CHAPTER XI

SOME CLOSING REFLECTIONS

Among the various criticisms which have been elicited by the Alfred Jewel during the two hundred and seven years which have elapsed since its discovery in the year 1693, the opinion that the name it bears is that of the king has not met with more than one definite and formulated objection. This objection, if it had prevailed, would have excluded the production of such a work in king Alfred’s time, as a thing impossible. But the question thus raised has evoked evidence of so overpowering a nature as not only to neutralize the objection, but also to increase the balance of probability in favour of the opinion that the person named on the Jewel is Alfred of Wessex.

The name, combined with the costliness and the strongly marked individuality of the work, draws the mind naturally to think of the most remarkable person who bore that name; but, in addition, we have to consider that it was found in the neighbourhood of the very spot which is most closely associated with the career of the selfsame person. In these obvious prima facie elements of the case, there is an accumulation of probability, which fully justified Hickes in saying that from his first sight of the Jewel he had never doubted its having been a personal possession of king Alfred’s[58].

To this central and primary body of evidence other instances of probability have been added in the course of the present Essay. The investigation of the Epigraph led us to the conclusion that the diction answered well to the time of king Alfred’s life, and also that it bore some resemblance to an analogous piece of his admitted writing.

Our examination of theories concerning the design and use of the Jewel resulted in the conclusion that the suggestions hitherto advanced were inadmissible, and of no other value than as narrowing the field of conjecture. We at least know a number of things that have appeared plausible in their time, and are now no more to be thought of; namely, an amulet, a pendant to a collar of state, a decorated umbilicus, the head of a stilus, a military standard, the handle of a book-pointer, the tip of a sceptre.

Our review of the abortiveness of early speculations concerning the design and use of the Jewel drove us by a process of elimination to seek a place for it in the helmet. In favour of this new theory historical evidence has been adduced, such as has not been offered in support of any other explanation. Unless this theory is approved, both the Alfred Jewel and the minor jewel from Minster Lovel remain without explanation. There is not so much as a theory in the field. On the other hand, if this new theory is judged to be right, or to have high probability, then this circumstance makes strongly in favour of the identification of the Jewel with king Alfred. For it points to a warrior, a helmet-wearer, and to a person of commanding position.

One of the effects of the present investigation upon myself has been to convince me (in the face of what I counted a settled opinion) that the enamelled Figure is a product of these islands; and that it is not necessary for us to look abroad towards Byzantium, or further east, for a satisfactory account of it. This unity again is in favour of identification with Alfred of Wessex, whose conspicuous interest in jewellers’ work is asserted by a well-sustained tradition.

* * * * *

The symbolism of the Jewel appears to contain an allegorical representation of the designer’s position, both inherited and chosen, both national and personal. His religious standing is pictured in the Figure and its back-plate; and the ancient religion of his nation in the boar’s head, once dominant, now under foot, forming a pedestal for the Head of the Church. And to this I will add the surmise, that perhaps the scales or waves on the small triangular space in the reverse signify that his country is an island in the ocean.

I am not without apprehension that these explanations may strike some readers as too minute and too far-fetched, and that I may be charged with bringing out of the Jewel more than is in it. I will therefore endeavour to anticipate this charge with a few apologetic words. And first of all, I think it well to state that I did not set out with any idea of discovering latent meanings in the Jewel. When first I discoursed upon it, I contented myself with exhibiting drawings of the object, narrating the story of the discovery, explaining the inscription, and rehearsing the opinions which had been put forward concerning such a remarkable find. This furnished material to fill an hour, and to satisfy an audience. Whatever I have added to the traditional exegesis has broken in upon me from time to time at wide intervals, causing me on such occasions more surprize and pleasure than I can hope to impart to my readers.

For those who would test the symbolism of the Jewel, there is an obvious preliminary question. Is there any reason to think that Alfred had an aptitude and a fondness for allegory? This question has been to me a valuable guide in observations on the extant writings of the king. It would be easy to show, by examples drawn from his writings, that he had a marked fondness for imagery and parable, that his habit of mind inclined to all figures of analogy and similitude. It was not a previous knowledge of these in the writings that led me to look for them in the Jewel, but reversely. I am not aware that any one had called attention to this characteristic in the writings: I do not think I apprehended it from any other source than the Jewel itself. In regard to this particular feature, the Jewel has (for me) thrown light on the writings, and these again have reflected illustration back upon the Jewel. I hope this explanation may make it easier for some to think that the imagery of the Jewel is a strong indication that Alfred of Wessex was the designer.

