I don't remember learning anything about him other than his name and that he was the first King of the Anglo-Saxons. You'd really think they'd tell us more about him, he seemed pretty cool and very relevant to English history.
I grew up in Somerset, and didn't even know that he hid from Danish invaders in the Somerset levels until I watched The Last Kingdom. That could have been a dope school trip.
this is literally the first time i've heard that name and i took history gcse lol. it's probably because i'm not english though - we learned more about owain glyndŵr and llywelin ein llyw olaf and stuff like that
There's an IDK song called King Alfred so I looked it up and thought it was about that guy. It's actually about the King Alfred Plan which was a fictional CIA plan to do apartheid in America.
Anyway I did no history at school so I didn't learn about him
I learned very briefly in Australia, but it was like a paragraph. Then I learned the opera by Arne, which is pretty dope (it's where Rule Britannia comes from, sung at the end after Alfred commands the construction of the British navy)
I have only read the first few, but those Saxon Story books were enjoyable.
He is literally so far back that there is significantly less to learn, or at least what there is is messy and harder to teach well
Nah there's plenty of evidence from that period, especially if you start with Alfred. Anglo-Saxon kings documented a decent amount, especially since Alfred introduced the burr system of fortified towns. I could easily pop off a 45 minute lecture on the economic and social changes of Alfred and his sons' reigns. I'm an Amerifat though so I have no idea how you Brits do you basic schooling.
Alfred is really well documented, there's an asshole on askhistorians who answers every single question on 'anglosaxons' with Alfred-period information.
Yeah I was of the understanding that the reason we know a decent amount about Alfred was because of the developments he introduced and because he was like "yo Asser write that shit down" but in Olde English
I find it hilarious that his cake-burning incident is so legendary that there’s a fungus named after it
