Ælfric

Ælfric, also called Ælfric of Eynsham, was the foremost writer of English prose before the Norman Conquest and the author of several works in Latin. He was educated in the monastic school of Æthelwold at Winchester, where he absorbed the enthusiasm for learning that marked the Benedictine revival under Dunstan, Æthelwold and their followers. Most of his teaching and writing was done at Winchester, though for a time he taught at the newly founded abbey of Cerne Abbas in Dorset.

In 1005, Ælfric was appointed abbot of another new monastery, at Eynsham in Oxfordshire, where he ended his life. Before his final removal from Winchester, he had already written, for the use of his pupils and others, a Latin grammar and a Colloquy, an elementary Latin reader in dialogue form. He also compiled a Latin-English glossary. These works served the practical needs of monastic education, giving boys and clerics the means to learn Latin through English explanation and familiar example.

With a similar purpose, Ælfric made an English version of Bede's De Temporibus, a treatise on the computation of time and other natural phenomena. Of greater permanent importance are three series of discourses in English, written between 990 and 998, designed to give laymen some knowledge of the Latin gospels read in church and of the saints celebrated on appointed days. The third series was devoted exclusively to legends of saints.

In the course of this writing, Ælfric developed a rhythmic prose by which he attempted, with considerable success, to produce in English effects familiar in Latin. He was therefore a major pioneer in the use of the vernacular, treating English as a serious language for religious instruction, learning and ordered prose. At Eynsham he wrote in Latin an admirable life of his master Æthelwold, as well as an abridgment of Æthelwold's monastic rule and introductions to the Old and New Testament.