The Search for Alfred the Great

Neil Oliver explores the life and death of Alfred the Great, the English King who unified the country.  He explores old England and what happened to the remains of Alfred the Great over the years.

A grave in a churchyard was excavated to uncover a set of bones, these bones could belong to Alfred the Great.  It would help solve a 150 year old mystery, the bones were claimed to belong to Alfred the Great.  He was the king that unified the English nation and the only English King called the Great.  Neil Oliver explores the life of Alfred the Great from his early beginnings to his defeat of the Vikings.

Oliver traces the history of how the bones ended up in the Church yard.  He was originally buried in the old church in Winchester, then at the time of the death was in the progress of having a new monastery built.  There he was exhumed and buried in the new monastery.  When the Normans invaded they destroyed the Winchester church and then built a new church and moved the bones to a new church on the site.  This church was then destroyed during the reign of Henry VIII, and it was a stone quarry for building the area around.  He then looks at what happened to the area of the church during the Victorian period. 

For use in the classroom: just highlight, copy and paste into a word document or a google document for use in the classroom.  You can easily format these questions to your specifications.  All questions should fit onto one page after formatting. 

You can find the link for the YouTube video here.

The Search for Alfred the Great Questions:

1. How did Alfred bring together the English people?
2. What was used to wash the bones?
3. What were the four Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms?
4. Who invaded England?
5. Who was the monk that became Alfred’s biographer?
   
6. When was the new minister destroyed? 
7. Where were the remains of Alfred moved to in 1110?
8. Where did Alfred set up a secret base to fight the Vikings?
9. What was cut into a hill to commemorate the victory of the Vikings?
10. How many individual skulls were in the grave?

The Search for Alfred the Great Answers:

1. How did Alfred bring together the English people? - Language, Military Force and Religion
2. What was used to wash the bones? - Tap water and a tooth brush
3. What were the four Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms? - Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia
4. Who invaded England? - Vikings
5. Who was the monk that became Alfred’s biographer? - Asser
6. When was the new minister destroyed?  - 1109
7. Where were the remains of Alfred moved to in 1110? - Hyde Abbey
8. Where did Alfred set up a secret base to fight the Vikings? - Sommerset
9. What was cut into a hill to commemorate the victory of the Vikings? - A horse
10. How many individual skulls were in the grave? - 5