york00orns

DANISH BISHOPS.—STATE OF YORK. 99
was, however, soon released, and though not allowed
to go back to York, was permitted to exercise the
office of a Bishop at Dorchester.
The fusion of the Northmen with the population
of Northumbria appears by this time to have taken
place. It was effected apparently by a sort of
natural process. When the Angles made their
descent upon the shores of Britain, their onset was
directed against a people of a different race to themselves,
and no assimilation ever took place. But in
the case of the Northmen it was different. Their
race was the same :
" in tongue, in manner, in
institutions, there was little to distinguish them from
the men amongst whom they dwelt." And ere long
they had a common Christendom. At this time
Christianity must have prevailed to a considerable
extent amongst the Scandinavian settlers. We find
prelates of Danish blood occupying the respective
sees of Canterbury and York, Odo being Archbishop
of the one, Oskytel of the other. Of Oskytel's work
at York we know little. His kinsman Oswald
received the pallium at the hands of Pope John
XIII. in 972. He had been a most active and
energetic prelate in the diocese of Worcester, and
Dunstan, who had now succeeded Odo in the chair
of St. Augustine, urgently pressed upon him the
acceptance of the see of York. He retained also
the see of Worcester. A biographer of the Archbishop
gives an interesting picture of the state of
York at the time. He describes the walls and very
many of the buildings as being in a state of much disrepair,
the result doubtless of the assaults it had from
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