<P> So general was (educational) decay in England there were very few on this side of the Humber who could...translate a letter from Latin into English; and I believe that there were not many beyond the Humber </P> <P> Alfred proposed that students be educated in Old English, and those who excelled should go on to learn Latin . Alfred's cultural program produced the following translations: Gregory the Great's The Pastoral Care, a manual for priests on how to conduct their duties; The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius; and The Soliloquies of Saint Augustine . In the process, some original content was interweaved through the translations . </P> <P> Other important Old English translations include: Historiae adversum paganos by Orosius, a companion piece for St. Augustine's The City of God; the Dialogues of Gregory the Great; and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People . </P> <P> Ælfric of Eynsham, who wrote in the late 10th and early 11th century, is believed to have been a pupil of Æthelwold . He was the greatest and most prolific writer of Anglo - Saxon sermons, which were copied and adapted for use well into the 13th century . In the translation of the first six books of the Bible (Old English Hexateuch), portions have been assigned to Ælfric on stylistic grounds . He included some lives of the saints in the Catholic Homilies, as well as a cycle of saints' lives to be used in sermons . Ælfric also wrote an Old English work on time - reckoning, and pastoral letters . </P>

What distinctive literary feature common to old english literature is used throughout beowulf