_RUIN AND REVIVAL._
RUIN OF NORTHUMBRIA--AETHELWULF'S PILGRIMAGE--DANISH INVASIONS OF
SOUTHERN ENGLAND; THE PEACE OF WEDMORE--ALFRED'S WORK--CHARACTER OF
THE CHURCH IN THE TENTH
CENTURY--REORGANIZATION--REVIVAL--ODA--DUNSTAN--SECULARS AND
REGULARS--DUNSTAN'S ECCLESIASTICAL
ADMINISTRATION--CORONATIONS--DUNSTAN'S LAST DAYS--AELFRIC THE
GRAMMARIAN.
[Sidenote: Ruin of Northumbria.]
Before the end of the eighth century the Northmen laid waste Lindisfarne,
Jarrow, and Wearmouth. Civil disorder, however, was well nigh as fatal to
the Church in the north as the ravages of the heathen. In 808 Archbishop
Eanbald joined the Mercian king, Cenwulf, in dethroning Eardulf of
Northumbria. Eardulf sought help from the Emperor, Charles the Great, and
laid his case before Leo III. A papal legate and an imperial messenger
were sent to England to summon Eanbald to appear either before the Pope or
the Emperor. He defended himself by letter; his defence was pronounced
unsatisfactory, and the Emperor procured the restoration of the king. For
the next sixty years anarchy and violence prevailed in the north. Then the
Scandinavian pirates invaded the country and overthrew York. Nine years
later Halfdene desolated Bernicia, so that not a church was left standing
between the Tweed and the Tyne. The bishop of Lindisfarne and his monks
fled from their home, carrying with them the bones of St. Cuthberht. They
found shelter at Chester-le-Street, which for about a century became the
see of the Bernician bishopric. Northumbria became a Danish province, and
when it was again brought under the dominion of an English king it had
fallen far behind the rest of the country in ecclesiastical and
intellectual matters. The Danish conquest had a marked effect upon the
position of the northern metropolitan. Cut off from communication with the
rest of England, the Northumbrians became almost a distinct nation. The
extinction of the native kingship and a long series of revolutions threw
political power into the hands of the archbishops, and when the Church of
York again emerges from obscurity we find them holding a kind of national
headship. Their position was magnified by isolation. While the sees of
Hexham and Withern had been overthrown, and the Church of Lindisfarne was
in exile, the see of York remained to attract the sympathies and, in more
than one instance, direct the action, of the northern people.
[Sidenote: AEthelwulf's pilgrimage, 855.]
During the attacks of the pirates on the south of England the alliance
between the Church and the West Saxon throne was strengthened by the
common danger, and the bishops appear as patriots and statesmen. AEthelwulf
was supported in his struggles with the Danes by Swithun, bishop of
Winchester, and Ealhstan, bishop of Sherborne. Ealhstan was rich, and used
his wealth for the defence of the kingdom; he equipped armies, joined in
leading them in battle, and in 845, in conjunction with the ealdormen of
Somerset and Dorset, headed the forces of his bishopric, and inflicted a
severe defeat upon the invaders at the mouth of the Parret. The resistance
the Danes met with from the West Saxons, which was largely due to the
exertions of these bishops, delivered Wessex from invasion for twenty
years. Meanwhile Lindsey and East Anglia were ravaged, Canterbury was
twice sacked, and London was taken by storm. Everywhere the heathens
showed special hatred to the monks and clergy; monasteries and churches
were sacked and burnt, and priests were slain with the sword. These
calamities were regarded as Divine judgments, and when AEthelwulf had
checked the invaders he made a pilgrimage to Rome. Before he left, and
after his return, he made a series of donations, which have been described
as conveying a tenth part of his own estates to ecclesiastical bodies, and
to various thegns, as freeing a tenth part of the folcland from all
burdens except the three that fell on all lands alike, and as charging
every ten hides of his land with the support of a poor man. Though these
grants have nothing to do with the institution of tithes, they illustrate
the sacredness that was attached to the tenth portion of property.
