Ða ic ða ðis eall gemunde, ða gemunde ic eac hu ic seah ær ðæm ðe hit eall forhergod wære ond forbærned, hu ða ciricean giond eall Angelcynn stodon maðma ond boca gefylda, ond eac micel mengeo Godes ðiowa. Ond ða swiðe lytle fiorme ðara boca wiston, for ðæm ðe hie hiora nanwuht ongiotan ne meahton, for ðæm ðe nie næron on hiroa agen geðiode awritene. Swelce hie cwæden: “Ure ieldran, ða ðe ðas stowa ær hioldon, hie lufodon wisdom, ond ðurh ðone hie begeaton welan, ond us læfdon. Her mon mæg giet gesion hiora swæð, ac we him ne cunnon æfter spyrigean.”
From King Alfred’s prose preface to his translation of Gregory the Great’s
Pastoral Care:
When I remembered all this, I remembered how I saw, before it was all destroyed
and burned, how the churchs around all of England stood filled with treasures
and books, and also with a great multitude of the servants of God. And those
received very little benefit from those books, because they were not able to
understand them, because they were not written in their own language. It is
as if they said, “Our ancestors, who previously held this place, they
loved wisdom, and through it they obtained wealth, and left it to us. Here one
may still see their track, but we may not follow after them.”