It was with this aim that, in chapter vii, I quoted the poetical Epilogue to Alfred’s _Pastoralis_, and with the same aim I now proceed to quote a long-drawn simile in prose, which the king inserted into his translation of Boethius’ _De Consolatione Philosophiæ_. It is in the fourth book, where the discussion is about Providence and Fate[59].

In the abstract and implicit manner natural to the sage of a mature and over-blown culture, Boethius had illustrated the relation between Providence and Fate by the relation between the centre of the circle and its circumference. This analogy is stated in mathematical fashion. A series of concentric circles offer points of external contact more numerous in some and less numerous in others, according as their circumference is nearer or further from the common centre, but the centre itself is unaffected by such chances; it remains always the same, one and indivisible. The stable centre is Divine Providence; by the various contact of the circumferences with external things is represented the vicissitude of Fate or Fortune.

This refined similitude was translated by king Alfred, out of the diamond-cut succinct Latin of Boethius, into the homely speech of his own people, by means of a concrete figure that was familiar to every son of the soil.

Accordingly some things in this world are subject to Fate, some are no whit subject thereto: but Fate, and all the things subject to it, are in subjection to Divine Providence. Concerning this I can rehearse unto thee a similitude, whereby thou mayest the better understand, which men be subject to Fate, and which be not. All this moving and revolving creation revolves upon God, who is immovable, unchangeable, and one: and he wieldeth all creatures just as he at the first had ordained, and still doth ordain.

As on a waggon’s axle the wheels revolve and the axle standeth still and beareth the whole waggon and governs all the motion; while the wheel turns about, and the nave next to the axle moves more steadily and more securely than the fellies do: in such a manner that the axle is the highest good, which we call God, and the happiest men move nighest to God, even as the nave moveth nighest to the axle, and the middling sort are just like the spokes; forasmuch as every spoke hath one end fast in the nave and the other end in the felly. So it is with men of the middling sort; at one time he thinks in his mind about this earthly life, at another time about the heavenly; like a man looking with one eye to heaven and with the other to earth. Just as the spokes have one end sticking in the felly and the other in the nave, while the middle of the spoke is equally near to both, even so are the middling men in the middle of the spoke, and the better men nearer to the nave, and the meaner men nearer to the fellies: they are, however, in connexion with the nave, and the nave with the axle. So now, the fellies though they are attached to the spokes, yet are they altogether rolling upon the earth; so are the meanest connected with the middling and the middling with the best and the best with God. Though the meanest men all direct their love to this world, yet can they not rest thereon, nor be of any account, unless they be in some measure associated with God, any more than the wheel’s fellies can be in progress, unless they be attached to the spokes and the spokes to the axle. The fellies are the farthest from the axle; therefore they move the most unevenly. The nave moves next to the axle; and that is why it has the surest motion. So do the happiest men: as they set their love nearer to God, and more resolutely contemn these earthly things, so are they more free from care, and less they reck how Fate may chance to turn, or what it may bring. In like manner the nave is continually so sure, jolt the fellies on whatso they may jolt; and this even though the nave is somewhat apart from the axle. By this figure thou mayest understand that as the waggon is much more durably sound, the less it is parted from the axle; so are those men the freest of all from care (whether about anxieties of this life or of the next) who are fast in God: but in whatever degree they are asunder from God, in the same degree are they worried and harassed, both in mind and in body.

This prose simile is unquestioned as an original piece of king Alfred’s authorship, and so is also the poetical epilogue to his _Pastoralis_, which was quoted above in the seventh chapter. Can any one doubt that his mind was exuberantly fertile in allegorical thought, and shall it be judged a thing improbable that in his imaginative youth, having recently passed through a very grand and rude transition of experience, he should have strained the plasticity of a favourite craft to body forth the symbolic expression of thoughts too deep for common speech?

As the course of investigation into the variety and unity of this composite Jewel brings it more and more home to the creative mind of Alfred, the conviction rises that this work represents no passing freak of artistic fancy, nor the fond elaboration of some fascinating idea (as in a sonnet); but rather that we have before us the thoughtful record of a period of life and a phase of some duration, containing serious reflections by one who had reached a higher stage of observation, a stage commanding a wider outlook. Of some such a crisis as this the Alfred Jewel appears to be the pictorial and symbolic monument.

