nearly all, of this culture had disappeared. The 2 1 "I remembered also how I saw, before it had all been ravaged and burned, how the churches throughout the whole of England stood filled with treasures and books, and there was also a great multitude of God's servants."-Pref. to Elfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral, ed. Sweet. 2 Pref. to Pastoral (ed. Sweet). CHAP. IV. Alfred. 878 901. CHAP. IV. Elfred. 878901. work. lingered in the school which Bishop Werfrith had gathered round him at Worcester. It is in his efforts to repair this intellectual ruin Alfred's that we see Ælfred's conception of the work he had to intellectual do. The Danes had no doubt brought with them much that was to enrich the temper of the coming England, a larger and freer manhood, a greater daring, a more passionate love of personal freedom, better seamanship and a warmer love of the sea, a keener spirit of traffic, and a range of trade-ventures which dragged English commerce into a wider world. But their work of destruction threatened to rob England of things even more precious than these. In saving Wessex Ælfred had saved the last refuge of all that we sum up in the word civilization, of that sense of a common citizenship and nationality, of the worth of justice and order and good government, of the harmony of individual freedom in its highest form with the general security of society, of the need for a cooperation of every moral and intellectual force in the developement both of the individual man and of the people as a whole, which England had for two centuries been either winning from its own experience or learning from the tradition of the past. It was because literature embodied what was worthiest in this civilization that Ælfred turned to the restoration of letters. He sought in Mercia for the learning that Wessex had lost. He made the Mercian Plegmund Archbishop of Canterbury; Werfrith, Bishop of Worcester, helped him in his 1 Asser (ed. Wise), p. 46. 1 2 Eng. Chron. (Peterborough), a. 890. 2 own literary efforts, and two Mercian priests, Æthelstan and Werwulf, became his chaplains and tutors. But it was by example as well as precept that the king called England again to the studies it had abandoned. "What of all his troubles troubled him the most," he used to say, "was that when he had the age and ability to learn he could find no masters." But now that masters could be had he worked day and night.1 He stirred nowhere without having some scholar by him. He remained true indeed to his own tongue and his own literature. His memory was full of English songs, as he had caught them from singers' lips; and he was not only fond of repeating them but taught them carefully to his children.2 But he knew 1 "Die noctuque, quandocunque aliquam licentiam haberet, libros ante se recitare talibus imperabat, non enim unquam sine aliquo eorum se esse pateretur, quapropter pene omnium librorum notitiam habebat, quamvis per seipsum aliquid adhuc de libris intelligere non posset; non enim adhuc aliquid legere inceperat."-Asser (ed. Wise), p. 46. 2 "Et Saxonicos libros recitare, et maxime Saxonica carmina memoriter discere, aliis imperare, et solus assidue pro viribus studiosissime non desinebat."—Asser (ed. Wise), p. 43. His children, Eadward and Ælfthryth, were not left "sine liberali disciplina,” "nam et psalmos et Saxonicos libros et maxime Saxonica carmina studiose didicere, et frequentissime libris utuntur."-lb. p. 43. In the palace-school "utriusque linguæ libri, Latinæ scilicet et Saxonicæ assidue legebantur."-Ib. p. 43. So of his nobles, if any were too ignorant or old to profit by "liberalibus studiis," "Suum si haberet filium, aut etiam aliquem propinquum suum, vel etiam si aliter non habeat suum proprium hominem liberum vel servum, quem ad lectionem longe ante promoverat, libros ante se die nocteque quandocunque unquam ullam haberet licentiam Saxonicos imperabat recitare."-Asser (ed. Wise), p. 71. Stray references throughout his writings show his familiarity with the Old English hero-legends: "Where are now the bones of Weland?" he renders the "Fabricii ossa of Boethius. CHAP. IV. Elfred. 878. 901. CHAP. IV. Ælfred. 878901. Asser that the actual knowledge of the world must be sought elsewhere. Before many years were over he had taught himself Latin,' and was soon skilled enough in it to render Latin books into the English tongue. His wide sympathy sought for aid in this work from other lands than his own. "In old time," the king wrote sadly," "men came hither from foreign lands to seek for instruction; and now, if we are to have it, we can only get it from abroad." He sought it among the West-Franks and the EastFranks; Grimbald came from St. Omer to preside over the new abbey he founded at Winchester, while John the Old-Saxon was fetched, it may be from the Westphalian abbey of Corbey, to rule the monastery he set up at Athelney. A Welsh bishop was drawn with the same end to Wessex; and the account he has left of his visit and doings at the court brings us face to face with the king. "In those days," says Bishop Asser, "I was called by the king from the western and furthest border of Britain and came to Saxonland; and when in a long journey I set about approaching him I arrived in company with guides of that people as far as the region of the Saxons who lie on the right hand of one's road, which in the Saxon tongue is called Sussex. There for the 1 Either in 885 or 887. See Pauli, "Life of Elfred," p. 169. "Non enim adhuc legere inceperat," says Asser (ed. Wise), p. 46, apparently of the time soon after the Frith of Wedmore. I take "legere" to have its usual meaning, that of reading and translating Latin. 2 Pref. to Pastoral Book. 3 Asser (ed. Wise), p. 61. “And first time I saw the king in the king's house which CHAP. IV. Elfred. 878. 901. |