King Alfred
historical figure · 2 works · 4 mentions · 8 anchored passages
Alfred · the great Alfred
in the texts
An Essay on the Trial by Jury
King of the West Saxons credited with compiling and writing down the Saxon laws with the consent of his Witan.
“He (Alfred) also, like another Theodosius, collected the various customs that he found dispersed in the kingdom, and reduced and digested them into one uniform system, or code of laws, in his som-bec, or liber judicialis (judicial book).
Alfred himself says, “Hence I, King Alfred, gathered these together, and commanded many of those to be written down which our forefathers observed—those which I liked—and those which I did not like, by the advice of my Witan, I threw aside.
“Alfred may, in one sense, be called the founder of these laws, (the Saxon,) for until his time they were an unwritten code, but he expressly says, ‘that I, Alfred, collected the good laws of our forefathers into one code, and also I wrote them down’—which is a decisive fact in the history of our laws well worth noting.
Ancient Law
The Anglo-Saxon king whose writings on the origin of criminal jurisdiction and treason are discussed and quoted.
There is a passage in the writings of King Alfred (Kemble, ii.