King Alfred the Great

(noun)

King of Wessex from 871 to 899, known as a learned and merciful man who encouraged education and improved his kingdom's legal system and military structure and his people's quality of life.

Related Terms

Examples of King Alfred the Great in the following topics:

  • The Anglo-Saxons

    • The Anglo-Saxons were a people who inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century.
    • The 9th century saw the rise of Wessex, from the foundations laid by King Egbert in the first quarter of the century to the achievements of King Alfred the Great in its closing decades.
    • The culture of the Anglo-Saxons was especially solidified and cultivated by King Alfred.
    • King Alfred's digressions in his translation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy provided these observations about the resources that every king needed:
    • The first group of King Alfred's three-fold Anglo-Saxon society are praying men—people who work at prayer.

  • Pursuing Both War and Peace

    • In 1775, the colonies proposed the Olive Branch Petition to reconcile with Britain and avert war, but King George III denied the petition.
    • The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by the Continental Congress in July 1775, in an attempt to avoid a war with Great Britain.
    • The petition vowed allegiance to the Crown and entreated the king to prevent further conflict, claiming that the colonies did not seek independence but merely wanted to negotiate trade and tax regulations with Great Britain.
    • The Proclamation of Rebellion was King George III's response to the Olive Branch Petition.
    • Describe the relationship between the colonies and Great Britain in the year before the Declaration of Independence

  • American Technology

    • Though the United States borrowed significantly from Europe's technological advancements during the Industrial Revolution, several great American inventions emerged at the turn of the 19th century greatly impacting manufacturing, communications, transportation, and commercial agriculture.
    • Evans' system for handling bulk material became widely used in flour mills and breweries during the 19th century and is among the innovations credited with the development of the assembly line.
    • In the early 1830s, Cyrus McCormick's horse-drawn mechanical reaper allowed farmers in the West to harvest great quantities of wheat, leading for the first time to great crop surpluses.
    • With the proliferation of new canal routes in the 1820s and 1830s, steamboat technology was crucial to domestic freight shipments in the United States.
    • Morse and Alfred Vail developed the American version of the electrical telegraph system, allowing messages to be transmitted through wires over long distances, via pulses of electric current.

  • Theoderic the Great

    • Theoderic the Great was the King of the Ostrogoths and ruler of Italy after defeating the first barbarian king, Odoacer; he ruled Italy in its most peaceful and prosperous period since Valentinian until his death in 526.
    • Theoderic the Great (454–526) was king of the Ostrogoths (475–526), ruler of Italy (493–526), regent of the Visigoths (511–526), and a patricius of the Roman Empire.
    • Theoderic the Great sought alliances with, or hegemony over, the other Germanic kingdoms in the West.
    • Bronze statue of Theoderic the Great (by Peter Vischer, 1512–13), from the monument of Emperor Maximilian I in the Court Church at Innsbruck.
    • The Ostrogothic Kingdom (in yellow) at the death of Theoderic the Great in 526 AD.

  • Louis XV

    • He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five.
    • Louis XV was born during the reign of his great-grandfather Louis XIV.
    • Eventually, it was 21-year-old Marie (Maria) Leszczyńska, daughter of Stanisław I, the deposed king of Poland, he was chosen to marry the king.
    • The king reviewed policy only in the High Council, which was composed of the king, the Dauphin, the chancellor, the finance minister, and the foreign minister.
    • This sharply contrasts Louis XV's reign from that of his great-grandfather and predecessor Louis XIV's.

  • The Seven Kings

    • None of the seven kings were known to be dynasts and no reference is made to the hereditary nature of kingdom until after the fifth king, Tarquinius Priscus.
    • Romulus was Rome's legendary first king and the city's founder.
    • After the ensuing war with the Sabines, Romulus shared the kingship with the Sabine king Titus Tatius.
    • He used the treasures Rome had acquired from conquests to build great monuments for Rome, including the Roman Forum, the temple to Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, and the Circus Maximus.
    • Explain the significance of the Seven Kings of Rome to Roman culture.

  • The Establishment of the Roman Republic

    • Romans overthrew the unpopular king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus and established a republican form of government after the public outcry arose as a result of the rape of Lucretia.
    • The Roman monarchy was overthrown around 509 BCE during a political revolution that resulted in the expulsion of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome.
    • Tarquinius was the son of the fifth king of Rome’s Seven Kings period, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, and he was married to Tullia Minor, the daughter of the sixth king of Rome’s Seven Kings period, Servius Tullius.
    • During Tarquinius’s war with the Rutuli, his son, Sextus Tarquinius, was sent on a military errand to Collatia where he was received with great hospitality at the governor’s mansion.
    • His choice was ratified by the comitia curiata, an organization of patrician families who primarily ratified decrees of the king.

  • Neo-Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality

    • Although Sigmund Freud contributed a great deal to the field of psychology through his psychoanalytic theory of personality, his work did not go without scrutiny.
    • Four particularly notable Neo-Freudians are Alfred Adler, Erik Erikson, Carl Jung, and Karen Horney.
    • Alfred Adler was the first to explore and develop a comprehensive social theory of the psychodynamic person.
    • Horney was also influential in the advancement of feminism within the field of psychodynamics.
    • Analyze the contributions of notable Neo-Freudian theorists to the field of personality psychology

  • The Magna Carta

    • King John met with the leaders of the barons, along with their French and Scot allies, to seal the Great Charter (Magna Carta in Latin), which imposed legal limits on the king's personal powers.
    • The rebels knew that King John could never be restrained by Magna Carta, and so they sought a new King.
    • In practice, the Magna Carta did not generally limit the power of kings in the medieval period, but by the time of the English Civil War it had become an important symbol for those who wished to show that the king was bound by the law.
    • As a result, you will notice a great emphasis on these ideas throughout the course of the video.
    • One of four known surviving original copies of the Magna Carta of 2015, written in iron gall ink on parchment in medieval Latin, authenticated with the Great Seal of King John.

  • Architecture of Great Zimbabwe

    • One theory suggests that the complexes were the work of successive kings.
    • For example the Hill Complex was a temple, the Valley Complex was built for the citizens, and the Great Enclosure was used by the king.
    • For the elite, there seems to have been a great deal of wealth.
    • These are thought to be seats of authority for local governors acting under the king of Great Zimbabwe.
    • Distinguish the features of the Hill Complex, the Greate Enclosure, and the Valley Complex of Great Zimbabwe.