Alfred the Great (reigned AD 871-99) devoted the last ten years of his reign to bringing about a religious revival through a programme of literacy and learning. At this time the Church and its monasteries were the main centres of learning. These had suffered from the ravages of the Vikings, who had burned libraries, destroyed books and killed the inhabitants. One result of this was that very few people could read or write either Latin or English. Even many members of the clergy were no longer literate.

Alfred changed this by bringing foreign scholars to his court, and by encouraging people outside the Church to learn to read and write. He said that he hoped that ‘all the youth of England’s free men … be set to learning’. Because Latin was the language used by the church, all important documents were written in Latin. However, most ordinary people could not understand Latin. Although Alfred thought that Latin learning was superior to English, he recognised that literacy could be spread most effectively in the native tongue. He may have learnt to read Latin himself and worked on translations of important books into English for the benefit of his subjects. Amongst his many achievements, he commissioned the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and generated a law-code grounded in Old Testament legislation.