And if this impression is sound, it ought to help us to some further conclusions. We ought with this help to be able to form some estimate of the period in which this Jewel was designed. However we may lament the poverty of detailed incident in the life of Alfred, we are not ignorant of its main divisions. And we are now in a position to ask—To which of these divisions does this carefully elaborated design most naturally belong?

In seeking materials for the answer to this question, I will first consider the probabilities of the case, which are suggested by the course of public events: and then, secondly, I will come to the indications which are personal to Alfred himself. This plan may tend to clearness, though it be not feasible to keep the two aspects quite apart.

For a basis to this enquiry, we must take the year 878, as being that in which the Jewel disappeared. This is now an established point in our argument. To this we were led both by history and by tradition: and it is only by keeping as close as possible to these that we can shun the proclivities of arbitrary hypothesis.

1. Taking then the year 878 as that in which Alfred saw the Jewel for the last time, how far back must we recede to come to the most probable time for his inventing it? Our first step must be to skip the seven years since his accession in 871. A glimpse at the events of that period may suffice to assure us that the constant pressure of sterner duties would have left him in no mood to amuse himself with enamel and filigree. And even if for the sake of winter relaxation he had done so, I think he would not have designated himself as plain Ælfred, when he was king. During his reign his constant style was ÆLFRED CYNING, and it would have been quite easy to have added the letter R to his name, as his father did when he ordered the fashion of his ring. For these reasons (among others), I think the Jewel was made before 871.

We may still recede another long step, and say that the date we seek was probably before 866. That is the year in which Alfred began to share the burden of reigning without the title, the year in which the common danger entered upon a new and more menacing phase, as the heathen invasion began to be more systematically conducted. Wessex was not indeed attacked until the last of these five years, but the whole period must have been passed in apprehension and intense preparation. Accordingly, this process of reasoning back from the year 878 by the light of public events brings us to the result that the design and execution of the Jewel is probably to be dated before A.D. 866, that is to say, it must belong to the reign of king Æthelberht.

2. Coming now to the second process, we have to consider at what time it appears likely that Alfred might have been in the mood for such a work as this, and also in circumstances (as to his immediate surroundings) favourable for artistic and allegorical meditation. When does it appear likely that he had leisure for thinking out these details, while at the same time his mind was exercised with the themes represented in the Jewel? It was certainly subsequent to his return from Rome; not immediately, but after an interval, when the first agitation of his mind had subsided, and he had become reconciled to his lot.

For we cannot doubt that when he returned from Rome to England, and witnessed the state of his country—the danger and the depression—he must have experienced a great revulsion of feeling, a strong outburst of regret for the long and happy time that he had been enjoying abroad. His passionate yearning for Rome and his friends there must have amounted to something like a violent fit of home-sickness. All this it was his duty to live down; and to do so he had to look the facts in the face, and take their measure and their bearing, and ascertain their relation to his path of duty, and interpret his position by the light of a religious conscience. Some earnest and ardent minds would find solace and strength in writing poetry, and perhaps Alfred did so. If this Jewel is not the equivalent of such a poem it is nearly akin to it. In constructive art there certainly is a solace of a healing kind, and the Jewel before us answers remarkably to the situation. It is in many particulars like the outcome of such a mood. And if such a mood is likely to have followed the return of the young prince to England, it concerns us to form some opinion about the probable date of that event.

It is asserted in the bilingual Chronicle (F) that Alfred returned to England on the occasion of his father’s death, which took place in January, 858; but the statement is discredited by considerations which Mr. Plummer has given in his notes to the _Saxon Chronicle_ (vol. ii, p. 80). Two years later, in 860, his eldest brother, Æthelbald, king of Wessex, died; and this event occasioned a definite call for his return. The three brothers, Æthelbald, Æthered, and Ælfred, held lands in common which were given by their father to these three sons, in such a way that the whole was to come to the latest survivor. This property would now pass to the two brothers, Æthered and Ælfred; and for the sanction of this transfer it was necessary that the parties should appear before the Witan. This transaction is related in Alfred’s Will. The two brothers agreed that their joint property should be held in trust by Æthelbriht, the new king, and that he should farm it for the benefit of his younger brothers, a trust which he fully discharged.

