Alfred's attempt to revive learning had met with little success, for no priest, we are told, wrote or understood Latin before the days of AEthelwold and Dunstan. Now, however, along with the rule of St. Benedict, the monastic reformers brought into England the learning of the Benedictine houses of the Continent, and famous schools were established at Winchester, Ramsey, and other monasteries. Nor was the work of teaching confined to the monks; for all parish priests were also schoolmasters, and though few of them had much learning, what they taught was enough to show a boy what he could do; and if he wanted to learn more, he would seek admission into some monastic school. Alfred had taught men that the education of the people should be carried on in their own tongue, and this lesson was learnt and enforced by AElfric, abbot first of Cerne about 1005, and later of Ensham. AElfric took much interest in education, and among his other works compiled a Grammar, which he dedicated to the boys of England, and from which he is generally called the "Grammarian." He saw that the people needed religious teaching, and he therefore abridged and translated some of the books of the Old Testament, and compiled two books of homilies, in which, as he says, he used "no obscure words, but plain English, that might come to the hearts of readers and hearers to their souls' good." These homilies and some of his other writings, which must be held to express the doctrines of the English Church in his day and on to the time of the Norman Conquest, differ in some respects from the teaching of the Church of Rome. They contain many declarations against transubstantiation. "The holy housel," AElfric writes, "is by nature corruptible bread and wine, and is by the power of the divine word truly Christ's body and blood; not, however, bodily but spiritually." He does not give St. Peter the pre-eminence among the apostles that is ascribed to him by Rome, and he refuses to recognize bishops as a distinct order in the Church. He wrote canons for the bishop of Sherborne, and a kind of charge for the archbishop of York. These direct that, according to the ancient custom, tithes should be divided between the repair of the church, the poor, and the parish priest; and they also show that, while priests were strongly urged to put away their wives, no means were taken to compel them to do so. The renewed vigour imparted to the Church by the monastic revival was further manifested by a fresh outburst of missionary zeal; and Sigeferth of York and other priests went forth to preach the Gospel in Norway and Sweden. CHAPTER IV. _EXHAUSTION._