English Literature, Prose

The earliest English prose work, the law code of King Aethelberht I of Kent, was written within a few years of St. Augustine of Canterbury's arrival in England (597). Other 7th- and 8th-century prose, similarly practical in character, includes more laws, wills, and charters. According to Cuthbert, who was a monk at Jarrow, Bede had just finished a translation of the Gospel of St. John