Writing, before almost unknown, or confined to the engraving of runic characters on metal objects, grew rapidly into a common art.

The Latin language was introduced, and with it the key to the Latin literature and Latin science, the heirlooms of Greece and the East.

Roman influences affected the little courts of the English kings; and the customary laws began to be written down in regular codes.

Before the conversion we have not a single written document upon which to base our history; from the moment of Augustine's landing we have the invaluable works of Baeda, and a host of lesser writings (chiefly lives of saints), besides an immense number of charters or royal grants of land to monasteries and private persons.

These grants, written at first in Latin, but afterwards in Anglo-Saxon, were preserved in the monasteries down to the date of their dissolution, and then became the property of various collectors.