Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

REFORMS.
109
carried the vigour -^ of their Primate into their new
dioceses. None seconded Dunstan more devotedly
than St. Ethehvold, a monk of Glastonbury, later
Abbot of Abingdon, and afterwards Bishop of Winchester.
Ethel wold's clergy at Winchester, placed
before Dunstan's alternative, had chosen to leave the
spot rather than to be reformed. The same course
V7us pursued by Oswald at Worcester, and by Wulf-
sige at Sherborne.1 Dunstan put great zeal into the
work of visitation, but no monastery attracted him
more than Glastonbury. Primate though he was,
he became a simple monk within those peaceful walls.
ut the good times of Edgar and Dunstan were
drawing to a close. The king died in 97-"), and was
succeeded his son, Edward II. the Martyr. A
great reaction heralded in the new reign. By the
help of the nobles the expelled clergy sought to
recover their footing, and the Archbishop was publicly
confronted with his numerous enemies at a
council held at Winchester. According to William
of Malmesbury, a crucifix spoke thrice to relieve
the Archbishop's mind from the anxiety caused
the unruly priests.'2
The history of England during the last twenty
years of the tenth century is disastrous in the extreme.
No sovereign appeared with the capacity of
Edgar, and the country's energies were sapped by
Danish invasions and by an incompetent and worth-
1 M- nwriak of ISt. Jh/nstau, p. 30^.
- id., p. 308.