Translations of Anglo-Saxon texts related to language and learning

Original language: Latin


There was in this abbess's monastery a certain brother, particularly remarkable for the grace of God, who was skilful in making pious and religious verses, so that whatever was explained to him from Scripture by interpreters, he could quickly put into poetry of much sweetness and humility, in English, which was his native language. By his verses the minds of many have often been stirred to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven. Others in the English nation after him attempted to compose religious poems, but none could ever compare with him, for he did not learn the art of poetry from men, but from God. For this reason he never could compose any trivial or vain poem, but only those which relate to religion suited his religious tongue. For having lived in secular occupation till he was well advanced in years, he had never learned anything about poetry. Indeed, sometimes at entertainments, when it was agreed for the sake of mirth that all present should sing in their turns, when he saw the instrument come towards him, he rose up from table and returned home. Having done so at a certain time, and gone out of the house where the entertainment was, to the stable, where he had to take care of the horses that night, he there composed himself to rest at the proper time. A person appeared to him in his sleep, and saluting him by his name, said, "Caedmon, sing some song to me." He answered, "I don't know how to sing. That was the reason why I left the entertainment, and retired to this place because I could not sing." The other who talked to him, replied, "However, you shall sing to me." ¬ "What shall I sing?" he asked. "Sing the beginning of created beings," said the other. Then he began to sing verses to the praise of God, which he had never heard, and their theme ran thus :

Now we ought to praise the maker of Heaven's kingdom, The power of the Creator and his intention, The deeds of the Father of glory; how he Who is eternal Lord has been the author of all miracles, Who first for the sons of men Wrought heaven for a roof above, Next, the keeper of the human race, The all-powerful, created the earth.

This is the sense, but not the words in order as he sang them in his dream; for verses, however well composed, cannot be literally translated from one language into another without losing much of their beauty and dignity.

Original language: Old English


King Alfred bids bishop Wærferth to be greeted with loving and friendly words; and bids you to know that it very often comes to my mind what wise men there formerly were throughout England, both of sacred and secular orders; and how happy the times were then throughout England; and how the kings who then had power over the people obeyed God and his ministers; and they maintained their peace, their morality and their power within their borders, and also increased their kingdom without; and how they prospered both with war and with wisdom; and also how eager the sacred orders were about both teaching and learning, and about all the services that they ought to do for God; and how men from abroad came to this land in search of wisdom and teaching, and how we now must get them from abroad if we shall have them. So completely had wisdom fallen off in England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English, or indeed could translate a letter from Latin into English; and I believe that there were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few of them that I indeed cannot think of a single one south of the Thames when I became king. Thanks be to God almighty that we now have any supply of teachers. Therefore I command you to do as I believe you are willing to do, that you free yourself from worldly affairs as often as you can, so that wherever you can establish that wisdom that God gave you, you establish it. Consider what punishments befell us in this world when we neither loved wisdom at all ourselves, nor transmitted it to other men; we had the name alone that we were Christians, and very few had the practices.

Then when I remembered all this, then I also remembered how I saw, before it had all been ravaged and burnt, how the churches throughout all England stood filled with treasures and books, and there were also a great many of God's servants. And they had very little benefit from those books, for they could not understand anything in them, because they were not written in their own language. As if they had said: 'Our ancestors, who formerly held these places, loved wisdom, and through it they obtained wealth and left it to us. Here we can still see their footprints, but we cannot track after them.' And therefore we have now lost both the wealth and the wisdom, because we would not bend down to their tracks with our minds.

Then when I remembered all this, then I wondered extremely that the good and wise men who were formerly throughout England, who had completely learned all those books, would not have translated any of them into their own language. But I immediately answered myself and said: 'They did not think that men ever would become so careless and learning so decayed: they deliberately refrained,for they would have it that the more languages we knew, the greater wisdom would be in this land.'

Then I remembered how the law was first composed in the Hebrew language, and afterwards, when the Greeks learned it, they translated it all into their own language, and also all other books. And afterwards the Romans in the same way, when they had learned them, translated them all through wise interpreters into their own language. And also all other Christian peoples translated some part of them into their own language. Therefore it seems better to me, if it seems so to you, that we also translate certain books, which are most needful for all men to know, into that language that we all can understand, and accomplish this, as with God's help we may very easily do if we have peace, so that all the youth of free men now in England who have the means to apply themselves to it, be set to learning, while they are not useful for any other occupation, until they know how to read English writing well. One may then instruct in Latin those whom one wishes to teach further and promote to a higher rank.

Then when I remembered how knowledge of Latin had formerly decayed throughout England, and yet many knew how to read English writing, then I began among the other various and manifold cares of this kingdom to translate into English the book that is called in Latin Pastoralis, and in English "Shepherd-book," sometimes word for word, and sometimes sense for sense, just as I had learned it from Plegmund my archbishop and from Asser my bishop and from Grimbold my masspriest and from John my masspriest. When I had learned it I translated it into English, just as I had understood it, and as I could most meaningfully render it.

Original language: Latin


His noble nature implanted in him from his cradle a love of wisdom above all things; but, with shame be it spoken, by the unworthy neglect of his parents and nurses, he remained illiterate even till he was twelve years old or more; but, he listened with serious attention to the Saxon poems which he often heard recited, and easily retained them in his memory. He was zealous in practising hunting in all its branches, and hunted with great assiduity and success; for skill and good fortune in this art, as in all others, are among the gifts of God, as we also have often witnessed.

