Dr David Pratt is Fellow and Director of Studies in History at Downing College, Cambridge.

• Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction; Part I. The West Saxon Political Order: 2. Resources and extraction; West Saxon resources and royal power; Military service and the common burdens; 3. Royal lordship and secular office-holding; The king's thegns; The royal household; Gifts and gift-giving; 4. Royal lordship and ecclesiastical office-holding; A new accommodation: royal monasteries and the council of Kingston (838); The southumbrian episcopate and the state of ecclesiastical discipline; Bishops as the 'best king's thegns'; Royal priests in the royal household; Frankish ecclesiastical conditions and Carolingian kingship; 5. The articulation of power under King Alfred's predecessors; Collective office-holding: West Saxon royal devotion; Royal office-holding: the first English coronation order; The uses of literacy?; Sources of textual culture (1) ecclesiastical communities; Sources of textual culture (2) the west Saxon royal household; 6. The impact of the Vikings; Logistics of defence; Lordship and manpower; Land and landholding; Royal income and urban development; Collective security (1) 'king of the Anglo-Saxons'; Collective security (2) 'ruler of all the Christians of the island of Britain'; Part II. Alfredian Discourse and its Efficacy: 7. The field of Alfredian knowledge; Alfredian innovation: Alfredian wisdom and the shift to vernacular prose; Intended audiences and the shift to vernacular literacy; Textual dissemination and the field of Alfredian knowledge; 8. The construction of Alfredian discourse; 'Royal' production: Alfredian discourse and its distinctiveness; Languages of office-holding (1) Georgian language; Languages of office-holding (2) Solomon's dream; The implications of Alfredian discourse; 9. Alfredian technology: books and aedificia; Books and book production; Candle-lantern, 'aestels' and the Fuller brooch; 10. The Hierdeboc as a treatise of power; Language and context; The origin and purpose of power; The active and contemplative lives; The hierdeboc and the southumbrian episcopate; 11. The Domboc as a Reorientation of royal law; Written law: authority and status; The construction of Alfredian judgement; The historical projection of secular law; The defence of lordship; The Domboc in practice; 12. Tribulation and triumph in the first fifty psalms; Apparatus and voice; God, rihtwisnes and sinful enemies; Royal hardships and divine justice; Alfred's psalms and Alfredian theatre; 13. The search for a satisfactory consolation; The consolatio philosophiae in context; Royal translation and Carolingian expertise; Alfredian adaption: mind, wisdom and the 'wordly blessings'; Craeft, tools and resources; Wyrd and divine justice; The Froferboc and Alfredian theatre; 14. Seeing God as he is; The Soliloquia in context; Royal translation and Carolingian expertise; Alfredian adaption: wisdom and the sight of God; Lordship and authority; Alfred's soliloquies and Alfredian theatre; 15. Conclusion; Appendix: West Frankish deployment of Solomon's dream; Bibliography; Index.

Review of the hardback: 'Pratt's wide-ranging study offers intriguing speculation into the political causes of Alfred's literary activity.' Stephen J. Harris, Speculum