Learnings: What was a King?
The notion of "king" in the Early Middle Ages differed from one region to the next. One factor that determined the nature of kingship in a given territory was the size of the royal domain. Kingdoms of Britain such as Mercia or East Anglia were much smaller than those in continental Europe. For example, the Frankish dominion covered much of present-day France, Germany and Italy, whereas Alfred's Wessex only extended from the River Thames to Southern England. While a Frankish ruler could not visit all of his kingdom, nor could they meet and feast with all the important people in it, Anglo-Saxon kings like Alfred and Guthrum could.
This made it easier for an Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian king to treat his whole kingdom, and everyone in it, as his kin. That being said, this sense of familiarity, this social bond, did not mean there was no hierarchical distinction between the king and his subjects. A king was still first and foremost a king.
Here's an ingenious depiction of a royal couple as chess pieces.