Then I considered all this, and brought to mind _25_ also how, before it had all been laid waste and burned, the churches throughout all England stood filled with treasures and books; and there was a great multitude of God's servants, but they knew very little about the books, for they could not understand anything in them, _30_ since they were not written in their own language--as if they spoke thus: "Our fathers who held these places of old loved wisdom and through it acquired wealth and bequeathed it to us. Here we may still see their tracks, but we can not follow them, and hence we have _35_ now lost both the wealth and the wisdom, since we would not incline our hearts after their example." When I called all this to mind, I wondered very much, considering all the good and wise men who were formerly throughout England and all the books that they _40_ had perfectly learned, that they had translated no part of them into their own language. But soon I answered myself and said: "They did not expect that men should ever become as careless and that learning should decay as it has; they neglected it through the desire that the _45_ greater increase of wisdom there should be in the land the more should men learn of foreign languages." I then considered that the law was first found in the Hebrew tongue, and again when the Greeks learned it, they translated it all into their own language. And the _50_ Romans likewise when they had learned it, they translated it all through learned scholars into their own language. And all other Christian people have turned some part into their own language. Wherefore it seems to me best, if it seems so to you, that we should translate _55_ some books that are most needful for all men to know into the language which we can all understand and that we should bring about what we may very easily do with God's help if we have tranquillity; namely, that all youths that are now in England of _60_ free birth, who are rich enough to devote themselves to it, be put to learning as long as they are not fitted for any other occupation, until the time that they shall be able to read English writing with ease: and let those that would pursue their studies further be taught more _65_ in Latin and be promoted to a higher rank. When I brought to mind how the knowledge of Latin had formerly decayed throughout England, and yet many knew how to read English writing, I began among other various and manifold troubles of this kingdom to turn _70_ into English the book that is called in Latin _Pastoralis_ and in English _The Shepherd's Book_, sometimes word for word, sometimes thought by thought, as I had learned it from Plegmund my archbishop, and Asser my bishop, and Grimbald my priest, and John my priest. _75_ After I had learned it so that I understood it and so that I could interpret it clearly, I translated it into English. I shall send one copy to every bishopric in my kingdom; and in each is a book-mark worth fifty mancuses.