At the death of Æthelbriht and the accession of Æthered in 866, the heathen invasion began to assume a more alarming form; but the reign of Æthelbriht had been a quiet time, at least for Wessex. This period (860 to 866), from Alfred’s thirteenth to his eighteenth year, would be a time of leisure, and he would be at the age of youthful reverie, and his mind would be stimulated by reports that would reach his ear of the savagery of the heathen raids in neighbour and kindred nations contrasted with the humanities of Christianity, while his memory would contrast the learned culture of Rome with the ignorance of his own people. These appear to be apt conditions for exercising the mind of a serious prince with such thoughts as we find symbolized in the Alfred Jewel.

* * * * *

In collecting evidence for the argument of this Essay, I have been solicitous to omit nothing that seemed to make for the credit of a Jewel, concerning which I am persuaded in my own mind that it bears the authentic signature of Alfred of Wessex. I hope that this aim has not betrayed me into the use of any arguments which are of no validity. And if any reader’s opinion should be against me on this point, I would ask him to consider that in the region of probability all men do not judge exactly alike: one may think a particular fact or tradition of no argumentative value, while another may hesitate to exclude it. And even if any such instance were disallowed and ruled to be of no weight, still it cannot invalidate the rest.

Morally, it may damage the effect of the whole, because it may prejudice the mind of the reader; but logically, it leaves the argumentative effect of the rest where it was before. Such being the case, I have leaned toward comprehension as being the more useful course; and if I have erred I hope I may claim the reader’s indulgence, on the ground of being faithful to the view which I had of the task before me.

In this scientific age, there are more persons who can appreciate a train of exact serial reasoning than of those who can do justice to a combination of probabilities. It is not very rare to find disputants capable of testing a mathematical demonstration, who if they had to examine a probable argument might dismiss it with the proverbial maxim, which says that no chain is stronger than its weakest link.

There are arguments which are like a chain, and to them the maxim applies: one weak link vitiates the conclusion. Such are the demonstrations in Euclid. But the argument which runs through this book is not of that kind, rather it resembles a bundle, and to such the maxim does not apply. It cannot be said, for example, that no faggot is stronger than its weakest stick. And this is the simile which applies to the evidence in probable reasoning. It is not linked, but massed.

When Gulliver awoke on the shore of Liliput and found that he was fastened to the ground, the threads which bound him were severally slight, but the total effect was irresistible. Analogous thereto was the combined effect of many partial and inconclusive arguments on the mind of Sir Francis Palgrave, when he testified that ‘no one, taking all the points of evidence together, can reasonably doubt but that it did belong to king Alfred[60].’

This conclusion may now be somewhat amplified. I trust we are now in a position to say with reasonable confidence, that not only did this Jewel belong to Alfred of Wessex, having been made by his order; but further, that it was his work, having been made after his design; and further again, that the design referred to, and was based upon, his own position; and, moreover, that the Jewel was a production of his youth, of the period after his return from Rome, and before he assumed a share in public affairs by the side of his brother Æthelred.

[58] See above, p. 8.

[59] The Anglo-Saxon text may be found in Cardale’s edition (1829), p. 338, and in the recent edition by Mr. Sedgefield, p. 129.

[60] See above, p. 84.

APPENDIX A

THE FIRST PUBLISHED NOTICE OF THE ALFRED JEWEL

(pp. 25 and 144)

The following is an Article in the _Philosophical Transactions_ of the Royal Society of London, vol. xx, No. 247, page 441:—

_Part of a Letter from Dr. Musgrave, Fellow of the College of Physicians and R. S., to Dr. Sloane; concerning a Piece of Antiquity lately found in Somersetshire._

I enclose, to you, the Figure (see Fig. 4) of a curious piece of Antiquity, lately found near Ashelney in Somersetshire; the Place where King Alfred built, as Milton affirms, a Fortress: But according to William of Malmsbury, a Monastery; in Memory (as some have thought) of his Deliverance, obscure Retreat to that Place, and Concealment in it, from the Danes.

The Substance is in the Possession of Col. P. of Fairfield in the same County; by whose Permission, I had the Sight of it. ’Tis of the same Length and Breadth with the Figure: the Work very fine; so as to make some Men question its true Age: But in all probability, it did belong to that great King, it is so well represented in the Figure, that a short Description will suffice.

The Edge is thin, as far as the Letters. The Letters are on a Plane rising obliquely. All within the inner Pyramidal Line is on a Plane equi-distant from the Reverse. The Representation (in that upper Plane) seems to be of some Person in a Chair. It is in Enamel, cover’d over with a Crystal; which is secured in its place by the little Leaves coming over its Edges. In the Reverse are Flowers engraved. The whole piece may be of the Weight of Three Guineas. The Chrystal and Enamel excepted, it is all of pure Gold.

