church. Eadgar may have atoned for his sin by the foundation of a religious house, for he founded many, and the coronation at Bath may well have been accompanied by the removal of ecclesiastical censure, and, as the ‘Life of St. Oswald’ implies, by the recognition of the marriage (‘peractis egregiis nuptiis regalis thori,’ &c.).
With Eadgar's alliance with the East-Anglian house, which was perhaps drawn closer by his marriage with Ælfthryth, may be connected his zeal in the work of monastic reform which began in England that year (Robertson). He was first persuaded to undertake the work by Oswald, who was a friend of Æthelwine, the brother and successor of Ælfthryth's first husband. With the king in their favour, with Dunstan at Canterbury, Oswald at Worcester, and, above all, Æthelwold at Winchester, the monastic party was all-powerful. Eadgar upheld Æthelwold in his severity towards the clerks at Winchester (Vita S. Æthelwoldi, 260), he finished and dedicated the new minster there, and obtained a letter from John XIII authorising Æthelwold to establish monks there (Flor. Wig. sub ann. 964; Vita S. Oswaldi, 426; Memorials of St. Dunstan, 364). With his co-operation monks took the place of clerks at Chertsey, Milton, Exeter, Ely, Peterborough, Thorney, and other places. He commanded that the reform should be carried out in Mercia, ordered that new buildings should be provided for the new inmates of the monasteries, and is said to have founded forty new houses. He also gave large gifts to many other monasteries, and especially to Glastonbury. Nor was his bounty confined to the monasteries of his own kingdom, as may be seen by a letter from the abbot of St. Ouen at Rouen asking his help, and by another from the convent of St. Genevieve at Paris thanking him for his gifts (Memorials of St. Dunstan, 363, 366).
Young as Eadgar was, his rule was vigorous and successful. The tendency of the period was towards provincial rather than national administration. As the theory of royalty increased, its actual power diminished. The great ealdormen, such as Ælfhere and Æthelwine, were practically independent, and local jurisdictions were in full operation. Eadgar did not attempt to overthrow the power of the provincial rulers, nor did he do anything to weaken the local courts. On the contrary he seems to have avoided all unnecessary interference, and as he had no national machinery for government he strengthened the local machinery, while at the same time he used it for national ends and as a means of making his power felt in all that concerned the good of the nation. This required wisdom and vigour—the wisdom may to a large extent have been Dunstan's, the vigour of the king's administration was due to himself. In order to rid the coasts of the northern pirates he organised, we are told, a system of naval defence. He formed three fleets of twelve hundred vessels each, and every year after the Easter festival he sailed with each of these fleets in turn along the whole coast. Within the land, to use the chronicler's words, he ‘the folks' peace bettered the most of the kings that were before him.’ He used the territorial division of the hundred as the basis of an efficient police system for catching thieves, and by organising local jurisdictions and adapting them to the needs of the people gave them new life. He desired that the local courts should suffice for all ordinary purposes of justice, and commanded that no man should apply to the king in any civil suit unless he was not worthy of law or could not obtain it at home. Nevertheless he did not allow these courts to work without control. Every winter and spring we are told, doubtless with some exaggeration, he went through all the provinces and made inquisition as to how the great men administered the laws and whether the poor were oppressed by the mighty. His laws were few, and, except the ordinance of the hundred, call for no special remark; his work was rather administrative than legislative, and the words that stand at the head of his ordinances commanding that every man should be worthy of folk-right, poor as well as rich, show the spirit of his administration. He was stern in punishing crimes, and in 968, probably in consequence of some local rebellion, caused the island of Thanet to be ravaged. His ecclesiastical laws command the payment of tithe, church-seat, and hearth-penny or Peter's pence, and the observance of feasts and fasts. The general character of the canons enacted in this reign will be found in the article on Dunstan. It is convenient to consider the secular side of Eadgar's reign as specially pertinent to his life, and the ecclesiastical side as rather appropriate to the life of the archbishop. No such division, however, is satisfactory. Dunstan's greatness cannot be measured except by taking into account the glories of Eadgar's rule, nor is it likely that the king, who was so earnest in the matter of monastic reform, was an indifferent or inactive spectator of the efforts made by the archbishop to reform the character and raise the position of the clergy. The characteristic of Eadgar's reign which impressed the men of his own time most forcibly was the peace he gave to his
