to coin anything worth notice out of the mintage of antiquity. How powerful indeed the sanctity and virtue of Dunstan's disciples were, is sufficiently evidenced by Ethelwold, made abbat of Abingdon from a monk of Glastonbury, and afterwards bishop of Winchester, who built so many and such great monasteries, as to make it appear hardly credible how the bishop of one see should be able to effect what the king of England himself could scarcely undertake. I am deceived, and err through hasty opinion, if what I assert be not evident. How great are the monasteries of Ely, Peterborough, and Thorney, which he raised from the foundations, and completed by his industry; which though repeatedly reduced by the wickedness of plunderers, are yet sufficient for their inhabitants. His life was composed in a decent style by Wulstan,[1] precentor of Winchester, who had been his attendant and pupil: he wrote also another very useful work, "On the Harmony of Sounds," a proof that he was a learned Englishman, a man of pious life and correct eloquence. At that time too Oswald, nephew of Odo, who had been archbishop before Dunstan, from a monk of Flory becoming bishop of Worcester and archbishop of York, claimed equal honours with the others. Treading the same paths, he extended the monastic profession by his authority, and built a monastery at Ramsey in a marshy situation. He filled the cathedral of Worcester with monks, the canons not being dirven out by force, but circumvented by pious fraud.[2] Bishop Ethelwold, by the royal command, had before expelled the canons from Winchester, who, upon the king's giving them an option either to live according to rule, or depart the place, gave the preference to an easy life, and were at that time without fixed habitations wandering over the whole island. In this manner these three persons, illuminating England, as it were, with a triple light, chased away the thick darkness of error. In consequence, Edgar advanced the monastery of Glastonbury, which he ever loved beyond all others, with great possessions, and was anxiously vigilant
- ↑ Wulstan's Life of Ethelwold is printed by Mabillon, and in the Acta Sanctorum, Antwerp. Aug. tome i.
- ↑ He erected another church at Worcester, in which he placed monks. The canons finding the people desert them in order to obtain the favour of the new comers, by degrees took the monastic habit. See Malmesbury de Gest. Pontif. lib. iii.