This, perhaps, was an Amulet of King Alfred’s.

EXON, _Dec. 10, 1698_.

APPENDIX B

ST. NEOT AND ST. CUTHBERT

(pp. 29 and 74)

Among the tentative interpretations of the enamelled Figure both of these saints have at different times been put forward, as was only natural, since they both hold a place in the current narratives of king Alfred’s life. But it is well to observe that their several relations to the stream of tradition are neither equal nor alike. The first is found united with that stream in the tenth century, that is to say, at the highest point which has been reached in the investigation of these episodes. As to what is told of St. Neot, however unlikely, it cannot be pronounced impossible that it may have had some original right to the place which it holds. The second is a transparent fraud, introduced in the twelfth century by wrong-headed zeal. A few details will make this clear.

The oldest source for the life of St. Neot is an Anglo-Saxon homily of that well-known type which sprang out of the monastic revival associated with the names of Odo and Æthelwold and Dunstan. Conspicuous examples of this type are the Lives of St. Edmund, King and Martyr, and of St. Swithun.

At this epoch the relics of St. Neot (by a traffic too intricate for us to unravel) were removed from their natural resting-place at St. Neots in Cornwall, where the man had lived and died, to enrich a new foundation in Huntingdonshire, where influential persons were planting a new monastery, which became a second St. Neots. We may pretty safely assume that this event, which happened about 984, gave rise to the biography, in which the relations of St. Neot to Alfred form the distinguishing feature. Of this writing only a late and somewhat interpolated copy has reached our times.

The modern historian will not hesitate to say of St. Cuthbert that his relations to Alfred are wholly fictitious; but he cannot undertake to say the same of St. Neot. Nevertheless, they are equally out of the question so far as regards the _icuncula_. The idea that the Figure might be St. Neot is excluded by the homily, which places the death of St. Neot shortly before the troubles of Alfred, and the accepted date is 877. According to the most probable chronology we have been able to make out for the Jewel, it was fabricated before 866.

* * * * *

The legendary connexion of St. Cuthbert with Alfred dates from the twelfth century, and is apparently due to Simeon the historian, who was a monk of the monastery of Durham, and who, when about thirty-five years old, witnessed the impressive ceremonial of the translation of the great saint of the North Country, which took place in 1104.

When he compiled his narrative of the reign of king Alfred, he sacrificed facts of history to the fame of the saint. Omitting genuine details which he had at hand, he subjected the capital events of Alfred’s life to the patronage of St. Cuthbert. Thus he begins: ‘In the year 877 the nefarious host quitted Exeter and came to Chippenham and wintered there. King Alfred in those days endured great tribulations and lived an unsettled life. Being encouraged with an explicit oracle by St. Cuthbert, king Alfred fought against the Danes, at the time and in the place which the saint had directed, and gained the victory, and from that time forward he was terrible and invincible to his enemies. The manner in which he vanquished his foes is related as followeth.’

In such a manner was this figment introduced into the page of history, where it long continued in good repute. Hickes was so much swayed by it, that he relinquished his first interpretation of the _icuncula_ in favour of St. Cuthbert.

If the connexion of Alfred with St. Neot is (as it may well be) of a mythical nature, or even an invention of the biographer, he did but use the licence which was then accorded to the panegyrist; and it is very different from that abuse of the authority of the historian which introduced St. Cuthbert into the narrative of the deeds of Alfred.

APPENDIX C

THE TWO-SCEPTERED FIGURE IN THE BOOK OF KELLS

(p. 78)

I am indebted to Miss Swann for the following extract from Professor Westwood’s _Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Art_ (p. 29):

The drawing representing (as I apprehend) the Temptation of the Saviour occurs on fol. 202 v., and is copied in my Plate XI.

Here the bust of the Saviour is represented at the summit of an elaborately ornamented conical design, which I suppose represents a ‘pinnacle of the temple’ rather than the ‘exceeding high mountain.’

The head of the Saviour is surrounded by a cruciferous nimbus, like that of the Virgin in the above-described drawing, and He appears to hold a roll in His left hand.

Two very rudely designed angels hover above His head, and two others occupy the upper angles of the picture, the interstices of the latter being filled in with foliage and branches springing from vases; that on the right hand being in an unusual position.

