From time to time, the great horde under
Haesten poured across the country, cutting the corn and driving away the
cattle, and retreating into East Anglia, or Northumbria, or the
peninsula of the Wirrall, whenever they were seriously worsted. "Thanks
be to God," says the Chronicle pathetically "the host had not wholly
broken up all the English kin;" but the misery of England must have been
intense. AElfred, however, introduced two military changes of great
importance. He set on foot something like a regular army, with a
settled commissariat, dividing his forces into two bodies, so that
one-half was constantly at home tilling the soil while the other half
was in the field; and he built large ships on a new plan, which he
manned with Frisians, as well as with English, and which largely aided
in keeping the coast fairly free from Danish invasion during the two
intervals of peace.

Throughout the whole of the ninth century, however, and the early part
of the tenth, the whole history of England is the history of a perpetual
pillage. No man who sowed could tell whether he might reap or not. The
Englishman lived in constant fear of life and goods; he was liable at
any moment to be called out against the enemy. Whatever little
civilisation had ever existed in the country died out almost altogether.
The Latin language was forgotten even by the priests. War had turned
everybody into fighters; commerce was impossible when the towns were
sacked year after year by the pirates. But in the rare intervals of
peace, AElfred did his best to civilise his people. The amount of work
with which he is credited is truly astonishing. He translated into
English with his own hand "The History of the World," by Orosius; Baeda's
"Ecclesiastical History;" Boethius's "De Consolatione," and Gregory's
"Regula Pastoralis." At his court, too, if not under his own direction,
the English Chronicle was first begun, and many of the sentences quoted
from that great document in this work are probably due to AElfred
himself. His devotion to the church was shown by the regular
communication which he kept up with Rome, and by the gifts which he
sent from his impoverished kingdom, not only to the shrine of St. Peter
but even to that of St. Thomas in India. No doubt his vigorous
personality counted for much in the struggle with the Danes; but his
death in 901 left the West Saxons as ready as ever to contend against
the northern enemy.

One result of the Danish in