ene.

"I suppose, father," Edmund said, "you will leave your treasures buried
here?"

"Yes," his father replied; "we have no means of transporting them, and
we can at ally time return and fetch them. We must dig up the big chest
and take such garments as we may need, and the personal ornaments of
our rank; but the rest, with the gold and silver vessels, can remain
here till we need them."

Gold and silver vessels seem little in accordance with the primitive
mode of life prevailing in the ninth century. The Saxon civilization
was indeed a mixed one. Their mode of life was primitive, their
dwellings, with the exception of the religious houses and the abodes of
a few of the great nobles, simple in the extreme; but they possessed
vessels of gold and silver, armlets, necklaces, and ornaments of the
same metals, rich and brightly coloured dresses, and elaborate bed
furniture while their tables and household utensils were of the
roughest kind, and their floors strewn with rushes. When they invaded
and conquered England they found existing the civilization introduced
by the Romans, which was far in advance of their own; much of this they
adopted. The introduction of Christianity further advanced them in the
scale.

The prelates and monks from Rome brought with them a high degree of
civilization, and this to no small extent the Saxons imitated and
borrowed. The church was held in much honour, great wealth and
possessions were bestowed upon it, and the bishops and abbots possessed
large temporal as well as spiritual power, and bore a prominent part in
the councils of the kingdoms. But even in the handsome and well-built
monasteries, with their stately services and handsome vestments,
learning was at the lowest ebb--so low, indeed, that when Prince Alfred
desired to learn Latin he could find no one in his father's dominions
capable of teaching him, and his studies were for a long time hindered
for want of an instructor, and at the time he ascended the throne he
was probably the only Englishman outside a monastery who was able to
read and write fluently.

"Tell me, father," Edmund said after the meal was concluded, "about the
West Saxons, since it is to them, as it seems, that we must look for
the protection of England against the Danes. This Prince Alfred, of
whom I before heard you speak in terms of high praise, is the brother,
is he not, of the king? In that case how is it that he does not reign
in Kent, which I thought,