The strangely emaciated black figure of the Tempter (destitute of tail, but with hoof-like feet), and the crowd of heads at the side and bottom of the design, as also the bust within a frame holding two rosette-bearing rods, merit particular notice.

My interpretation of the Irish Figure was made solely from a study of the picture itself, without suggestion from any quarter. I had great difficulty in making up my mind whether the meaning were a personage at a window in the building, or whether it were simply a framed picture exhibited in front of the building. I was not then aware of Professor Westwood’s description, which takes the latter view. It is obvious that this view gives to the representation the nature of a reflection or comment more pointedly than the view which I have taken in the text.

I will here add another quotation from Professor Westwood, in which he describes and characterizes the _Book of Kells_: ‘It is the most astonishing book of the Four Gospels which exists in the world, and it is in Trinity College, Dublin, where it was placed along with the books of Archbishop Usher, after his death in 1656, where it has since remained, and where I trust it will ever remain, as the glory of Ireland’ (_The Book of Kells: a Lecture_, &c., p. 6).

For a partial illustration of the contents of this Appendix, see the illustration facing p. 77.

APPENDIX D

THE BRITISH ORIGIN OF THE ENAMELLED FIGURE

(p. 91)

I am greatly indebted to my friend Mr. C. F. Bell, the Assistant Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, for the following observations upon the technical characteristics of early _cloisonnée_ enamels. These observations are very germane to, and indeed were partly occasioned by, the questions which surround the Enamel in the Alfred Jewel.

Setting aside the reliquary at Poitiers, which, if it could really justify its claim to having been a gift of Justinian II to St. Radigund, would be by far the oldest piece of Byzantine enamel work in existence, as well as all such specimens as have no inscriptions or documentary evidence to indicate their age, there exist, apparently, only two enamelled objects of supposed Byzantine workmanship that can be maintained to be older than the Alfred Jewel. These are the iron crown of Monza and the golden altar of Saint Ambrose at Milan.

With regard to the first, apart from the controversy as to whether it truly was amongst the jewels given to the cathedral by Theodolinda, there seems to be some uncertainty as to whether there is any _cloisonnée_ enamel about the crown at all. Du Sommerard, who was allowed to make a drawing of it which is reproduced in his _Arts au Moyen Age_ (Album, série x, pl. 14), speaks of incrustations of jewels, but makes no mention of enamel. His carefully coloured illustration shows the plaques described by Labarte (_Arts Industriels_, i. 312), but the emerald-green ground that figures in the description is not indicated. Du Sommerard’s plate fails in one or two other particulars to tally with Labarte’s description; and as the latter speaks of his difficulty in obtaining a sight of the crown, it is possible that he mistook in this instance, as he appears to have done in the case of the Limburg reliquary, what M. Molinier (_Trésor de Saint Marc de Venise_, p. 48) calls _la verroterie cloisonnée_—that is, presumably, glass mosaic inlaid in golden cells—for _cloisonnée_ enamel. At any rate, some fresh opinion is surely needed to establish the iron crown as a monument of this class of enamel work.

To turn to the altar of Saint Ambrose. It was made in 838; and Labarte admits that the Latin inscriptions upon it, and the Latin name of its artist, proclaim the Italian origin of the greater part of the work. But the enamels which form a comparatively unimportant part of the decoration ‘doivent,’ he says, ‘avoir été exécutés par un des artistes grecs qui travaillaient en grand nombre en Italie à cette époque. On remarquera que les carnations des figures sont rendues en émail blanc opaque’ (_Histoire des Arts Industriels_, iii. 10). Of these enamels the most striking appear to be eight small, circular medallions upon the doors at the back of the altar. These medallions do not form an integral portion of the work, but are affixed, in the manner of jewels, to the framework of the silver-gilt bas-reliefs, and may in fact be amongst those very English enamels whose discovery upon the early shrines in continental churches and museums Mr. Starkie Gardner predicts (_Catalogue of European Enamels exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club_, 1897, p. ix). Each represents a diademed head seen in full face, a palm branch, or perhaps a wing, appearing above each shoulder against a translucent green background. In motive they thus present an extraordinarily close parallel to the Alfred Jewel (Du Sommerard, _Arts au Moyen Age_, Album, série ix, planches 18 and 19).

