The Alfred Jewel. Earle John

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      To those gentlemen of Somerset who have aided me with local information and hospitality and personal guidance, I have good cause to be always grateful. Major Barrett, junior, of Moredon, the owner of the Isle of Athelney, took me over the ground in a manner that is very agreeable to remember, and caused me to see the historical sites of his country with every advantage. It was under his auspices that I first realized the full import of Alfred’s fort at Borough Bridge, and what a speaking object-lesson it certainly is. I had seen it in 1856, but I had not adequately appreciated it.

      From Mr. Cely Trevelian of Midelney Place I learnt much that was useful to me concerning the history and present conditions of the moorlands of Somerset. He was my hospitable friend and companion over the country on either side of the Parrett in the circle of Langport, and from that to Borough Bridge. Under his guidance I revisited Aller (pronounced Oller), and renewed acquaintance with its sacred associations, after an interval of forty-four years. In 1856 I was conducted by an old Oriel friend who was my host, the Rev. James Coleman, then Curate of the parish in which Athelney is situated; he subsequently became Vicar of Cheddar and Prebendary of Wells. When I entered upon the present work, after so long an interval, it was with Mr. Coleman that I began to make enquiries for local information.

      To Sir Alexander Acland Hood I am indebted for genealogical and topographical information, and particularly for some new light on the history of the Jewel, now for the first time made public. The statement in the manuscript of Mr. Thomas Palmer, which is preserved at Fairfield, that the Jewel was ‘dug up,’ is a new item in the circumstances of the discovery, to which I attach important evidential weight.

      I have also to thank Sir Cuthbert Slade of Maunsel, for his courtesy in answering my enquiries, genealogical and territorial, concerning the Slade family.

      On Mr. C. F. Bell, the Assistant Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, I chiefly depended for help in that part of my subject where I was most wanting, namely in the technicalities of ancient art, and especially concerning enamels.

      To my friend Dr. Shadwell my obligations are not the less but the greater for that they are somewhat indefinable. He has read through the proofs, and has given me valuable suggestions, and he has always been ready to help when I needed advice.

      For me this trinket has assumed the proportions of a serious historical problem, and its investigation has been rewarded with new light in many directions, and I do not think I shall regret the time spent upon it, even though my conclusions should hereafter be modified or even refuted. I hold that, apart from the conclusions, the investigation itself was worth the while, but when I say this I am not to be understood as admitting that I have little confidence in my conclusions.

      In putting forth this Essay, I desire to convince the reader only as fully as I am convinced myself, that is to say, with a conviction which makes no claim to finality, but lies open to correction in case of new light or better use of old data; yet which nevertheless, in the mean time and for the main issues of the enquiry, reaches a degree of probability whereby all doubt and uncertainty is practically excluded.

      J. E.

      THE ALFRED JEWEL

CHAPTER I

       DESCRIPTION OF THE ALFRED JEWEL

       Table of Contents

      THE subject of this Essay is preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, which has been its home for a period of time now approaching two hundred years. It is there installed under glass in such a manner that every side of it is plainly exhibited to the eye of the visitor. It bears an inscription in conspicuous lettering which sets forth that by Alfred’s order it was made, and this is the ground upon which it is known as The Alfred Jewel.

       The Alfred Jewel has been compared to a battledore, not untruly for the matter of shape; but the wide diversity of size makes the comparison seem incongruous. The extreme length of the Jewel is a very small fraction under two inches and a half; its greatest width is just one inch and a fifth; its thickness barely half an inch.

      It contains a sitting Figure enamelled on a plate of gold which is protected in front by a slab of rock crystal, and at the back by a gold plate engraved; the whole enshrined in a golden frame of delicately executed filigree work. The picture is visible through the rock crystal, making the obverse of the Jewel; while the reverse is formed by the gold plate which is at the back of the enamelled plate. Upon this gold plate is engraved an allegorical design. Both these surfaces (obverse and reverse) are flat, but in every other part of the Jewel the surface is rounded.

      The rounded contours may be likened to those of a pigeon’s egg. If we imagine a longitudinal section of a pigeon’s egg, the engraved plate at the back of the picture will correspond to the plane of the egg’s diameter. From this plane, if we measure three-quarters of an inch in the girth of the egg, and then take another section parallel to the gold plate at the back, we obtain the front surface of the crystal, through which the Enamel is visible.

      The effect of this arrangement is, that the sides all round the Jewel are curved and sloping, and that the obverse is of more contracted area than the reverse, and also that the measurement of the sloping side exceeds that of the thickness. The head of the sitting Figure occupies the broad end of the oval section; the smaller end is prolonged, and is fashioned like the head of a wild boar on the obverse, but the reverse of this head is flat and covered with fish-like scales.

      The snout is projected in the form of a socket adapted to receive a peg or stem; athwart this socket is a cross-pin, having a head at one of its ends, while the other end is riveted. This indicates that the Jewel was furnished with a stem which has perished, and which, therefore, was not metallic, but of some organic material, perhaps walrus ivory. Around the sloping sides runs a legend:

      and this legend starts from the narrowest point of the oval, beginning on the right-hand side and running round to the corresponding point on the left, so that it encircles the oval completely, running in the contrary direction to that with which we are familiar in our coins, which are read from left to right, as indeed were also the coins of the ninth century.

      Some have doubted whether the owner of the Jewel was the famous Alfred of Wessex. It has been urged that the name of Ælfred in the Epigraph is not of itself adequate proof of the fact, and it must be admitted that this is literally true. And it is not superfluous to point out the inconsequence of such reasoning, for it has actually been advanced in serious argument. Samuel Pegge, an antiquary of repute, wrote in Archæologia ii as if there had been but one eminent person of the name of Alfred:—‘There is no doubt but this κϵιµήλιον was once the property of the great King Ælfred, notwithstanding the goodness of the work which has been an objection to its authenticity; for the king’s name is expressly mentioned in the inscription.’ There were many persons of that name in the course of the Saxon period, and the name was not confined to men born after his time, for there were persons of this name who were men of mark among his contemporaries, one of whom (to say the least) was certainly his senior.

      When Swithun died, in 862 (in Alfred’s fourteenth year), his successor in the See of Winchester was named Ælfred.

A contemporary of position and intelligence and of great wealth was that Ælfred who redeemed from heathen hands a noble volume of the Gospels, and conveyed it by a solemn deed of gift in his own name and that of his wife to the brotherhood of Christ Church, CanterburyСКАЧАТЬ