Which Books are “Most Necessary” to Know? The Old English Pastoral Care Preface and King Alfred’s Educational Reform

Abstract

ABSTRACTOver the past millennium and more, a range of literary translations have been attributed to Alfred the Great (d. 899). Modern confidence in an Alfredian corpus rests on the interpretation of the king’s Preface to the Old English version of Gregory I’s Pastoral Care, where Alfred announces a programme of translating those books “most necessary for all people to know”. Since the twelfth century, this phrase has been assumed to refer to those works that later writers and copyists have attributed to Alfred. This article argues that the phrase “books most necessary to know” refers to the books of scripture—unsurprising in medieval context—and is ultimately derived from Augustine of Hippo’s De doctrina christiana. Alfred’s plan to translate scripture for the young to read aligns his programme of national and Church reform with earlier attempts to renew English education.