On a certain day, therefore, his mother was showing him and his brother a Saxon book of poetry, which she held in her hand, and said, "Whichever of you shall the soonest learn this volume shall have it for his own." Stimulated by these words, or rather by the Divine inspiration, and allured by the beautifully illuminated letter at the beginning of the volume, he spoke before all his brothers, who, though his seniors in age, were not so in ability, and answered, "Will you really give this book to the one of us who can first understand and repeat it to you?" At this his mother smiled with pleasure, and confirmed what she had before said. Upon which the boy took the book out of her hand, and went to his master to read it, and in due time brought it to his mother and recited it.

After this he learned the daily course, that is, the celebration of the hours, and afterwards certain psalms, and several prayers, contained in a certain book which he kept by him day and night, as I myself have seen, and carried about with him to assist his prayers, amid all the bustle and business of this present life. But, sad to say, he could not gratify his most ardent wish to learn the liberal arts, because, as he said, there were no good scholars at that time in all the kingdom of the West-Saxons.

This he confessed, with many lamentations and sighs, to have been one of his greatest difficulties and impediments in this life, namely, that when he was young and had the capacity for learning, he could not find teachers; but, when he was more advanced in life, he was harassed by so many diseases unknown to all the physicians of this island, as well as by internal and external anxieties of sovereignty, and by continual invasions of the pagans, and had his teachers and writers also so much disturbed, that there was no time for study.

Original language: Old English (link to OE text online).


Ælfric the monk humbly greets æthelward the nobleman. You bid me, Sir, that I should translate for you the book of Genesis from Latin into English. Then I thought that it would be burdensome for me to grant this to you; and then you said that I didn't need to translate any more of the books but up to Isaac, Abraham's son because some other man had translated the books from Isaac to the end. Now I think, sir, that that work is so dangerous for me or any man to undertake. For I dread that, if some ignorant man read the book or hear it read, he will expect that he might be allowed to live now in the time of the New Testament just as the Patriarchs lived then in the times before now when the old laws were established, or just as men lived under the laws of the Moses. At one time I knew that a certain mass-priest, who was my teacher at this time, had the book of Genesis and that he showed understanding in part of Latin. Then he said concerning the Patriarch Jacob that he had four wives; two sisters and their two handmaids. Very truly he spoke but he knew not, nor did I as yet, how much difference there is between the Old Testament and New. At the beginning of this world the brother took his sister as a wife and sometimes the father begat offspring from his own daughter. Many had more wives to increase the nation and at the beginning a man couldn't marry except his family. If someone now wishes to live after Christ's advent just as men lived under Moses' Law, the man is not a Christian, nor is he even worthy that any Christian man will eat with him.

Ignorant priests, if they understand a little of the Latin book, then immediately think that they may be famous teachers; and thus, however, they do not know the spiritual sense of it, and how the Old Testament was a prefiguration of future things, or how the New Testament after Christ's incarnation was the fulfilment of all the things that the Old Testament prefigured for the future about Christ and his disciples. They also speak often about Peter, asking why they might not have wives just as Peter the apostle had, and they do not wish to hear or to know that the blessed Peter lived according to Moses' law until Christ, who at that time came to man and began to preach his holy gospel and chose Peter to come to him first. Then Peter forsook his wife immediately, and all the twelve apostles, those who had wives, forsook both their wives and their possessions, and followed Christ's teaching of the New Testament and the purity which he himself had built up. Priests are established to teach the ignorant people. Now it would befit them that they know the Old Testament and what Christ himself and his apostles taught in the New Testament to understand them spiritually, that they might be able to instruct the people well in belief in God and to set an example for good works.

Original language: Old English


Beloved people, it happened once in the town that is named Jerusalem that our Lord's thanes began to speak with him about the great temple-building that was erected there in honor of God. Then he said to them that it must happen in later days that each stone would be thrown to the ground. And then they began to ask him again secretly when that must happen, and also by what signs a man might perceive when his second coming was at hand, and when this world's end must come. Then he answered them and said that they had need to be careful that no one deceive them too fraudulently with lying teaching and terrible boasts, because, he said, many will yet come in the future who will lie falsely and boast terribly, who will name themselves [God] and pretend to be God, as if it were Christ himself. "But say what they will," he said, "do not believe them ever." And he said that great strife must arise widely in the world before the end, and he taught that a man should not then be too weak-minded, and he said that the end was not yet entirely at hand. He said also that nations must strive violently among themselves, and many earthquakes and misfortunes must occur in the world before the world ends. And that will be the beginning, he said, of the sorrows that will come to humanity. It is certain that he meant for us to know very well the sorrow and the pain that will come in the world before the time when Antichrist rages and terrifies all the world. Because then there will be a grim and painful persecution of Christian folk, and those who love God will be hated and set against everywhere. And deceitful liars will then arise and spread too widely and through false teaching lead too many astray. But it will be well forever afterwards in the world for those who do not weaken then in any way. And one thing I will yet say to you for certain, that this gospel will undoubtedly be known all around the world before the world ends, as the book says, and afterwards the end will come as quickly as God wills it.