the imperial dignity, of Eadgar ‘of Angles king.’ This act is connected by Osbern, writing in the latter part of the eleventh century, with a story of a sin of incontinence committed by Eadgar and a seven years' penance imposed by the archbishop. As this matter must be discussed in the life of Eadgar, it is enough to say here that though there is reason to believe that ‘a veiled lady’ of Wilton bore Eadgar a child in 961 or 962, and that though Dunstan, ever fearless and ever the upholder of purity, may well have inflicted a penance on the young king for his sin, it is highly unlikely that such penance was, as Osbern would have us believe, that he should lay aside his crown, for he does not appear to have been crowned before 973, and the story utterly fails, because the sin with the Wilton lady must have been committed not seven but twelve years before the coronation. (On the whole question see Robertson, Essays, 176, 203–15.). At the same time it is probable that Eadgar's subsequent marriage was illegal, and that Dunstan refused to bless it and perhaps inflicted some penance on the king, and that though this penance was not the laying aside of a crown he had never received, yet it may have come to an end at the coronation, which took place just seven years after the marriage [see under Edgar]. Under Dunstan the archbishop of Canterbury grew in temporal greatness, for in his time the ealdorman of Kent disappears, and so an important step was made towards the union of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex in one ealdordom held by the archbishop of the king (Robertson).
In considering the character of Dunstan's ecclesiastical work during the reign of Eadgar, it will be well to look with suspicion on the statements of biographers who lived long after his death, and at a time when men naturally ascribed any changes they approved of in church matters to the greatest churchman of the period. On his return from Rome Dunstan resigned the bishoprics of London and Worcester, nor did he retain the abbacy of Glastonbury; for, though he continued to take the liveliest interest in all that concerned the house, did all in his power to promote its interests, and when he visited it put off all state and lived as though it was his home, others ruled it during his lifetime. He continued active in building, restoring, and endowing churches; his life was without reproach; he befriended the good, reproved the evil, and in all things acted as ‘a true shepherd’ (Vita B. 40). His accession to Canterbury proclaimed the triumph of the party that represented ecclesiastically the monastic, and politically the northern interests, the party that may be called progressive both in church and state, as contrasted with the narrow conservatism of Wessex. This gives special significance to the first sermon he preached in his cathedral church, in which he is said to have given his predecessor Oda the title of ‘the good;’ for Oda's memory was cherished by the now triumphant party, and had been insulted by one of its chief opponents. The connection between England and the great monasteries of the continent was now about to bear fruit in a new monastic movement, the introduction of pure Benedictinism. This movement began with the consecration of Dunstan's old friend Æthelwold to the diocese of Winchester in 963. Æthelwold carried out his reforms with harshness, expelling the seculars from the monasteries, and putting monks in their place. Oswald, who was consecrated to the see of Worcester, worked for the same end, but with far greater moderation. The king connected himself with the family of Æthelwine [q. v.] of East Anglia, the most prominent patron of the monks, and joined with all his heart in the movement. On the other hand, Dunstan, who is represented by later writers as the chief opponent of the seculars, appears in reality to have taken a far less conspicuous part in it than the king or the bishops of Winchester or Worcester. While he certainly approved of the changes effected by the two bishops, and therefore is not unfairly spoken of as a fellow-worker with Æthelwold (Vita S. Æthelwoldi, p. 262), he did little himself to forward the triumph of the monks. He found secular clerks in his cathedral churches at Worcester and Canterbury, and in both alike he left them undisturbed, and throughout the whole period of his archiepiscopate he did not found a single Benedictine house in Kent. A reference to the lives of Æthelwold and Oswald will show how little cause there is to regard him as the prime mover on behalf of the monks. And in judging of the movement in favour of Benedictinism, with which he certainly sympathised, however little part he took in its progress, and though he probably only partly sympathised in the extent to which it was pushed, it should be remembered that the extreme laxity of morals which then prevailed in England demanded extraordinary remedies, and that, if under any circumstances it is well that men and women should set an example of separation from all sexual relations, it was well that they should do so at a time when even marriage was degraded by abuses. Moreover the new rule, which naturally seemed to men of that period the more excellent way, brought with it a revival
