When he came to the throne, he found the nation sunk
into the grossest ignorance and barbarism, proceeding from the continued
disorders in the government, and from the ravages of the Danes. The
monasteries were destroyed, the monks butchered or dispersed, their
libraries burnt; and thus the only seats of erudition in those ages were
totally subverted. Alfred himself complains, that on his accession he
knew not one person, south of the Thames, who could so much as interpret
the Latin service, and very few in the northern parts who had reached
even that pitch of erudition. But this prince invited over the most
celebrated scholars from all parts of Europe; he established schools
every where for the instruction of his people; he founded, at least
repaired, the University of Oxford, and endowed it with many privileges
revenues, and immunities; he enjoined by law all freeholders possessed
of two hides[*] of land, or more, to send their children to school, for
their instruction; he gave preferment both in church and state to
such only as had made some proficiency in knowledge; and by all these
expedients he had the satisfaction, before his death, to see a great
change in the face of affairs; and in a work of his, which is still
extant, he congratulates himself on the progress which learning, under
his patronage, had already made in England.
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