A new study is taking a fresh look at one of the most surprising lines in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle—the claim that, in the 880s, King Alfred the Great sent two men on a mission to India.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, England’s most important early medieval text, has a curious entry in five of its versions. For example, according to the D version, in 883:
And Pope Marinus sent some wood of the Cross to King Alfred. And that same year Sigehelm and Athelstan took to Rome the alms which King Alfred had promised thither, and also to India to St Thomas and St Bartholomew, when the English were encamped against the enemy army at London; and there, by the grace of God, their prayers were well answered after that promise.
Historians have often dismissed the idea that two people went from England to India in the Early Middle Ages, but a new study by Caitlin Green argues that this was the intended destination and, moreover, that the journey could have been made.
Her article, which appears in the journal Early Medieval England and its Neighbours, sets out to show why King Alfred would want to send an embassy to India, the connections between the two lands, and other hints that the two men actually were able to return from their journey.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle MS D says that in 883 ‘Sigehelm and Athelstan took to Rome the alms which King Alfred had promised thither, and also to India to St Thomas and St Bartholomew, when the English were encamped against the enemy army at London’… pic.twitter.com/9r2ClN6UHK
Some historians have suggested that text might originally have referred to Judea, another name for the Holy Land, arguing that Indea/India could be a scribal mistake influenced by manuscript variants that read Iudea. In fact, two of the five manuscripts have the word Iudea, but Green argues these two versions are garbled with missing words, while the three with India are indeed the correct version.
Another of Green’s key points is that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle doesn’t just say Alfred sent alms “to India”—it specifies “to St Thomas and St Bartholomew.” She argues that this pairing strongly supports the India reading, because both apostles were “explicitly and repeatedly associated with India” in material current in Alfred’s day. In other words, “India” isn’t simply a stray place-name in a chronicle entry; it sits within an early medieval religious geography that connected particular saints to particular distant regions.
Was there really a St Thomas shrine in India?
Green’s broader argument is that early medieval English writers did have concepts of India that were more than fantasy. The point is not that Alfred and his court had a modern map of South Asia, but that “India” functioned as a meaningful, recognisable destination within Christian learning—linked to apostolic missions, far horizons, and the edges of the known world.
In fact, Green believes that India’s remoteness could have been the point. She argues that sending gifts and alms to so distant a shrine would fit Alfred’s intellectual curiosity about “the wider world and its limits,” as well as the symbolic value of reaching even faraway places tied to Christian history.
A major reason Green considers the story credible is that there was a long-standing tradition—known in western Europe by the sixth century—of a shrine of St Thomas in India, particularly on the Coromandel coast of south-east India. Not only would it have been known, but that Alfred’s emissaries “would have been by no means the first to visit this shrine from early medieval Europe.”
Could ninth-century travellers get there?
Even if the destination was intended to be India, the practical question remains: could Alfred’s men actually have gone?
Green points to trade links between India and Europe during the Early Middle Ages, with items such as pepper and sapphires making their way to England. Trade routes going through Egypt or Baghdad would have been well-travelled. Green writes:
The linkages between these networks would have created ‘social pathways’ that could have been used then to travel to the Indian tomb of St Thomas, and it seems entirely plausible that something similar was the case in Sigehelm and Æthelstan’s time too, given the evidence that we have available to us.
Who were Sigehelm and Æthelstan?
Green, a tutor at University of Cambridge, notes that the identities of the emissaries are uncertain, but some pieces of evidence exist. For example, the 12th-century chronicler William of Malmesbury connects the journey with a Bishop Sigehelm of Sherborne, adding that he brought back exotic gems that had survived to his own time.
Interestingly, the precious stones Sigehelm supposedly returned with from India are said to have been used to enrich Sherborne & ‘some can still be seen, set in objects ornamenting the church’, according to William of Malmesbury (pic: https://t.co/Yheotse3Xf). pic.twitter.com/Sh3Up1hONs
Meanwhile, Green suggests that the other envoy, Æthelstan, could be a priest and chaplain who was mentioned in Asser’s Life of Alfred—but she also cautions that the name was common and multiple candidates exist.