AEthelwulf carried rich gifts to Benedict III., and while he was at Rome
rebuilt the "Saxon School." This institution was supported by a yearly
contribution from England, which appears to have been the origin of
Peter's pence. The king probably found his youngest son Alfred at Rome,
for he had sent him to Leo IV. two years before. Leo confirmed the child,
and anointed him as king. The Pope did not, of course, pretend to dispose
of the English crown, and probably only meant to consecrate Alfred to any
kingship to which his father as head-king might appoint him.
[Sidenote: Treaty of Wedmore, 878.]
By 870 the whole of the north and east of England had been conquered by
the Danes. In that year Eadmund, the East Anglian king, went out to battle
against them, and was defeated and taken prisoner. His captors offered to
spare his life and restore his kingdom to him, if he would deny Christ and
reign under their orders. When he refused their offers, they tied him to a
tree, shot at him with arrows, and finally cut off his head. In later days
the Abbey of St. Edmund's Bury was named after the martyred king. Wessex
well nigh shared the fate of the rest of the country; it was saved by the
skill and wisdom of Alfred. Through all the bitter struggle the Church
vigorously upheld the national cause; a bishop of Elmham fell fighting
against the heathen host in East Anglia, and a bishop of Sherborne in
Wessex. At last Alfred inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Danish king,
Guthorm, at Edington, and as the price of peace Guthorm promised to quit
Wessex and accepted Christianity. He was baptized at Wedmore, in Somerset,
and a treaty was made by which England was divided into two parts. Wessex
was freed from the danger of conquest, and Alfred's immediate dominions
were increased, while the north and east remained under the Danes. Guthorm
owned the supremacy of the West Saxon king in East Anglia; his people
became Christians, and in the other Danish districts the invaders for the
most part also accepted Christianity when they became settled in the land.
[Sidenote: Alfred's work.]
The Danish wars had a disastrous effect on religion, morality, and
learning. The monastic congregations were scattered, and men did not care
to become monks. Pure Benedictinism was as yet unknown in England, and a
laxer system seems to have prevailed. This system, such as it was, now
gave way altogether, and the monasteries that survived the ravages of the
Danes fell into the hands of secular clergy, who enjoyed their estates
without conforming to any rule, and who were generally married. The
collapse of monasticism entailed the decay of learning, for the monastic
schools were generally closed. Nor were the parish priests capable of
supplying the place of the monks as teachers of the people. The drain of
men entailed by the war made it necessary to confer the priesthood on many
who were ignorant and otherwise unfit for full orders. And it is probable
that the losses which the Church sustained during the war were not
confined to monastic bodies, and that the clergy suffered considerably. A
general decline in their character and efficiency naturally followed; and
Alfred records how England had changed in this respect even within his own
memory. He remembered the time when the "sacred orders were zealous in
teaching and learning, and in all the services they owed to God, and how
foreigners hied to this land for wisdom and lore;" but now, he says, "we
should have to get them from abroad." For "there were very few on this
side Humber who could understand their rituals in English, or translate a
letter from Latin into English, and not many beyond Humber."
There was little difference between the priest and his people; the clergy
shared largely in the national habit of excessive drinking, and many
priests were married. Among the laity morality was at a low ebb; the
marriage tie was lightly regarded, and there was a general return to the
laxity and vices of paganism. Heathen customs gathered fresh strength, and
women dealt in enchantments and called up ghostly forms. Alfred determined
to save his people from barbarism; he set himself to be their teacher, and
sought for others to help in his work. From the English part of Mercia,
where learning was more advanced than in Wessex, he brought Plegmund, who
was afterwards chosen archbishop, and other clerks; Bishop Asser came to
him from Wales; from beyond sea, Grimbold, a monk of St. Bertin's, and
John from the old Saxon land. He desired that every youth whose parents
could afford it should be sent to school till he could read English well,
and those who hoped for promotion till they could read Latin. Accordingly,
he set up a school for young nobles in his palace, and made education the
prominent feature in a monastery he founded at Athelney. He translated
into English such books as he thought most needful for his people to read,
and probably began the national record called the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"
in the form we now have it. The care with which he fostered vernacular
literature led to the use of English in religious teaching, and to the
composition of books of homilies in that language. His code of laws,
which consists of a selection from earlier laws and the decrees of synods,
contains many ecclesiastical provisions; it treats religion as the
foundation of civil law, and begins with the Ten Commandments and an
account of the precepts of Moses. As the over-lord of Guthorm, he joined
him in publishing a special code for the people of East Anglia, by which
apostasy was declared a crime, negligent priests were to be fined, the
payment of Peter's pence was commanded, and the practice of heathen rites
was forbidden. Alfred brought his kingdom into renewed relations with
Rome, for year after year he sent thither alms from himself and his
people, probably re-establishing the payment of Peter's pence, which had
been interrupted during the period of invasion.
