Lesson Plan: Tenth Century Europe Date: 11.10.

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Length of Session: 50 minutes
Seminar Aims To explore how the Kings of Wessex run their wider Kingdom: what
institutions were created, how was the Kingdom organised, and what the
relationship was between the centre of the Kingdom & its peripheries.

To look at how the West Saxon Kingdom ran in practice: what kind of laws
do the Kings make, are they effective? How do they see their role in
society? What’s the relationship between the King, the nobles, and the
law?

To take a wider view & think about how things compare to Alfred’s rule:
how much of an impact has his rule had on the England of his successors?
Do we have similar ideologies at play?

Supporting Power-point.
Materials /
Handouts
Room Equipment / Projector.
Arrangement

Timing Subject/ Activity/Notes PP slides

Heading
0-3 Introduction & - Ask for any questions on the lecture 1-3
minutes housekeeping - Remind them of assessment deadlines.
- Explain seminar aims
3-20 How is the West - 5 minutes to read & discuss the Hundred Ordinance 4
minutes Saxon Kingdom - 10 minutes as class to discuss how the West Saxon
organised? Kingdom was organised:
- What institutions/practices are put in place?
- How are things organised?
- What’s the relationship between the King and the
peripheries of the Kingdom in terms of organisation?
20-40 How does it - 10 minutes to read & discuss the fonthill letter & 5
minutes work in Hundred Ordinance
practice? - 10 minutes class discussion:
- What kind of laws are put in place?
- Are they effective?
- Why do Kings legislate against these things – how do
they see their role?
- More widely, what’s the relationship between the King
and his nobles, and the King, his nobles, and the law?

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40-50 The wider - 10 minutes class discussion: 6
minutes picture - Looking at our sources, can we detect anything of
Alfred’s legacy here?
- How far did his educational reforms work?
- What about the ideology of his court, can we detect
anything of that here?

Issues to cover
Slide 4: How is the west saxon kingdom organised? What institutions are put in place?
What’s the relationship between the King and peripheries?
- Organised into hundreds for administrative and judicial purposes. Designated
leaders of these hundreds for the administration of justice, who have to work
together to enforce the law – and in effect execute policy decisions.
- All of this is unified under the King, but he himself doesn’t need to be present for
this to be enforced, suggesting both a degree of local autonomy, but also political
stability that these official structures can be set up. King’s relationship with
periphery is therefore something of a loose string: he sets the policy, and it filters
down to those who enforce it.
- More broadly, this is a rather centralised kingdom where policy making and
hierarchy is concerned – at least in the time of Athelstan. Decision making is made
by the Witan (royal council), which, yes, is made up of people from all across the
Kingdom, but they all have to come to Wessex. Decisions made here are then
filtered through to the Ealdormen in the regions, (who quite often were local
rulers and big-men before Athelstan took over), down to reeves and thegns who
basically enforce the law and policy decisions. Again therefore: highly centralised
system in terms of political power, but also organised enough that policy can be
filtered through and executed at the local level.
Slide 5: How does the West Saxon Kingdom work in practice. What sorts of laws are put in
place/legislated against by the Kings? Are they actually effective? What’s the relationship
between Kings and their nobles, and more broadly, Kings, nobles, and the law? Why do
Kings legislate against the things that they do – what’s their aim and how do they see
themselves?
- Big emphasis on anti-thievery measures with increasing penalties for repeat
offenders. Also lots of laws concerning the enforcement of the law, to make sure it
actually gets carried out. (We see evidence of that in the Hundred Ordinance for
e.g.).
- However, the repeated pronouncements against thievery, for e.g. in Athelstan’s
reign, and the measures concerning the enforcement of the law suggest
application of justice might still have been difficult, and in the fonthill case, we see

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 just how complex it could be in practice, as here we’ve got a repeat offender who
gets off scot free.
- The letter also touches on the wider issues of the relationship between Kings and
nobles, and more broadly their relationship with the law. The king, as shown, has a
role to play in administering justice, as he looks at the case, and is appealed to by
the letter itself. However, the letter also shows how for people with connections –
in this case the thief with the Ealdorman in the letter – justice could potentially be
circumvented thanks to the influence powerful people had to bend the rules and
avoid justice. Up to, and including the King. All this despite the King and the nobles
having a role to both design the law, as well as to enforce and execute it.
- The repeated focus on thievery though does suggest something of an indication of
how the kings saw themselves however. Touches back on to the Christian Kingship
thing Alfred wanted: a godly kingdom begets divine favour. Also suggests they
wanted to play out their role as a giver of justice as King, which again has biblical
roots, as well as, perhaps, simply stamp their political power and status on the
kingdom by playing such a central role.
Slide 6: The bigger picture: can we detect anything of Alfred’s legacy within the sources?
How far did his educational reforms work? What about his court ideology, has that
survived?
- To some degree, yes. The very fact these sources are being written down and
disseminated suggests there’s probably people among the nobility and reeves with
the ability to read them, which suggests his educational programs might have
stuck, or at least started a process of increasing literacy. Ditto, his court ideology of
Christian Kingship, and of being quite insular but also viewing themselves as the
only ‘Anglo Saxon’ Kingdom left seems quite evident, with the centralising
tendency of the Kings despite their links to the regions, and their focus on
preventing crime to bolster their authority and, perhaps, to ensure a Godly
Kingdom.

Reflections: