[479] See Saxon Chronicle A.D. 897, Florence of Worcester; Simeon of Durham, the Chronicle of Melros; and Pauli, “Life of Alfred,” p. 212. [480] Pauli, “Life,” &c., p. 178. [481] If Asser is correct in his statements, London had been almost destroyed by the Danes just before the accession of Alfred.—Asser, “Vit. Alfred,” p. 51. [482] William of Malmesbury, Gest. Reg. Angl. 24, a. Some of the jewels of curious manufacture which Bishop Sighelm brought home were to be seen among the treasures of the church at Sherbourne; and Asser says that King Alfred one morning gave him a silk robe, and as much frankincense (incense) as a man could carry; from which it may be inferred that, after the visit of Sighelm, a trade was opened out between England and India, or with other countries of the East, where frankincense was produced or stored. For the Christians in Malabar, see a curious story in the “Legenda Aurea;” in Buchanan’s “Christian Researches;” in the Journal of Bishop Heber; and in Thomas’s “Prinsep’s Indian Essays,” vol. ii. p. 214. Sighelm, who had previously been sent to Rome by King Alfred, is thought by Pauli to have been a layman, as his name is not found in the episcopal registers of Sherbourne.—Life of Alfred, p. 146. [483] Thorpe, “Ancient Laws of England,” p. 31; and Macpherson, vol. i. pp. 266-268. There is another order of Ethelred, “that the ships of war should be ready every year at Easter.”—Ancient Laws, p. 137. [484] William of Malmesbury, i. p. 215. [485] The Saxon Chronicle gives to his predecessor, Edward the Elder, a fleet of some hundreds of ships, but this number is evidently too indefinite for any historical purpose. (Sax. Chron. A.D. 911.) If the charter granted to Worcester by this king in A.D. 964 be genuine, which Kemble doubts (Cod. Diplom. Ævi Saxon. ii. 404), he would seem to have been the first English monarch who claimed the “sovereignty of the sea.” [486] Bp. Wilkins, “Leg. Saxon.” p. 78. Nearly eighty mints of Edgar’s money are known. Hawkins’s “Silver Coins of England,” p. 57. [487] Vol. i. p. 275. A list of all these Danish invasions may be consulted in Sir H. Nicolas’s “Hist. Royal Navy,” vol. i. pp. 10-28. [488] This was the well-known tax called “Dane geld,” imposed, apparently for the first time, about A.D. 991; see also Saxon Chron., A.D. 994, 1002, 1007. Stow, p. 114, ed. 1600. [489] Mr. Kemble, in an elaborate chapter on the “Hide,” has determined that it was probably a little less than 100 statute acres of arable land. (“Anglo-Saxons,” vol. i. c. 4, p. 88-121.) It is clear, however, that the word was often used for a much smaller, though indefinite extent of land. In Bosworth’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (_in voc._ Hyde) many examples are quoted, showing that it was popularly held to be as much land as “could be tilled in a year by one plough.” [490] Saxon Chron., A.D. 1009.