[Sidenote: Character of the Church in the tenth century.]
An increased spirit of worldliness in the Church was one of the fruits of
the Danish invasions. Alfred endeavoured to check this spirit, and bade
his bishops disengage themselves from secular matters and give themselves
to wisdom. Nevertheless the very work that he and his immediate successors
did for the Church tended to strengthen its connexion with worldly
affairs. When it seemed to have lost the power of spontaneous revival, new
energy was imparted to it by the action of the Crown. Its revival was in
the first instance due to external interference, and this naturally led to
the gradual discontinuance of ecclesiastical councils. No decline in
influence or activity is implied by this change. Legislation was frequent,
but it either took the form of canons put forth by bishops or was part of
the work of the witan. The relations between the Church and the State
grew closer. Some witenagemots almost bore the character of Church
councils, were largely attended by abbots as well as bishops, and were
mainly concerned with ecclesiastical business. During the tenth century
the administration of the kingdom was largely carried on by churchmen; and
though the statesmen-bishops did not, as at a later period, subordinate
their sacred duties to their secular employments, bishoprics came to be
regarded in a secular spirit, and plurality was practised. While it is
evident that the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishops was in no degree
diminished, and, indeed, that it must have gained by the exercise of
judicial functions by archdeacons, the clergy, besides being under the
bishop's law, were subject to the general police arrangements of the
kingdom, and were equally with laymen bound to provide sureties for their
orderly behaviour. In every respect the Church had a national character;
its development was closely connected with the national progress; its
bishops were national officers; its laws were decreed in the national
assembly, and it was free from papal interference; for throughout the
tenth century no appeals were carried to Rome, and no legate appears to
have set foot in the country.
[Sidenote: Reorganization.]
Several changes took place in the episcopate of the southern province
during the period of invasion. Dunwich ceased to have a bishop, and
Elmham, though the succession there was broken, became the only East
Anglian see. Little more is heard of the bishopric of Lindsey, and the
bishop of Leicester moved his see to the Oxfordshire Dorchester, so as to
be within reach of West Saxon help. On the other hand, the renewed energy
of the Church in Wessex led to an extension of the episcopate south of the
Thames. In 909 the sees of Winchester, Sherborne, and South Saxon Selsey
all happened to be vacant, and, according to a story that must certainly
be rejected as it stands, Pope Formosus, who was then dead, reproached
King Eadward the Elder for his neglect in the matter. Eadward had a good
adviser in Archbishop Plegmund; with the consent of his witan, he
separated Wiltshire and Berkshire from the see of Winchester, and formed
them into the new diocese of Ramsbury, and further created two other new
bishoprics for Somerset and Devon, placing the sees at Wells and Crediton.
Five West Saxon bishops, together with two for Selsey and Dorchester,
were, it is said, consecrated at once. The extension of the power of the
English king brought with it an extension of the power of the Church.
South Wales owned the supremacy of Alfred, and accordingly South Welsh
bishops received consecration at Canterbury and professed obedience to
Archbishop AEthelred. Eadward's victories in East Anglia were followed by
the republication of the laws of Alfred and Guthorm, and the diocesan
system appears to have been gradually restored in Mercia. Eadward's son,
AEthelstan, annexed Cornwall, the land of the West Welsh, and this addition
to the English kingdom was added to the province of Canterbury; for
Cornwall was made an English diocese, and its see was placed at St.
