These were the chief of Alfred’s literary assistants, and with their help he enriched his people with translations of some of the most highly prized works which the dying Roman world had bequeathed to Teutonic Europe. 1. The passage quoted above concerning the decay of learning in England comes from the king’s translation of Pope Gregory’s _Regula Pastoralis_, or as Alfred calls it his _Herd-book_. In this book the great pope to whom England was so largely indebted for her Christianity, gave many excellent hints as to the character, duties and special temptations of the Christian pastor. In his preface, King Alfred explained the reasons which had moved him to undertake the work of a translator. He marvelled that none of the good and wise men who had been in England before him had anticipated him in the work, but concluded that this was because they expected that learning would flourish yet more instead of decaying, and that another generation would be so familiar with Latin as to need no translations. Then on the other hand he remembered how the Old Testament itself had been translated from the Hebrew, first into Greek and then into Latin, and from thence, at any rate in part, into the languages of the other Christian nations of Europe; and on this precedent he resolved to act. “For it seems to me desirable,” he said, “that we should turn some of the books which all men ought to know into that language which we can all understand, and so bring it to pass (as we certainly may do if we only have rest from our enemies) that all the free youth of England, sons of men of substance, shall devote themselves to learning in their early years before they are fit for other occupations; that they shall first learn to read English writing, and then if they are still willing to continue as pupils and desire to rise to the higher ranks of the state, that they shall be taught the Latin language.” The king then proceeds to describe his mode of translation: “sometimes word for word and sometimes meaning for meaning; as I learned the sense from Plegmund, mine archbishop, and Asser, my bishop, and Grimbald and John my mass-priests”. He describes the measures which he has taken to supply every see in his kingdom with a copy of the book, enriched with an _aestel_ (clasp or book-marker?) worth 300 scillings, and commands in God’s name that no man shall take the _aestel_ from the book or the book from the minster. “Thank God! we have now abundance of learned bishops, but we know not how long this may continue; and I therefore ordain that each book be always kept in the place to which now I send it, unless the bishop himself desire to borrow it, or give a written order for its loan to another.”