When I thought of all this I remembered also how I saw the country before it had been all ravaged and burned; how the churches throughout the whole of England stood filled with treasures and books. There was also a great multitude of God's servants, but they had very little knowledge of books, for they could not understand anything in them because they were not written in their own language.[285] When I remembered all this I wondered extremely that the good and wise men who were formerly all over England and had learned perfectly all the books, did not wish to translate them into their own language. But again I soon answered myself and said: "Their own desire for learning was so great that they did not suppose that men would ever become so indifferent and that learning would ever so decay; and they wished, moreover, that wisdom in this land might increase with our knowledge of languages." Then I remembered how the law was first known in Hebrew and when the Greeks had learned it how they translated the whole of it into their own tongue,[286] and all other books besides. And again the Romans, when they had learned it, translated the whole of it into their own language.[287] And also all other Christian nations translated a part of it into their languages. [Sidenote: Plan to translate Latin books into English] Therefore it seems better to me, if you agree, for us also to translate some of the books which are most needful for all men to know into the language which we can all understand. It shall be your duty to see to it, as can easily be done if we have tranquility enough,[288] that all the free-born youth now in England, who are rich enough to be able to devote themselves to it, be set to learn as long as they are not fit for any other occupation, until they are well able to read English writing. And let those afterwards be taught more in the Latin language who are to continue learning and be promoted to a higher rank. [Sidenote: The translation of Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care] When I remembered how the knowledge of Latin had decayed through England, and yet that many could read English writing, I began, among other various and manifold troubles of this kingdom, to translate into English the book which is called in Latin _Pastoralis_, and in English _The Shepherd's Book_, sometimes word for word, and sometimes according to the sense, as I had learned it from Plegmund, my archbishop, and Asser, my bishop, and Grimbald, my mass-priest, and John, my mass-priest. And when I had learned it, as I could best understand it and most clearly interpret it, I translated it into English.