This volume contains papers given at two conferences held to mark the eleven-hundredth anniversary of Alfred's death, that re-evaluate and contextualise Alfred's achievements and the developments of his reign. It also provides substantial assessments, by leading scholars, of issues of source-criticism, of the large corpus of Old English literature associated with Alfred and of developments in government and society in late ninth-century England.

Contents: Foreword; Introduction: Placing King Alfred, James Campbell; The sources: Asser's reading, Michael Lapidge; ÿlfredian arithmetic, Asserian architectonics, David Howlett; The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the idea of Rome in Alfredian literature, Susan Irvine; ÿdificia nova: treasures of Alfred's reign, Leslie Webster; Alfredian literature: The Alfredian canon revisited: a hundred years on, Janet Bately; The form and function of the preface in the poetry and prose of Alfred's reign, Allen J. Frantzen; The player king: identification and self-representation in King Alfred's writings, Malcolm Godden; Alfredian government and society: Alfredian government: the west Saxon inheritance, Nicholas Brooks; The power of the written word: Alfredian England 871-899, Simon Keynes; Alfred's coinage reforms in context, Mark Blackburn; The origin of Alfred's urban policies, David Hill; Alfred and London, Derek Keene; Succession and inheritance: a gendered perspective on Alfred's family history, Pauline Stafford; What 'Great heathen army'? Alfred the Great, the Micel Hÿðen Here and the Viking threat, Richard Abels; Alfred's new longships, Edwin and Joyce Gifford; Alfred and contemporary rulership: Alfred's Carolingian contemporaries, Janet L. Nelson; Alfred the Great and Arnulf of Carinthia: a comparison, Anton Scharer; Alfred's contemporaries: Irish, Welsh, Scots and Breton, Wendy Davies; The ruler as instructor, pastor and wise: Leo VI of Byzantium and Symeon of Bulgaria, Jonathan Shepard; Alfred as icon: Alfredism: the use and abuse of King Alfred's reputation in later centuries, Barbara Yorke.