[ V. ALFRED’S PREFACE TO THE PASTORAL CARE.]
[Based on the Hatton MS. Of the year 597, the Chronicle says: “In this year, Gregory the Pope sent into Britain Augustine with very many monks, who gospelled [preached] God’s word to the English folk.” Gregory I, surnamed “The Great,” has ever since been considered the apostle of English Christianity, and his Pastoral Care, which contains instruction in conduct and doctrine for all bishops, was a work that Alfred could not afford to leave untranslated. For this translation Alfred wrote a Preface, the historical value of which it would be hard to overrate. In it he describes vividly the intellectual ruin that the Danes had wrought, and develops at the same time his plan for repairing that ruin.
This Preface and the Battle of Ashdown ([p. 99]) show the great king in his twofold character of warrior and statesman, and justify the inscription on the base of the statue erected to him in 1877, at Wantage (Berkshire), his birth-place: “Ælfred found Learning dead, and he restored it; Education neglected, and he revived it; the laws powerless, and he gave them force; the Church debased, and he raised it; the Land ravaged by a fearful Enemy, from which he delivered it. Ælfred’s name will live as long as mankind shall respect the Past.”]
[1] [Ælfred kyning] hāteð grētan Wærferð biscep[1] his wordum
2 luflīce ǫnd frēondlīce; [ǫnd ðē cȳðan hāte] ðæt mē cōm
3 swīðe oft on gemynd, hwelce[2] witan īu[3] wǣron giond[4]
4 Angelcynn, ǣgðer ge godcundra hāda ge woruldcundra;
5 ǫnd hū gesǣliglīca tīda ðā wǣron giond Angelcynn; ǫnd
6 hū ðā kyningas ðe ðone onwald hæfdon ðæs folces on
7 ðām dagum Gode ǫnd his ǣrendwrecum hērsumedon[5];