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518
MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
that all clergy ofhis kingdom could read Latin and all young
freemen English. With heroic application he himselftook the
lead in providing translations of such books as he deemed it
'most necessary for all men to know*. In so doing he inaugu/
rated the literary use of English prose.
Owing to the collapse ofmonasticism throughout England
caused by the Danish invasions, the main task of educational
reconstruction fell to the bishops and clergy during the first
fifty years after Alfred's death. The school at Glastonbury,
where St. Dunstan received his education, was under the con/
trol of a community of secular priests. A similar connexion
seems to account for the few other schools that are known to
have existed in the tenth century. Eventually under the inspira/
tion of St. Dunstan (d. 988) and his disciples St. Oswald (d.
of Winchester
992) of Worcester and St. JEthelwold (d. 984)
monasticism revived; it was, however, the influence ofAlfred
that was reflected in the works ofyElfric, author of the earliest
Latin grammar of medieval Europe. ^Elfric wrote for the
instruction of a wide circle: his Dialogue was designed for the
benefit of English schoolboys whether they were to be monks
or not: his translations of Scripture and his homilies were
composed with the thegn as well as the parish priest in view.
In the hands of^Ifric (/. 1006), Byrhtferth (f. 1000), Bishop
Wulfstan (d. 1095), and other writers, the English language
was made a noble literary instrument for prose and verse and
a remarkable vehicle ofeducation during the last century before
the Norman Conquest and was unsurpassed by any other
European vernacular. With the coming of the Normans the
English language was displaced and confined to humble usage
for the next three hundred years.
2. Anglo-Norman Monasticism and the Ttvelfthscentury
Renaissance
The Norman regime imparted new intellectual stimulus to
monastic life in England. But whereas the intellectual activities
of Anglo-Saxon monasteries had redounded to the advantage