German's, or Bodmin. Lastly, the conquest of Northumbria by AEthelstan, who
put the Danish prince Guthred to flight and took possession of York, is
marked ecclesiastically by his appointment of Wulfstan to the
archbishopric. Throughout AEthelstan's reign the influence of churchmen is
clearly apparent. His ecclesiastical laws, enacted along with others on
secular matters in a witenagemot at Greatley, near Andover, for the
Mercian shires, and republished elsewhere for other parts of the kingdom,
were made by the advice of Archbishop Wulfhelm and other bishops. Tithes
both of animals and fruits were to be paid from the king's lands, and his
reeves and ealdormen were bidden to charge those subject to them to make
like payments: the part of the Church in secular jurisdiction was
confirmed by the regulation of ordeals by the hallowed bread (or
"housel"), by water, and by hot iron, and fresh enactments were made
against heathen practices.
[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical revival.]
Although Alfred and his immediate successors did much for the Church,
especially as regards its external position, the ecclesiastical revival
that distinguished the latter part of the century was primarily effected
by means of a monastic reformation. This reformation was necessary for the
salvation of society; for as long as monks and nuns remained unworthy of
their vocation, the simple priest could never have been brought to live as
he was bound to do; and as long as his life was no higher or purer than
the lives of his flock, there was no means of elevating the people. While
most of those who were foremost in the work of revival were of purely
English descent, the bracing influence of the Danish colonization extended
to the area of ecclesiastical as well as of civil life. As soon as a Dane
was converted he became a member of the English Church, and the Church
thus became a powerful instrument in promoting the amalgamation of the two
peoples. She reaped her reward in gaining the services of the Danish Oda
and his nephew Oswald. At the same time, the reformers of this age, though
aided in their work by the Crown, would not have attained their measure of
success had it not been for the teaching and encouragement they received
from abroad. This connexion between our Church and the monasteries of the
Continent was largely due to the foreign alliances formed by the house of
Ecgberht. Of late years Alfred had given one of his daughters in marriage
to a count of Flanders, and AEthelstan had married his sisters to Otto of
Germany, to Charles, the king of the West Franks, and other princes.
Accordingly, the monasteries of Northern France and Flanders became the
patterns by which our reformers worked; their congregations took deep
interest in the affairs of our Church, received liberal aid from England,
and held our noblest churchmen in high esteem.
[Sidenote: Archbishop Oda, 942-959.]
Oda, the son of one of the fierce band of Ivar, was converted to
Christianity in early life, and was in consequence driven from his
father's house. He entered the household of an English thegn, who had him
taught Latin, and, it is said, Greek also, persuaded him to be ordained,
and took him to Rome. He became one of King Eadward's clerks, and
AEthelstan made him bishop of Ramsbury and employed him in affairs of
state. In 937 Oda, in company with two other bishops, was present at the
battle of Brunanburh, and did the king good service either by
miraculously obtaining a new sword for him when he had broken his own, or
by handing him a weapon as another warrior might have done. Eadmund, who,
like his brother AEthelstan, chose his ministers among ecclesiastics,
offered him the archbishopric of Canterbury. Like his successor, Thomas,
in later days, Oda was by nature a statesman and a soldier rather than a
priest, but, like him, he determined when he accepted the primacy to act
up to the highest standard of ecclesiastical life. He declared that no one
ought to be archbishop who was not a monk, and accordingly received the
monastic habit from the famous abbey of Fleury. As archbishop, he sought
to bring about a reformation of morals. In a pastoral letter he urged all
spiritual persons to purity of life; he insisted on the sanctity of
marriage, and in a witenagemot held at London in 944 took part in making
laws providing for the protection, maintenance, and dower of wives, and
ordering that all marriages should be solemnized by a priest, and that
care should be taken that there was no bar of consanguinity. He probably
found an efficient ally in AElfheah, or Elphege, the Bald, bishop of
Winchester, who appears to have laboured to bring about a faithful
discharge of monastic vows.
[Sidenote: Dunstan.]
The work of Oda is overshadowed by that of Dunstan, the kinsman and
disciple of Bishop AElfheah. Dunstan was a West Saxon, and was brought up
partly at Glastonbury and partly at the court of AEthelstan, for he was
connected with the royal house. With a highly strung and imaginative
nature he combined much practical wisdom and determination of character.
