Decay of learning in England. Revival under Alfred. His translations. Edits English Chronicle. His helpers. Some of his sayings. Missionary spirit. "Alfred commanded to make me."
We cannot forget the impression that must have been made upon Alfred by his stay in Rome, young as he was at the time, he being in the centre of royal state while there, and also being himself a royal child to whom much would be told and under whose notice much would be brought; and who, from his position, would be expected to mark and remember much. Long afterwards, he would recall the magnificence he had seen, and associate it with the glories of the double history of Rome; Rome pagan and Rome Christian: Rome, the great conqueror and law-giver, spiritual as well as temporal. Very often, after Alfred was king, he sent over embassies and gifts to Rome, loving her, and reverencing her as it was meet he should. The Holy Father granted him certain privileges for the English school at Rome, and sent him a piece of the wood of the Holy Cross.
There is a pretty story told of Alfred's early learning to read English verse. Even if it is not true, it points to his love of English, as well as learning; a love which never left him. He wanted English to be taught in schools, and he loved the old poems. We owe to him the translation of the account of the first English poet, Caedmon, from which I have quoted in my first chapter. But rightly, he felt the very great importance of learning Latin, and so he learned it himself, and made others learn it too.
When Alfred came to the throne, he tells us, learning had fallen away so utterly in England that there were very few of the clergy, on the south side of the Humber, who could understand the Latin of their Mass-books, and he thinks not many beyond the Humber. This state of things was very different from that of old times when the clergy were "so keen about both teaching and learning and all the services they owed to God": very different from St Bede's time, and the days when Northumbria was a centre of learning and culture. Alfred was to create a new centre, not in the North but in Wessex. Later on, the centre of learning and cultivation was shifted to the East Midlands, whose dialect became the language of England, and whose great poet, Chaucer, was the greatest English poet before Spenser and Shakespere.
In his studies Alfred was helped by various friends, the chief of whom was a Welsh Bishop, named Asser. So greatly did Alfred value Asser that he wanted him to live altogether at Court; but Asser felt, it is to be supposed, that this would not be right, and arranged to spend half his time in Wales and half with the King. From him we learn a great deal about Alfred.
One of the Latin books translated by Alfred—perhaps the first—was called the "Pastoral Care" ("Cura Pastoralis"). It was written by St Gregory the Great, and was intended for the clergy as a guide to their duties. The king had a copy sent to every bishopric. He called it the Herdsman's Book, or Shepherd's Book. Sending all these copies made of course a great deal of work for scribes or "bookers," as we may render the old "bóceras," the copyists who had to write out all their books by hand.
As various books had been turned into the "own tongue" of various nations, so would Alfred give to his people in their "own tongue" books of help, of knowledge, of wisdom. This is how Alfred tells us he worked.
"I began to turn into English the book which in Latin is named 'Pastoralis,' and in English 'Shepherd's Book'; sometimes word for word, sometimes meaning for meaning, as I had learned it from Plegmund, my Archbishop, and Asser my Bishop, and from Grimbold, my Mass-priest, and from John, my Mass-priest."
At the end of the translation, Alfred put some little verses of his own.
Alfred as we have seen, translated St Bede's History, omitting many chapters which contained things he may be supposed to have thought were not of general interest. He also edited the English, usually called the Anglo-Saxon, Chronicle, which begins with the invasion of Julius Caesar, and ends with the accession of Henry II. There are a good many MSS. of it, the earliest of which ends with the year 855. We owe this work, as we owe so much beside, to the care of the monks who wrote it, adding to it probably, year by year, sometimes giving poetry as well as prose. It contains several poems, among them the vigorous lay of the Battle of Brunanburh, fought in 937 by Athelstane against the Scots and Danes. You will find a rendering of it among Tennyson's poems, made by him from a prose translation of his son's. This editing of the A.S. Chronicle was very important work, work that has helped generations of history-writers and students. Where should we be without these Histories? How much of it Alfred actually did himself we do not know: we may suppose he had a good deal to do with the chronicling of the events of his own reign. I wonder whether it was he that wrote how three bold Irishmen came over from Ireland in a boat without any rudder, having stolen away from their country, "because they desired for the love of God to be in a state of pilgrimage, they recked not where." They had a boat made of "two hides and a half," and provisions for a week. They got to Cornwall on the seventh day, and soon after went to Alfred. We have no account of their visit to the King, but I think he would have welcomed them right warmly, and loved to hear how big souls ride in little cockleshells. We know their names at least: Dubslane, Macbeth, and Maclinnuim. And immediately after this record we are told something that must also in a different way have greatly interested Alfred. "And Swifneh, the best teacher among the Scots (Irish) died."