The number of books written and collected by King Alfred was extensive, when we take into account the extent of ignorance that prevailed in England during the ninth century--an amount which may be estimated from the fact that there was much difficulty in providing a tutor competent to instruct the royal youth when twelve years old. Yet he, like his celebrated contemporary, Charlemagne, became eminent for encouraging literature, and for his high repute in erudition and book-writing, when Anglo-Saxon literature was despicably low. The extreme paucity of books in England in the eleventh century may be inferred from a mandate of Archbishop Lanfranc to librarians of English monasteries, ordering them to deliver one book at the commencement of Lent to the monks in turn, and that any monk who neglected to read it should perform penance. Anciently every great church and monastery had its little library; and, as education was almost entirely limited to ecclesiastics during the middle ages, few books and transcribers were required. The survey of the lands of England him Doomsday Book, in two volumes, was commenced by command of William the Conqueror, in the year 1080, and completed in six years. The book obtained its name either from a room in the Royal Treasury called _Domus Dei_, in Winchester, or from Saxon words signifying doom or judgment, no appeal from its record being permitted. The first volume is a folio, the second a quarto, and both are written in abbreviated Latin; the writing being on vellum, strongly bound, studded, and inclosed in a leather cover. A copy of _Magna Charta_, the great charter of British liberty, granted and confirmed by preceding monarchs, but re-enacted after a struggle between the Barons and that wicked man, King John, in the thirteenth century, is preserved in Lincoln Cathedral. There were twenty-five original sealed copies of it written on vellum; one copy was sent to each English diocese, and to a few special places besides. About twenty-five barons were present when this important document was drawn up, none of room signed it; it was only attested by the Great Seal of England. His majesty could not write; and it may be assumed that his twenty-five nobles were equally illiterate. If any of them were penmen, it was very courtier-like on their part to decline doing what their king was incompetent to do.