There are about 30,000 surviving lines of Old English poetry and about ten times that much prose, and the majority of both is religious. The prose was influential and obviously very important to the Anglo-Saxons and more important than the poetry to those who came after the Anglo-Saxons. Homilies are sermons, lessons to be given on moral and doctrinal matters, and the two most prolific and respected writers of Anglo-Saxon prose, Ælfric and Wulfstan, were both homilists. Almost all surviving poetry is found in only one manuscript copy, but there are several versions of some prose works, especially the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", which was apparently promulgated to monasteries by the royal court. Anglo-Saxon clergy also continued to write in Latin, the language of Bede's works, monastic chronicles, and theological writing, although Bede's biographer records that he was familiar with Old English poetry and gives a five line lyric which he either wrote or liked to quote – the sense is unclear.