One need not wonder at the voluminousness of Bede’s literary productions.[221] Many of the writings emanating from monasteries are transcriptions rather than compositions. The circumstance that books, _i.e._ manuscripts, were rare and costly was an impelling motive. Isidore and Bede made systematic compilations for general use. They and their congeners would also make extracts from manuscripts, of which they might have but the loan, or from unique codices in order to preserve the contents. Such notes or excerpts might have the value of a treatise, and might be preserved and in turn transcribed as a distinct work. Yet whether made by a Bede or by a lesser man, they represent mainly the labour of a copyist. Bede’s writings were all in Latin, and were intended for the instruction of monks. They played a most important rôle in the transmission of learning, sacred and profane, in Latin form. For its still more popular diffusion, translations into the vernacular might be demanded. Such at all events were made of Scripture; and perhaps a century and a half after Bede’s death, the translation of edifying Latin books was undertaken by the best of Saxon kings. King Alfred was born in 849 and closed his eyes in 901. In the midst of other royal labours he set himself the task of placing before his people, or at least his clergy, Anglo-Saxon versions of some of the then most highly regarded volumes of instruction. The wise _Pastoral Care_ of Gregory the Great; his _Dialogues_, less wise according to our views; the _Histories_ of Orosius[222] and Bede; and that philosophic vade-mecum of the Middle Ages, the _De consolatione philosophiae_ of Boëthius. Of these, Alfred translated the _Pastoral Care_ and the _De consolatione_, also Orosius; the other works appear to have been translated at his direction.[223] Alfred’s translations contain his own reflections and other matter not in the originals. In rendering Orosius, he rewrote the geographical introduction, inserted a description of Germany and accounts of northern Europe given by two of his Norse liegemen, Ohthere and Wulfstan. The alertness of his mind is shown by this insertion of the latest geographical knowledge. Other and more personal passages will disclose his purpose, and illustrate the manner in which his Christianized intelligence worked upon trains of thought suggested perhaps by the Latin writing before him.