Page "Alfred the Great" Paragraph 58

The Danish raids had also a devastating impact on learning in England.

Alfred lamented in the preface to his translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care that " learning had declined so thoroughly in England that there were very few men on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English, or even translate a single letter from Latin into English: and I suppose that there were not many beyond the Humber either ".

Alfred undoubtedly exaggerated for dramatic effect the abysmal state of learning in England during his youth.

That Latin learning had not been obliterated is evidenced by the presence in his court of learned Mercian and West Saxon clerics such as Plegmund, Wæferth, and Wulfsige, but Alfred's account should not be entirely discounted.

Manuscript production in England dropped off precipitously around the 860s when the Viking invasions began in earnest, not to be revived until the end of the century.

Numerous Anglo-Saxon manuscripts burnt up along with the churches that housed them.

And a solemn diploma from Christ Church, Canterbury dated 873 is so poorly constructed and written that historian Nicholas Brooks posited a scribe who was either so blind he could not read what he wrote or who knew little or no Latin.

" It is clear ," Brooks concludes, " that the metropolitan church Canterbury must have been quite unable to provide any effective training in the scriptures or in Christian worship.