, in Southern India, was the cultured Pandyon dynasty. It is probable that the visit of King Alfred’s envoy was to the Pandyon King of Madura, for his instructions were to seek out the shrine of St. Thomas, which has traditionally been placed on the Coromandel coast. It is recorded that the Bishop of Sherburn returned safely to England, bringing back with him gems and other products of a country which was destined, in after ages, to become the brightest gem in the diadem of the descendants of Alfred the Great.

Both through his promotion of intercourse with distant lands and through his literary work, our great king enlightened his people by disseminating geographical knowledge. The first to encourage Arctic exploration, the first to point the way to eastern trade by the Baltic, the first to open communication with India, his literary labours in the cause of geography are even more astonishing. There have been literary sovereigns since the days of Timæus of Sicily, writing for their own glory or for their own edification or amusement. Alfred alone wrote with the sole object of his people’s good; while in his methods, in his scientific accuracy, and in his aims, he was several centuries in advance of his time. After his death there was a dreary waste of ignorance, with scarcely even a sign of dawn on the distant horizon. A few Englishmen of ability, such as Roger Bacon and Sacrobosco, speculated and wrote on questions “de sphærâ,” but there was no practical geography until Eden and Hakluyt rose up, nearly seven centuries after the death of our great king. Richard Hakluyt was indebted to Alfred for portions of his work, and he resembled his illustrious precursor somewhat in his zeal, his patriotism, and his diligence. Hakluyt was, however, far behind Alfred in scientific precision and insight, although he lived so long afterwards, with seven more centuries of experience to guide him. Even now men of learning and research have their admiration aroused at the accuracy of King Alfred’s descriptions, and at the pains he must have taken to reject what was doubtful and to retain only what was true. This called for the exercise of ability of a high order, as well as patience.

Alfred the Great was, in the truest sense of the term, a man of science; and we hail him as one who stands alone and unrivalled—the founder of the science of geography in this country.