Full of piety, skilled in music and the other arts, a cunning craftsman,
and endued with the power of winning the love and influencing the conduct
of others, he was at an early age one of the counsellors of Eadmund. When
he was about twenty-one the king made him abbot of Glastonbury. The abbey
had fallen into decay, and he at once began to restore and reform it,
though not on the Benedictine model. During the reign of Eadred he held
the office of royal treasurer. The king was sickly, and the work of
government was carried on mainly by Dunstan and the queen-mother. Eadred
wished him to accept a bishopric, but he refused, for he would not leave
the king's service, and he evidently considered that a bishopric should
not be treated as a mere provision for an officer of state. As the king's
chief minister, he must have been largely concerned in the reduction of
the north, and it may be inferred, from the policy pursued with regard to
the archbishop of York, that he was by no means an asserter of clerical
immunity. Archbishop Wulfstan had been foremost in the revolt of
Northumbria from the West Saxon king. At last Eadred caught him and put
him in prison; and though, after a while, he was released and again acted
as bishop, he was not allowed to return to his province.
[Sidenote: His banishment, 956.]
[Sidenote: Dunstan archbishop, 960-988.]
Soon after the accession of Eadwig, in 956, Dunstan incurred the wrath of
a powerful enemy. At his consecration feast the boy-king left the hall for
the society of a young lady named AElfgifu and her mother, AEthelgifu, who
wished to make a match between him and her daughter. The great men were
wroth at this slight on themselves and on the kingly office, and sent
Dunstan to bring Eadwig back to the hall. Now there was some connexion
between Eadwig and AElfgifu that would have made their marriage unlawful,
and when Dunstan saw them together his zeal for purity was aroused; hot
words passed between him and the girl's mother, and he forced the king to
return to the banquet. In revenge AEthelgifu procured his banishment. He
found shelter in the abbey of St. Peter at Ghent, where for the first time
he saw the rule of St. Benedict fully carried out. While he was there, the
people of the north revolted from Eadwig, and chose his younger brother
Eadgar as king. Oda took advantage of this revolt to separate Eadwig from
AElfgifu, whom he had by this time married, and it is said that either she
or her mother--the story is late and uncertain--was cruelly slain by the
insurgents. This revolt of England north of the Thames and the division of
the kingdom have little or no ecclesiastical significance, for Oda
continued Eadwig's subject until his death. Eadgar, the "king of the
Mercians," called Dunstan back to England, and he was raised to the
episcopate. The circumstances of his elevation illustrate the unsettled
state of the custom as regards episcopal elections. Although no see was
vacant, the witan decreed that he should be made bishop, and he appears to
have been consecrated accordingly. Shortly afterwards the bishop of
Worcester died, and Dunstan was appointed his successor. A few months
later he received the bishopric of London, which he held along with
Worcester. In 959 Eadwig died, and Eadgar became king south of the Thames.
Then Brithelm, bishop of Wells, who had been appointed archbishop by
Eadwig, was sent back to his old diocese, and by the counsel of the witan
Dunstan was chosen archbishop in his stead.
[Sidenote: Seculars and regulars.]
During the reign of Eadgar the secular clergy were driven out of many of
the monasteries south of the Humber, and their places were taken by monks
who lived according to the rule of St. Benedict. The chief movers in this
change were AEthelwold, who, at Dunstan's request, was made bishop of
Winchester; Oswald, bishop of Worcester, who had been a monk of Fleury,
and had learnt the Benedictine rule there; and the king himself. Dunstan,
though he approved of the movement, did not take any active part in it,
and did not disturb the secular canons of his own church. Pope John XIII.
wrote to Eadgar, expressing his pleasure at his zeal and authorising the
proceedings of AEthelwold. In the north no such change was made, and though
Oswald was elected archbishop of York in 972, he did not attempt to turn
out the clerks there. While the seculars who were expelled from the
monastic churches were, as a rule, married men, no general persecution of
the married clergy took place. It was unlawful for a man in the higher
orders to marry, and if a married man took these orders, he was bound to
put away his wife. But the marriage of the clergy prevailed too widely to
be attacked with vigour or success, and though celibacy was the rule of
the Church, no effectual measures were taken to enforce it. The only
penalty pronounced against the married priest in the canons for which
Dunstan is responsible is, that he should lose the privilege of his order;
he ceased to be of "thegn-right worthy," and had no higher legal status
than that of a layman of equal birth.
