All these laws, the fruits of revealed wisdom or of the ancient experience of the people, Alfred submitted for approval to his subjects: "I have shown these laws to my wise men," said he in the preamble at the beginning of his code, "and the result was that they were unanimous in wishing that they should be observed." These wise men, or "witans," forming an assembly called a "witenagemote" (an assembly of wise men), no longer represented, under Alfred, the entire nation, as in the time when the Saxons still preserved in their simplicity their Germanic institutions. At that period all the free men (cearls), whether proprietors or not, composed part of it. By degrees the free men disappeared from it, and the "thanes," or proprietors, alone remained; but the lower class of "thanes," although invested with the same rights as the royal "thanes," were less wealthy; it was more difficult for them to leave their affairs in order to repair to the Witenagemote. In the time of Alfred, these great proprietors alone made up this assembly of wise men, whose functions were as vaguely defined as the number and the periods of their meetings were uncertain, but who thenceforth maintained in England the principle of a national representative assembly, or the institution whereby the country undertakes its own government, which is the foundation and key of English history.
While Alfred was drawing up laws of an equitable and merciful character, while he was rebuilding the ruined convents and churches, and erecting new ones, he did not forget the poorest and most unhappy of his subjects. Slaves were numerous in England, and suffering under a heavy yoke. The king provided for their protection, granting to them the right of enjoying and transmitting to their heirs whatever goods they might have acquired; he even applied in favor of Christian slaves the Biblical law, granting to them their freedom at the end of six years of servitude. In his will he ordered that all the serfs on his entire domains should be emancipated. His example was followed: the serfs and the emancipated slaves became day by day more numerous, and began thenceforth to form in England the lower middle class, which did not yet exist anywhere upon the Continent.
So many efforts and so much foresight must necessarily have proceeded from a great and enlightened mind. Alfred had neglected nothing in order to add to his stock of knowledge. He had not studied during his childhood, in spite of his ardent desire to acquire knowledge, for there were no intellectual resources at the court of King Ethelwulf. The ancient kind of erudition which had already been remarkable in England, where the means of study, at the beginning of the eighth century, were far superior to anything of the kind which could be found upon the Continent, had become extinct during the wars with the Danes. "When I began to reign," wrote Alfred the Great in the preface to his translation of the Pastoral of Gregory I., "very few people on this side of the Humber could say their daily prayers in English, or could explain in English a Latin epistle, and I suspect that there was not a greater number on the other side of the Humber." It was thus that, notwithstanding his eagerness to instruct himself, Alfred had arrived at the age of thirty-five years without understanding Latin, and he only began the study of it in 884, after having made prodigious efforts to secure masters who were to instruct himself and his people. In the way of embassies, presents, negotiations, he spared no trouble in order to attract John, the old Saxon of the monastery of Corbie; Grimbald, monk at Saint-Omcr; and Plecmund, a learned Mercian, who had taken refuge in a solitary island of the county of Chester during the Danish wars, and whom he made archbishop of Canterbury; finally, he invited the monk Asser, living at the extremity of Wales, in the convent of St. David, and whom he soon secured, not only as a master, but as a friend. It is to Asser that we owe a biography of Alfred, so minute in its details that it proves beyond question the great intimacy which existed between the monarch and the historian.
Alfred was looking about in all parts for learned men, and was studying Latin like a schoolboy; but he understood that the period of purely classical education had passed away. His childish taste for Saxon poetry had not been obliterated, and his reverence for his native tongue stimulated him to spread education among those of his subjects who were not in a position to devote themselves to the Greek and Latin languages. "It has appeared to me very useful," he wrote to Bishop Wulfsege, "to choose a certain number of books, those which it is most important to render easily accessible to all, and to translate them into the language which we all understand. We shall thus easily insure, with God's help, and if peace continues, that all the youth of this nation, and particularly the young men of rich and free families, shall apply themselves to the study of letters, and shall not sacrifice their time in any other exercise than that of learning the Anglo-Saxon writers. The masters shall then teach the Latin language to those who shall wish to know more, and to attain a higher standard of instruction. After having reflected upon the nature of this instruction, I have chosen the book which is called in Latin Pastoralis, and which we call The Book of the Pastor. The learned men whom I have around me explained it to me, and when I fully arrived at the precise meaning of it, I translated it into Anglo-Saxon, sometimes literally, sometimes taking only the thoughts, and writing them in the manner which appeared best in order to make them easily comprehensible, and I have sent a copy of the work to each bishop in the kingdom."
After having begun this great work of clothing in a scarcely formed language the beauties of classical literature, Alfred did not remain idle. Impossible labors have been attributed to him; a translation of the entire Bible; the revision of a portion of The Saxon Chronicles, &c. It is positively known, however, that he translated, besides The Pastor, long fragments of The Soliloquies of St. Augustine, which he called Culled Flowers; The Ecclesiastical History of Bede; the historian Orosius; and the book of Boethius on The Consolation of Philosophy. There even exist of his, some poems, translations or rather imitations of the verses which Boethius had scattered throughout his book, and which Alfred often altered to suit his own taste and the tastes of the race of men for whom he was writing.
How can such great tasks, which would have sufficed to fill up the lifetime of an author, have been accomplished during that of a king whose reign was partly taken up by his wars against the Danes? The good order which prevailed in all the undertakings of Alfred can alone answer this problem. Subject to violent attacks of sickness, loaded with work and with cares, he had divided his time into three parts: the first belonged to his regal duties; the second to his religion, to prayer and study; the third was devoted to his repasts, to sleep, and to bodily exercise; but the portion allotted to sleep was very short. The king was often awake during a great portion of the night, and having neither a clock, nor a sand time-measurer, he was struck with the idea of having some tapers or candles made, which should burn for a certain time, and by means of which he should be enabled to count the hours. Unluckily, however, a gust of wind would sometimes penetrate into the royal tent and make the candles burn too rapidly, and then the king would suddenly lose all means of reckoning the time, until the sun came to give him its infallible direction.