Ina, who was one of the kings of that part of England which was then called Wessex (but now contains Berkshire, Hampshire, and other counties) was very fond of learning, and old books tell us that he collected a penny from every house where the master could spare it, and sent all these pennies to Rome to pay for a school that he might send the young men to, because they could get better masters in Rome than in England at that time. These pennies were called PETER’S PENCE, and were sent to Rome for a great many years; but learned men now think that it was not Ina, but a later English king, called Offa, who first began to send them. Now I must tell you what the young men at that time learned in the school. First of all to read, and to write, and to count; then to paint pictures in books, and to build beautiful churches, and to plant gardens, and to take care of fruit trees, and to sing well in church. And they taught all these things to their friends when they came back to England. I should have told you that it was only the clergymen who went to school in Rome; and when they came home, though some of them lived in houses of their own, yet most went and lived in large houses, called convents, big enough to hold a great many of them, besides having schools in them for teaching children, and rooms where they allowed poor people, who were travelling, to sleep; and they were very good to the poor and took great care of people who were sick. And because these clergymen did so much good, the kings and the people gave them money, and some land fit for corn-fields and gardens, that they might have plenty for themselves, and the schoolboys, and the poor. CHAPTER VIII. How the Angles and Saxons loved freedom, but made laws to punish those who did wrong. I am sure you wish to hear something more about the Angles and Saxons, now that I have told you that they had become Christians like the Britons, and had left off fighting with them. There was one thing that, they loved above all others, and that was freedom; that is, they liked that every man should do what he pleased as long as he did not hurt any body else. And they liked that when a man went into his own house and shut the door he should be safe, and that nobody should go into his house without his leave. Besides that, they liked wicked people to be punished; but if a man killed another, on purpose, they did not always kill him too, as we do, for fear he should do more mischief; they only made him give money to the relations of the man he had killed, or perhaps they put him in prison for a little while, to teach him to be more careful. And the Saxons and Angles liked that when a thief stole anything, he should be made to give it back, and that he should be punished.