[Sidenote: Dunstan's ecclesiastical administration.]
The general character of Dunstan's ecclesiastical administration may be
gathered from the laws and canons of Eadgar's reign. The laws mark a step
in the history of tithes, for they contain the first provision for
enforcing payment by legal process, by the joint action of civil and
ecclesiastical officers, and they declare the right of the parish priest
in certain cases to a portion of the payment made by the landowner,
independently of any distribution by the bishop. When a thegn had on his
estate of inheritance a church with a burying-ground, it was ordered that
he should give one-third to the priest; if his church had no
burying-ground, he might give the priest what he pleased. The payment of
Peter's pence is also commanded. It is evident from the canons that
Dunstan endeavoured to make the clergy the educators of the people;
priests were to teach each his own scholars, and not take away the
scholars of others; they were to learn handicrafts and instruct their
people in them, and to preach a sermon every Sunday. The laity were to
avoid concubinage and practise lawful marriage. And both in continence,
and in every other respect, the necessity of raising the clergy to a
higher level of life than that of the society round them was fully
recognized; they were not to hunt, hawk, play at dice, or engage in
drinking-bouts, and greater attention was to be paid to ritual, especially
in celebrating the Eucharist. While they were thus to be brought, as
regards both their lives and the performance of their duties, to a deeper
sense of the dignity of their calling, they were socially to hold a high
place; a priest engaged in a suit with a thegn was not to be called on to
make oath until the thegn had first sworn, and the quarrels of priests
were to be decided by a bishop, and not taken before a secular judge. In
these and other efforts to raise the character and position of the clergy
Dunstan did not desire to make the Church less national, or to separate
her ministers from the life of the nation and subject them to the
authority of Rome. He worked, as the spiritual ruler of the national
Church, for the good both of the Church and the nation, and evidently
maintained an independent attitude towards the Pope. A noble, whom he had
excommunicated for contracting an unlawful marriage, obtained a papal
mandate ordering the archbishop to absolve him. Dunstan flatly refused to
obey the order, declaring that he would rather suffer death than be
unfaithful to his Lord.
[Sidenote: Coronations.]
As Eadgar's chief minister, Dunstan must have had a large share in
establishing the order and good government that form the special glories
of the reign, and the wise policy of non-interference that secured the
loyalty of the Danish districts was probably due as much to him as to the
king. Cnut seems to have recognized what he had done to make the Danish
population part of the English people, for he ordered that St. Dunstan's
mass-day should be kept by all as a solemn feast. Dunstan saw the fruit of
his political labours. It has been asserted that Eadgar's coronation at
Bath was connected with a penance laid upon him by the archbishop. While
it is not improbable that Dunstan imposed a penance on the king for one
of the sins of his youth, the story that he forbade him to wear his crown
for seven years is mere legend. The coronation at Bath, which was
performed by both archbishops, with all the bishops assisting, was the
solemn declaration that all the peoples of England were at last united
under one sovereign. On Eadgar's death a dispute arose as to the
succession. Civil war was on the point of breaking out between the rival
ealdormen of East Anglia and Mercia; the Mercian ealdorman turned the
monks out of the monasteries and brought the seculars back, while the East
Anglian house, which had ever been allied with Dunstan, and had forwarded
the monastic policy of Eadgar, took up the cause of the monks. In this
crisis the two archbishops preserved the peace of the kingdom; for they
declared for Eadward, the elder son of Eadgar, and placed the crown on his
head. His short reign was filled with the strife between the seculars and
regulars. After his murder the two archbishops joined in crowning
AEthelred. Although the increase in the personal power and dignity of the
king that marked the age is to some extent to be connected with the
teaching of the Church concerning the sanctity of his person and the duty
of obedience, still the Church did not favour absolutism. Indeed, in the
rite of coronation, which seems to have been brought into special
prominence during this period, the king bound himself by an oath to govern
well, to defend the Church and all Christian people, to forbid robbery and
unrighteous doings to all orders, and to enjoin justice and mercy in all
judgments. At AEthelred's coronation Dunstan, after administering this
oath, set forth in solemn terms the responsibilities of a "hallowed" king.
