From: chris@dickinson.uk.net   
      
   On Monday, 23 April 2018 18:22:33 UTC+1, Richard Smith  wrote:   
   > On 23/04/18 13:14, Doug Laidlaw wrote:   
      
   > >   
   > > What you say is fair comment, but did Alfred know his lineage back to   
   > > Adam as a fact?   
   >   
   > That strikes me an interesting question.  There seems little doubt that   
   > Alfred was educated by the standards of the time.  He was exposed to the   
   > Vikings so will have been aware of the Norse religion, and he will have   
   > doubtless been aware that a couple of centuries earlier, his   
   > predecessors practised substantially the same religion.  He will have   
   > been familiar with the Norse god, Odin, and his Saxon equivalent Woden   
   > who appears in the pedigree of the Saxon ruling houses, as given in the   
   > Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.   
   >   
   > He'll also have been aware, if only vaguely, that there were differences   
   > between the various pedigrees in the generations before Cerdic, and   
   > particularly before Woden.  It's probable therefore that he would not   
   > have considered any one form of this pedigree infallible, even if he   
   > believed that something along those lines was true.  (Many of the   
   > inconsistencies we see in versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle perhaps   
   > post-date Alfred's time, but the pedigree is found, complete with   
   > variations, in other contemporary sources too.)   
   >   
   > Accepting that Alfred believed literally in Adam and Eve and did not   
   > believe in the Norse deities, how did he square this with the fact that   
   > his pagan predecessors claimed descent from Woden and his own charted   
   > descent from Adam and Eve passed through Woden?  Did he believe Woden   
   > existed but as man, perhaps some early Germanic hero or minor king?  Or   
   > did he consider Woden to be a legendary figure not grounded in fact?  A   
   > number of interesting papers have been written on the subject, and there   
   > are as many views as there are historians who have explored the subject.   
   >   One view I've read is that by Alfred's time, educated Saxons did not   
   > generally believe in a literal Woden but considered him more a metaphor   
   > for what, in later centuries, came to be know as the divine right of   
   > kings: a descent of convenience to explain why the Cerdicingas were king.   
   >   
   > However I think the question itself is a category error and that the   
   > Saxon view of history freely conflated truth with legend such that the   
   > question was not one that would ever have occurred to the people at the   
   > time.  Perhaps it would be better to say the people of the time probably   
   > saw truth in the descent, but it would not have occurred to them to ask   
   > whether it was a literal truth or metaphor: they would have seen it as   
   > both, and the inconsistencies between versions would not have bothered   
   > them.   
   >   
   > Richard   
      
   Good and interesting post. Thank you.   
      
   Shame that  that there isn't a like/dislike button.   
      
   Chris   
      
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