The earliest enamels of incontestably Byzantine origin, which can be dated with accuracy by documentary evidence, seem to go no further back than the beginning of the tenth century. It cannot, however, be said that these works, with those of closely subsequent periods, have the appearance of being the productions of the school in its infancy and early development. Very considerable technical accomplishment is shown in the manipulation of the extremely narrow gold cloisons, disposed for the most part in straight or slightly curved lines, and filling even the spaces of the drapery with closely laid chevrons or parallel stripes; while the innumerable minute cells thus formed are filled with homogeneous, brilliant, many-hued enamels. A warm tone of pink is invariably used to represent flesh.

An impressive object, possessing certain characteristics in common with the Jewel and other supposed Celtic-Saxon enamels, is the eagle fibula found at Mainz, and now in the museum there. The present setting of the enamelled eagle has been supposed to be Frankish, of the latter part of the tenth or earlier years of the eleventh century, and the eight small enamelled jewels inserted in the border confirm this view, as they closely resemble the jewels incrusted upon the frame of the Crucifixion plaque in the Reiche-Capelle at Munich, which has usually been attributed to that age (Von Hefner-Alteneck, _Trachten des christlichen Mittelalters_; Schlumberger, _Nicephorus Phocas_). The figure of the eagle, presumably, consisted originally of five plaques, one representing the head, another the tail, two others the outspread wings, and a fifth the body of the bird. This last is missing, its place having been supplied, apparently at the time the setting was made, by a plaque of engraved gold. This circumstance seems in favour of the idea that the enamels are of foreign workmanship, and earlier than the setting.

The cloisons of neither the eagle nor the Roach Smith ouche are as narrow as those employed by the Byzantine enamellers, although they are at most only half the width of those made use of in the Alfred Jewel. The doubling of the cloisons into loops, not commonly seen in Byzantine work but remarkable in the Jewel, is also noticeable in the eagle. Amongst the five colours employed in the eagle are the dark, translucent green, and the yellow, considered by Mr. Gardner as characteristic of Celtic-Saxon enamels, and also the opaque white such as is used for the flesh tint in the Jewel and the ouche, and, as Labarte particularly remarks, in the closely analogous heads upon the altar of Saint Ambrose.

Of all these monuments the enamel of the Alfred Jewel is at once the coarsest and most primitive in execution. Having been protected by the rock-crystal pane, its surface is presumably in much the same state as when it left the maker’s hands. It was, evidently, when it came out of the furnace, extremely uneven and rough, and had to be subjected to a grinding process, traces of which are still apparent. The gold cloisons are dull with minute scratches, and where two ran close together they have become one confused, ragged line. Both the eagle and the ouche, although exposed for long periods to the direct action of the soil, preserve a far higher degree of polish.

Yet the rough workmanship by itself cannot, it must be remembered, be held to preclude the Byzantine origin of this enamel, since, as there is not known to exist a single indisputably dated work of the Byzantine school in its primitive stages, it is impossible to assert that this school was not, during the lifetime of king Alfred, producing work as rude in execution as the Jewel. It may be that such a specimen will some day make its appearance, and determine the Eastern origin of this enamel and all cognate works. It is also possible that the discovery of an undoubtedly Irish example may place above all dispute the contention that it is of Celtic-Saxon origin, and finally justify the absorption into the same class of the ouche, the eagle, the eight medallions upon the altar of Saint Ambrose, nay, even of the crown of Theodolinda itself.

APPENDIX E

ATHELNEY ABBEY

(p. 115)

The Abbey of Athelney was founded by king Alfred, in pious gratitude for mercies received. There are no remains now visible on its site. The materials have doubtless passed into the neighbouring farm buildings. The spot is marked by a monumental pillar, which was erected in 1801 by the then proprietor of the land, with an historical inscription, which is not too inaccurate for the time in which it was composed. It runs thus:

King Ælfred the Great, in the year of our Lord 879, having been defeated by the Danes, fled for refuge to the forest of Athelney, where he lay concealed from his enemies for the space of a whole year. He soon after regained possession of the throne; and in grateful remembrance of the protection he had received, under the favour of Heaven, he erected a monastery on this spot, and endowed it with all the lands contained in the Isle of Athelney. To perpetuate the memory of so remarkable an incident in the life of that illustrious prince, this edifice was founded by John Slade, Esq., of Maunsel, the proprietor of Athelney, and lord of the manor of North Petherton, A.D. 1801.

The present representative of this gentleman is his great-great-grandson, Sir Cuthbert Slade of Maunsel, Bart., lord of the Manor of North Petherton.