The article, “King Alfred and India: an Anglo-Saxon Embassy to Southern India in the Ninth Century,” by Caitlin R. Green, appears in Early Medieval England and its Neighbours. Click here to read it.
A new study is taking a fresh look at one of the most surprising lines in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle—the claim that, in the 880s, King Alfred the Great sent two men on a mission to India.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, England’s most important early medieval text, has a curious entry in five of its versions. For example, according to the D version, in 883:
And Pope Marinus sent some wood of the Cross to King Alfred. And that same year Sigehelm and Athelstan took to Rome the alms which King Alfred had promised thither, and also to India to St Thomas and St Bartholomew, when the English were encamped against the enemy army at London; and there, by the grace of God, their prayers were well answered after that promise.
Historians have often dismissed the idea that two people went from England to India in the Early Middle Ages, but a new study by Caitlin Green argues that this was the intended destination and, moreover, that the journey could have been made.
Her article, which appears in the journal Early Medieval England and its Neighbours, sets out to show why King Alfred would want to send an embassy to India, the connections between the two lands, and other hints that the two men actually were able to return from their journey.
Some historians have suggested that text might originally have referred to Judea, another name for the Holy Land, arguing that Indea/India could be a scribal mistake influenced by manuscript variants that read Iudea. In fact, two of the five manuscripts have the word Iudea, but Green argues these two versions are garbled with missing words, while the three with India are indeed the correct version.
Another of Green’s key points is that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle doesn’t just say Alfred sent alms “to India”—it specifies “to St Thomas and St Bartholomew.” She argues that this pairing strongly supports the India reading, because both apostles were “explicitly and repeatedly associated with India” in material current in Alfred’s day. In other words, “India” isn’t simply a stray place-name in a chronicle entry; it sits within an early medieval religious geography that connected particular saints to particular distant regions.
Was there really a St Thomas shrine in India?
Green’s broader argument is that early medieval English writers did have concepts of India that were more than fantasy. The point is not that Alfred and his court had a modern map of South Asia, but that “India” functioned as a meaningful, recognisable destination within Christian learning—linked to apostolic missions, far horizons, and the edges of the known world.
In fact, Green believes that India’s remoteness could have been the point. She argues that sending gifts and alms to so distant a shrine would fit Alfred’s intellectual curiosity about “the wider world and its limits,” as well as the symbolic value of reaching even faraway places tied to Christian history.
A major reason Green considers the story credible is that there was a long-standing tradition—known in western Europe by the sixth century—of a shrine of St Thomas in India, particularly on the Coromandel coast of south-east India. Not only would it have been known, but that Alfred’s emissaries “would have been by no means the first to visit this shrine from early medieval Europe.”
Could ninth-century travellers get there?
Even if the destination was intended to be India, the practical question remains: could Alfred’s men actually have gone?
Green points to trade links between India and Europe during the Early Middle Ages, with items such as pepper and sapphires making their way to England. Trade routes going through Egypt or Baghdad would have been well-travelled. Green writes:
The linkages between these networks would have created ‘social pathways’ that could have been used then to travel to the Indian tomb of St Thomas, and it seems entirely plausible that something similar was the case in Sigehelm and Æthelstan’s time too, given the evidence that we have available to us.
Who were Sigehelm and Æthelstan?
Green, a tutor at University of Cambridge, notes that the identities of the emissaries are uncertain, but some pieces of evidence exist. For example, the 12th-century chronicler William of Malmesbury connects the journey with a Bishop Sigehelm of Sherborne, adding that he brought back exotic gems that had survived to his own time.
Meanwhile, Green suggests that the other envoy, Æthelstan, could be a priest and chaplain who was mentioned in Asser’s Life of Alfred—but she also cautions that the name was common and multiple candidates exist.
The article, “King Alfred and India: an Anglo-Saxon Embassy to Southern India in the Ninth Century,” by Caitlin R. Green, appears in Early Medieval England and its Neighbours. Click here to read it.
You can learn more about Caitlin Green’s research on her personal website.
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