Editing Anglo-Saxons (section)

==== King Alfred and the rebuilding (878–899) ====
[[File:Alfred Jewel.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|A royal gift, the [[Alfred Jewel]]]]
More important to Alfred than his military and political victories were his religion, his love of learning, and his spread of writing throughout England. Keynes suggests Alfred's work laid the foundations for what really made England unique in all of medieval Europe from around 800 until 1066.<ref>Keynes, Simon, and Michael Lapidge. Alfred the Great. New York:
Penguin, 1984.</ref>

Thinking about how learning and culture had fallen since the last century, King Alfred wrote:
{{blockquote|...So completely had wisdom fallen off in England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English, or indeed could translate a letter from Latin into English; and I believe that there were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few of them that I indeed cannot think of a single one south of the Thames when I became king. (Preface: "Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care")<ref name="Keynes, Simon 1984">Keynes, Simon, and Michael Lapidge. Alfred the Great. New York: Penguin, 1984.</ref>}}

Alfred knew that literature and learning, both in English and in Latin, were very important, but the state of learning was not good when Alfred came to the throne. Alfred saw kingship as a priestly office, a shepherd for his people.<ref>Frantzen, Allen J. King Alfred. Woodbridge, CT: Twayne Publishers, 1986</ref> One book that was particularly valuable to him was [[Pope Gregory I|Gregory the Great's]] ''Cura Pastoralis'' (Pastoral Care). This is a priest's guide on how to care for people. Alfred took this book as his own guide on how to be a good king to his people; hence, a good king to Alfred increases literacy. Alfred translated this book himself and explains in the preface:

{{blockquote|...When I had learned it I translated it into English, just as I had understood it, and as I could most meaningfully render it. And I will send one to each bishopric in my kingdom, and in each will be an æstel worth fifty mancuses. And I command in God's name that no man may take the æstel from the book nor the book from the church. It is unknown how long there may be such learned bishops as, thanks to God, are nearly everywhere. (Preface: "Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care")<ref name="Keynes, Simon 1984" />}}

What is presumed to be one of these "æstel" (the word only appears in this one text) is the gold, [[rock crystal]] and enamel [[Alfred Jewel]], discovered in 1693, which is assumed to have been fitted with a small rod and used as a pointer when reading. Alfred provided functional patronage, linked to a social programme of vernacular literacy in England, which was unprecedented.<ref>Yorke, Barbara. Wessex in the Early Middle Ages. London: Pinter Publishers
Ltd., 1995.</ref>

{{blockquote|Therefore it seems better to me, if it seems so to you, that we also translate certain books ...and bring it about ...if we have the peace, that all the youth of free men who now are in England, those who have the means that they may apply themselves to it, be set to learning, while they may not be set to any other use, until the time when they can well read English writings. (Preface: "Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care")<ref name="Keynes, Simon 1984" />}}

This began a growth in charters, law, theology and learning. Alfred thus laid the foundation for the great accomplishments of the tenth century and did much to make the vernacular more important than Latin in Anglo-Saxon culture.

{{blockquote|I desired to live worthily as long as I lived, and to leave after my life, to the men who should come after me, the memory of me in good works. (Preface: "The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius")<ref name="Keynes, Simon 1984" />}}