These writings of Alfred exerted a wide influence during his day.

They remained in manuscript until the art of printing was invented, when many of them were printed; others remain in manuscript in the various museums of England, where visitors look at them as curiosities, all worn and corroded as they are, and almost illegible by time.

These books, though they exerted great influence at the time when they were written, are of little interest or value now.

They express ideas in morals and philosophy, some of which have become so universally diffused as to be commonplace at the present day, while others would now be discarded, as not in harmony with the ideas or the philosophy of the times.
One of the greatest and most important of the measures which Alfred adopted for the intellectual improvement of his people was the founding of the great University of Oxford.

Oxford was Alfred's residence and capital during a considerable part of his reign.