Читать книгу The Child's Pictorial History of England. From the Earliest Period to the Present Time онлайн

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28. You may, perhaps, wonder why so good a man as Alfred should only think of having the great people taught to read; but reading would have been of no use to the common people, as the art of printing was unknown, and there were no books but those written by the monks or nuns, which were so expensive that none but very rich people could afford to have even two or three of them.

29. The principal school founded by king Alfred was at Oxford, which was then a small, poor place, with a monastery, and a few mean wooden houses for the scholars to live in, very different from the present grand university, and the masters, who were all churchmen, and called learned clerks, resided in the monastery.

30. Alfred, with the help of some good and clever men, whom he consulted in every thing, made some very wise laws, and obliged the people to obey them, by having courts of justice held in the principal cities, regularly once a month; for nobody had thought much about law or justice either, while the wars were going on, so that there was need of some very strict regulations to restore good order, without which there can be neither happiness nor comfort any where.