Produced by MWS, Robert Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) The Alfred Jewel J. EARLE Henry Frowde, M.A. Publisher to the University of Oxford London, Edinburgh, and New York [Illustration: FRONT BACK ENAMEL RIGHT LEFT THE JEWEL IN FOUR ASPECTS WITH SEPARATE FIGURE OF ENAMEL] The Alfred Jewel: An Historical Essay By John Earle, M.A., LL.D. Rector of Swanswick, Prebendary of Wells Rawlinsonian Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Oxford With Illustrations and Map Oxford At the Clarendon Press mdcccci Oxford Printed at the Clarendon Press By Horace Hart, M.A. Printer to the University PREFACE It is full fifty years since I began to contemplate the Alfred Jewel with a wonder and curiosity which became a habit. At length, in the latter half of that period, the vague attitude of enquiry began to point in a definite direction, and to exhibit susceptibility of development suggesting promise of possible discovery. Prompted by such anticipations, I one day ventured to express a wish to the Principal of Hertford College that he would exercise his well-known graphic talent upon the Alfred Jewel, and make some enlarged drawings of it suitable for a Public Lecture. The result was that he gave me a beautiful set of coloured drawings of the Jewel in various aspects admirably calculated for exhibition in the Lecture Room. Thus equipped, I was able to make the subject more intelligible and more attractive, and I lectured upon it the oftener. As it has not been my wont to write my lectures out in full, it was all the more necessary for me on every new occasion to make a fresh study of the Jewel. In this recurring process new lights rose at wide intervals of time, and drew me on to devote more thought to the object and to the times associated with it; and I found more than I had looked for in the design, and more (I think) than I should have found, but for the generous aid so readily extended to me by Dr. Boyd.