york00orns

ALFRED THE GREAT. ATHELSTAN. 97
valuable as showing " that the communication between
northern and foreign houses which existed to
so great an extent in the preceding century, was still
kept up. They tell us moreover that the monastery
of York was under the same government that was
described, sixty years before, in the writings of
Alcuin, and that the famous library was still in
existence, inasmuch as Lupus solicits the loan of a
manuscript of Quintilian, one of the
questions of St.
Jerome on the Old and New Testament, with a
similar work by Beda.''^
The campaigns of the Great Alfred against the
Northmen, his conflicts with them, his formation of a
navy to meet them on their own element, are matters
of history too well known to need recapitulation
here. But Northumbria was never really subjugated
by him. The submission of the Danes was yielded
to his son Edward the Elder, who became over- lord
of the whole island, and both Scots and Welsh did
homage to him. But, as events proved, the submission
and the homage were more nominal than real.
Edward was succeeded by his son Athelstan.
Against him a league was formed by Constantine,
the King of the Scots, rendered yet more formidable
by the appearance of a large fleet in the Humber, in
the year 937, under the command of Anlaf. On his
way to encounter his foes Athelstan sought the
prayers of the clergy of York, and as he passed
through Beverley he made a solemn vow of the
great things he would do for that church if he were
'
"Fasti Ebor.," i. p. 1 12.
H