Alfred the Great: A Research Journey, Part 1

One of the most difficult things about my Masters degree program wasn’t the fact that I had to write papers, it was the fact that I had to write papers about a topic I chose. It always begged the question, “What do I write about?” 

There are millions of things I can choose from, which is really quite frightening when I think about it. I have a finite time to decide on and research this topic, but even more nerve-racking is the fact that I have to find a topic that hasn’t already been written about. Here’s the good thing: I can write about the most obscure or interesting fact regarding a topic. 

Okay, so first thing’s first: I have to come up with a question that will be answered or a statement that will provide evidence (a thesis). It’ll need to be broken down into its parts: Introduction, question/statement, evidence, evidence, evidence (etc), conclusion. From this point of view it doesn’t seem too frightening, until you realize that it has to span 24 pages....

Backing it up, I have the outline of what my paper should look like, so let’s fill in the gaps: 

• Introduction: 
• How do I get people interested in the question or statement I have? Why is this relevant to them/important? 
• Question/Statement: 
• What is my claim? 
• Evidence: 
• Answers to the question/proof of my claim/statement. Aka: So much research!
• Conclusion: 
• How can I summarize this massive paper into a summary, while reinforcing that my research answers the question/provides evidence for my claim? Elevator pitch!
• Bibliography: 
• So much VALID research! 

Now that we have that out of the way... let’s decide on a topic. 

I know that I want to write something about Alfred the Great. I’ve been interested in his history for a long time, especially because of his different interactions with the Vikings, but largely because of his heritage/lineage/interesting “rise” as king of the Anglo-Saxons.

In one documentary I watched while I was researching and determining what I wanted to write about, it talked about how he was never meant to be King. He was, in the weirdest possible way to describe it, the Hans (from Frozen, I’m so proud of myself for remembering his name) level of “never-getting-the-throne.” So the fact that he did, indeed, become king, fascinates me. 

That, in and of itself, brings up many questions: How did he become king? What information do we have regarding his personality? Was he as evil as Hans? Was he resigned to the fact that he would never be king? Did he even want the throne? Question upon question comes up, raising even MORE questions like whether or not I will ever have the answer to these questions. Quite possibly one of the most depressing realities of a historian, and one of the most important things to recognize: we may never have the answer. Someone may not have written it down. Memories get lost, skewed, or misplaced. Such is life, unfortunately. 

So I must do what I can to make sure that I am finding all available answers and analyzing it in its proper place, in the proper context, and in the proper mindset. 

This brings up the next step: Where are my biases? 

While I haven’t done much research on Alfred the Great (certainly not enough to write a thesis on), I know enough already to know that I am, in some form, biased. Despite my greatest efforts, I will, inevitably, be biased and therefore must recognize where it is so it can be addressed. 

Here is what I know: 

• Alfred the Great was king after his father and 3 older brothers. The impression I got was that he was meek, in a sense, and knew he was not going to be king; this came primarily because of the documentary I watched where that is the type of acting that was being performed. I do not have evidence to back up the fact that he was meek, this is a claim I need to either refute or provide evidence for.
• Alfred is called “the Great” only after he had died. He supposedly created “good” laws, but what are good laws? According to whom? Well it’s according to whoever said he created “good” laws, so while I have an idea of what is good and bad, I need to find out what is good according to the people who were living at the time and the time soon thereafter. Or is he called Alfred the Great so many years afterward that it really means nothing whatsoever? My guess, again no hard evidence, is that it was in proximity of his life. Additions to names like “the Great” were not uncommon from what I’ve seen during this time period.

With a few of these things out of the way, I have a lot of questions I can ask, or statements I can make, though I’d prefer to ask a question, since I don’t feel confident enough in making claims. 

So what do I ask???