[Sidenote: Dunstan's last days.]
Dunstan's pre-eminent position in the State magnified the political
importance of his see. In his time Kent and Sussex ceased to be ruled by
their own ealdormen, and these shires, together with Surrey, were ruled by
the archbishop with the authority of an ealdorman. With the accession of
AEthelred, Dunstan's influence in the State seems to have ended. During the
early years of his reign the king was led by unworthy favourites to seize
on some of the possessions of the Church, and among them on some lands of
the see of Rochester. The see was in a special manner dependent on
Canterbury, and the archbishop may almost be said to have been the lord of
the bishopric, an arrangement that evidently sprang from the early
dependence of the people of West Kent on the king of the Eastern people.
Dunstan threatened to excommunicate the king. AEthelred, however, paid no
heed to his threats, and sent his troops to ravage the lands of the see
until the archbishop was forced to bribe him to recall them from the siege
of Rochester.
Although he was no longer engaged in political matters, Dunstan's last
days were not idly spent. As a ruler and judge he was diligent and able.
He took much delight in the services of the Church. He corrected and
illuminated manuscripts, and practised the crafts in which he excelled,
and all who came to him for knowledge found him a patient and gentle
teacher. On Ascension Day 988, two days before his death, he celebrated
the Holy Mysteries and preached three times. Then he fell sick, and on
the following Saturday, after commending his soul to the prayers of the
monks of his house, he received the Sacrament, and when he had done so he
gave thanks to God and sang, "The merciful and gracious Lord hath so done
His marvellous acts that they ought to be had in remembrance. He hath
given meat unto them that fear Him"--and with these words he fell asleep.
[Sidenote: AElfric the Grammarian.]
Alfred's attempt to revive learning had met with little success, for no
priest, we are told, wrote or understood Latin before the days of
AEthelwold and Dunstan. Now, however, along with the rule of St. Benedict,
the monastic reformers brought into England the learning of the
Benedictine houses of the Continent, and famous schools were established
at Winchester, Ramsey, and other monasteries. Nor was the work of teaching
confined to the monks; for all parish priests were also schoolmasters, and
though few of them had much learning, what they taught was enough to show
a boy what he could do; and if he wanted to learn more, he would seek
admission into some monastic school. Alfred had taught men that the
education of the people should be carried on in their own tongue, and this
lesson was learnt and enforced by AElfric, abbot first of Cerne about 1005,
and later of Ensham. AElfric took much interest in education, and among his
other works compiled a Grammar, which he dedicated to the boys of England,
and from which he is generally called the "Grammarian." He saw that the
people needed religious teaching, and he therefore abridged and translated
some of the books of the Old Testament, and compiled two books of
homilies, in which, as he says, he used "no obscure words, but plain
English, that might come to the hearts of readers and hearers to their
souls' good." These homilies and some of his other writings, which must be
held to express the doctrines of the English Church in his day and on to
the time of the Norman Conquest, differ in some respects from the teaching
of the Church of Rome. They contain many declarations against
transubstantiation. "The holy housel," AElfric writes, "is by nature
corruptible bread and wine, and is by the power of the divine word truly
Christ's body and blood; not, however, bodily but spiritually." He does
not give St. Peter the pre-eminence among the apostles that is ascribed to
him by Rome, and he refuses to recognize bishops as a distinct order in
the Church. He wrote canons for the bishop of Sherborne, and a kind of
charge for the archbishop of York. These direct that, according to the
ancient custom, tithes should be divided between the repair of the church,
the poor, and the parish priest; and they also show that, while priests
were strongly urged to put away their wives, no means were taken to compel
them to do so. The renewed vigour imparted to the Church by the monastic
revival was further manifested by a fresh outburst of missionary zeal; and
Sigeferth of York and other priests went forth to preach the Gospel in
Norway and Sweden.