He sent a Norwegian ship-master to explore the White Sea, and Wulfstan to trace the coast of Esthonia; envoys bore his presents to the churches of India and Jerusalem, and an annual mission carried Peter's-pence to Rome.

But it was with the Franks that his intercourse was closest, and it was from them that he drew the scholars to aid him in his work of education.

Grimbald came from St.Omer to preside over his new abbey at Winchester; and John, the Old Saxon, was fetched it may be from the Westphalian abbey of Corbey to rule the monastery that AElfred's gratitude for his deliverance from the Danes raised in the marshes of Athelney.

The real work however to be done was done, not by these teachers but by the King himself.

AElfred established a school for the young nobles at his own court, and it was to the need of books for these scholars in their own tongue that we owe his most remarkable literary effort.