The Abbey of Athelney never attained to any considerable wealth or importance; but a sculptured boss, which was found on the site, and which is here figured in two aspects, after drawings by Mr. Alfred A. Clarke of Wells, seems to indicate some costly architecture among the abbey buildings in the fourteenth century.

APPENDIX F

NORTH NEWTON CHURCH

(p. 139)

The church of North Newton has features suggestive of ancient celebrity, but the dates which are historically known, do not mount so high as might have been expected. The tower, which is the oldest part, and to which the high antiquity of a thousand years has been popularly attributed, speaks by its architecture, which is here represented. The earliest known date connected with the fabric is 1292, in which year the foundation stone of the elder chapel was laid by Richard de Barfleur, called also Richard de Plesseto. This being a chantry chapel, the endowment was taken away in 1548, and the fabric decayed. In the time of Charles I, Sir Thomas Wrothe built a new chapel and provided a stipend for the minister, which still continues. The Parable Door, the Oak Screen, and the Pulpit are evidently of the same period, and were probably given by the same benefactor.

The village of North Newton, originally a chapelry, was separated from the mother parish of North Petherton, and formed into an ecclesiastical parish on the twenty-third day of March, 1880. It is situated two miles north of Durston Station (Great Western Railway), four and a half south-west of Bridgwater, and seven north-east of Taunton. These particulars are taken from a little book entitled _The Church and Parish of St. Peter’s, North Newton_, by the Rev. L. H. King, M.A., Vicar; to whom I am also personally indebted for some interesting local information.

APPENDIX G

THE PRESENTATION OF THE ALFRED JEWEL TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

(pp. 140 and 145.)

I have been favoured by Sir Alexander Acland Hood with the following extract from the Manuscript of Mr. Thomas Palmer, which is preserved in Fairfield House:—

‘NEWENTON, NEWTON, OR PETHERTON PARK.

‘The Park and Manor of Newenton belonged to the King at the time of the general survey, and probably this is the Petherton where king John held his court. The House was on the north side of the Park, where there is now a tenement called Parker’s Field. At this place a remarkable piece of antiquity was dug up in the year 1693, which is, by Dr. Hickes and other antiquaries, adjudged to have been of the age of King Alfred, the letters being such as were introduced by this King in imitation of the Roman Alphabet, and never used before or since.

‘Doctor Hickes interprets this inscription to be “Alfred ordered me to be made”; and supposes the enamelled figure to be the picture of St. Cuthbert, the tutelar saint of that King. The whole is of gold, over the enamel is a piece of rock crystal, half an inch thick: the gold rim is cut through to form the letters of the inscription. This is now among the antiquities of the University of Oxford.’

The Keeper of the Archives (Mr. Bayne of Christ Church) has kindly made search at my request, and he writes: ‘I have gone carefully through the Convocation Register for 1718, and can find no reference to the Jewel, nor to Mr. Palmer who died 6 March, 1735.’

The Register of Benefactions of the Ashmolean Museum has a paragraph in Latin, which however gives no information on this point.

The most interesting piece I have found on this point is in Collinson’s _History of Somerset_ (1791), vol. i, p. 87, where he is speaking of Athelney Abbey: it is as follows:—

Some allusion to the vision of St. Cuthbert above-mentioned is supposed to have been intended by a little curious amulet of enamel and gold, richly ornamented, that was found in 1693 in Newton Park, at some distance northward from the abbey. On one side of it is a rude figure of a person sitting crowned, and holding in each hand a sceptre surmounted by a lily, which Dr. Hickes and other antiquaries have imagined to be designed for St. Cuthbert. The other side is filled by a large flower, and round the edge is the following legend: AELFRED MEC HEIT GEVVRCAN; that is, _Alfred ordered me to be made_. This piece of antiquity is now in the museum at Oxford, accompanied with the accounts of doctors Hickes and Musgrave, and the following memorandum: “Nov. 16, 1718, Tho. Palmer, esq; of Fairfield in Somersetshire, put this ancient picture of St. Cuthbert, made by order of king Alfred, into my hands to bee conveyed to y^r Bodlean Library in Oxford, where his father Nat. Palmer, esq; lately dead, desired it might be placed and preserved.

“Geo. Clark.”

Transcriber’s Notes:

- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - Blank pages have been removed. - Silently corrected typographical errors. - Spelling and hyphenation variations made consistent except in quotations.