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fundamental ideas of justice have survived all external changes. Those ideas may be summed up very shortly. Justice is essentially public; the business of parties is to conduct their cases according to the rules of law, the business of the court is to hear and determine between them, not to conduct an inquiry; judicial interpretation of the law is the only authentic and binding interpretation, and in particular the executive has no such power. These principles appear obvious to most of us, but there are many civilized countries where they are not admitted. We can trace them back to the rudest beginnings of our jurisprudence; they are as vigorous as ever, in all the complexity of modern affairs, wherever the English tongue is spoken."

CHAPTER VI

ALFRED AS EDUCATOR

THERE can be no doubt whatever that Alfred was from childhood imbued with a deep reverence for letters. The story about the illuminated book sufficiently indicates the fact. It has been already suggested that Judith, his step-mother, not Osburh, his mother, played the leading part in that history. Perhaps; we must remember, however, that even in the case of Judith the dates do not hold together. Alfred was nine years of age at the death of his father, and the incestuous marriage of his brother Ethelbald with Judith, who thus became his sister-in-law. When he was eleven, Ethelbald died, and Judith went

back to France. The theory consequently falls to the ground, and has no other point in its favour than that Judith's father, Charles the Bald, was rich in illuminated books and in the company of scholars. Still, we may, as I said before, accept the story without too much curiosity as to its origin and literal truth. strikes a note.

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We have seen how Alfred, as soon as some kind of order and security had been re-established, called divines and scholars to his court. We next hear that he created a school, at which his own sons and the sons of thanes and nobles were educated. As for himself, he certainly could read, because he learned by heart the daily prayers and many of the psalms, and to assist himself he read them out of a book in which they were written down. But it would appear that he read with difficulty. Asser, his biographer, had the duty of reading to him, and of making for him a manual of quotations, and things worthy of remembrance. Asser (already quoted on this point) thus speaks of Alfred's imperfect education:

"This he confessed, with many lamentations and sighs, to have been one of his greatest difficulties and impediments in this life, namely, that when he was young and had the capacity for learning, he could not find teachers; but when he was more advanced in life he was harassed by so many diseases unknown to all the physicians of this island, as well as by internal and external anxieties of sovereignty, and by continual invasions of the pagans, and had his teachers and writers

also so much disturbed, that there was no time for reading. But yet among the impediments of this present life, from infancy up to the present time, and, as I believe, even until his death, he continued to feel the same insatiable desire of knowledge."

The mind of the king on the subject of education is laid open in his Epistle to the Bishops, which forms a preface to the "Cura Pastoralis," of which we shall speak in another place. The preface itself is as follows:

"King Alfred bids greet Bishop Waerferth with his words lovingly and with friendship; and I let it be known to thee that it has very often come into my mind what wise men there formerly were throughout England, both of sacred and secular orders; and how happy times there were then throughout England; and how the kings who had power over the nations in those days obeyed God and His ministers, and they preserved peace, morality, and order at home, and at the same time enlarged their territory abroad; and how they prospered both with war and with wisdom; and also the sacred orders, how zealous they were both in teaching and learning and in all the services they owed to God; and how foreigners came to this land in search of wisdom and instruction, and how we should now have to get them from abroad if we were to have them. So general was its decay in England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English or translate a letter from Latin into English; and I believe there were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few of them that I cannot remember a single one south of the Thames when I came to the Throne.

"Thanks be to God Almighty that we have any teachers among us now!

"And therefore I command thee to do as I believe thou art willing, to disengage thyself from worldly matters as often as thou canst, that thou mayest apply the wisdom which God has given thee wherever thou canst. Consider what punishments would come upon us on account of this world, if we neither loved it (wisdom) ourselves nor suffered other men to attain it; we should love the name only of Christian, and very few of the virtues. When I considered all this I remembered also how I saw before it had been all ravaged and burnt, 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, but they had very little knowledge of the books, for they could not understand anything of them because they were not written in their own language. As if they had said

"Our forefathers who formerly held these places loved wisdom, and through it they obtained wealth, and bequeathed it to us. In this we can still see their tracks, but we cannot follow them, and therefore we have lost both the wealth and the wisdom, because we would not incline our hearts after their example.'

"When I remembered all this, I wondered extremely that the good and wise men who were formerly all over England, and had perfectly learned all the books, did not wish to translate them into their own language. But again I soon answered myself and said

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'They did not think that men would ever be so careless, and that learning would so decay.

“Through that they abstained from it, and they wished that the wisdom in this land might increase with our knowledge of languages.'

"Then I remembered how the law was first known in Hebrew, and again, when the Greeks had learned it, they translated the whole of it into

their own language and all other books beside. And again the Romans, when they had learned it, they translated the whole of it through learned interpreters into their own language. And also all other Christian nations translated a part of them into their own language. Therefore it seems better to me, if ye think so, for us also to translate some books which are most needful for all men to know, into the language we can all understand, and for you to do as we very easily can if we have tranquillity enough-i.e. that all the youth now in England of free men, who are rich enough to be able to devote themselves to it, is set to learn as long as they are not fit for any other occupation, until that they are well able to read English writing; and let those be afterwards taught more in the Latin language who are to continue learning, and be promoted to a higher rank.

"When I remember how the knowledge of Latin had formerly decayed throughout England, and yet many could read English writing, I began, among other various and manifold troubles of this kingdom, to translate into English the book which is called in Latin 'Pastoralis,' and in English 'Shepherd's Book,' sometimes word by word and sometimes according to sense, as I had learned it from Plegmund my archbishop, and Asser my bishop, and Grimbold my mass-priest, and John my mass-priest. And when I had learned it as I could best understand it, and as I could most clearly interpret it, I translated it into English; and I will send a copy to every bishopric in my kingdom; and on each there is a clasp worth fifty mancus. And I command in God's name that no man take the clasp from the book, or the book from the minister; it is uncertain how long there may be such learned bishops as now, thanks be to God, there are everywhere; therefore I wish them always to remain in their place unless the bishop

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