Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/45

 safety of the house, which has been preserved (ib. 347).

Æthelwold was consecrated bishop of Winchester by Dunstan on Sunday, St. Andrew's eve, 29 Nov., and at once entered on the task of spreading the newly imported monachism. He designed to restore the churches that had fallen into decay during the Danish wars, and especially those in the Danelaw, and to fill them with monks subject to the strict Benedictine rule. In order to do this it was necessary to expel the secular clergy who occupied the monastic establishments, or to force them to live as monks (this matter is more fully treated under ). Both Dunstan, his old companion and fellow-pupil (not, as is sometimes said, his instructor, for though 908 seems full early a date for Æthelwold's birth, he was certainly the elder of the two), and in later years his abbot, and Oswald, sympathised with this movement of which he was the guiding spirit, but neither of them imitated his mode of carrying it out. Dunstan took no very prominent part in it, and Oswald was discreet and temperate. Æthelwold acted with some harshness. Nevertheless, the movement was the saving of the church spiritually, morally, and intellectually, and while whatever there was of evil in it must rest on Æthelwold, the good results that it had should also be remembered to his credit. He found the chapter of his cathedral church, the Old Minster, composed of secular clerks, whose lives were certainly no better than those of their lay neighbours; they were rich and proud, living in luxury and gluttony, some of them with wives, and others, who had divorced the wives they had unlawfully married, with other women. The celebration of the mass was neglected (, Vita S. Æthelwoldi). He at once applied to the king for help, sending meanwhile to Abingdon for monks to come and take the place of the clerks. When his monks arrived the clerks appear to have refused to give up their old home. Eadgar, however, warmly supported him, and sent down Wulfstan, one of his chiefest thegns, to enforce his decrees. Æthelwold appeared before the chapter with Wulfstan at his side, and in the king's name briefly bade them either give place to his monks or at once assume the monastic habit. Only three consented to become monks; the rest were forced to leave. In the same year, 964, he also turned the clerks out of the New Minster, out of Chertsey in Surrey, and out of Milton in Dorsetshire. In each case he acted with the king's authority, and Eadgar appointed those whom he recommended as abbots of the new monastic congregations he formed to take the place of the expelled clerks. He does not appear, like Oswald at Worcester, to have exercised any patience or to have used any gentle means of persuasion; his only remedy was force. An attempt was made to poison him as he sat at dinner in his hall at Winchester, but he escaped, his faith, it was believed, triumphing over the poison. A letter from John XIII to Eadgar, if genuine, as it probably is, proves that the pope sanctioned the policy of Æthelwold. He now obtained the king's leave to set about a general restoration of the minsters that had been ruined by the Danes, and extended his work to middle England. Having obtained Ely from the king he expelled the clerks, founded a community of monks, and ordered that the church should be rebuilt and monastic buildings erected (, Codex Dipl. 563). The body of St. Ætheldryth was translated into his new church, which was dedicated by Dunstan 2 Feb. 974. Both he and the king made an extraordinary number of grants to the abbey (Hist. Eliensis, ii. c. 1–52). Meanwhile he set about the restoration of Medeshamstede, or Peterborough, which had been so utterly destroyed by the Danes ‘that he found nothing there save old walls and wild woods’ (A.-S. Chron. an. 963). He rebuilt the church and set monks there. In 972 he is said to have come to the king bringing an old charter which he declared was found in the ruins, freeing the house from royal and episcopal jurisdiction, and from all secular burdens, and on this Eadgar granted a charter to the same effect (ib.) In the midst of his work it is said that he thought of retiring to a hermitage, and cast his eyes on Thorney in Cambridgeshire. There he planted a house of twelve monks, over whom he seems himself to have presided as abbot, and thither he translated the relics of many saints, and among them the body of Benedict Biscop [q. v.] (Gesta Pontificum, iv. 326–9; Vitæ,, ). He also restored or refounded the ancient nunnery at Winchester. Besides founding these monastic communities, he was, as the chief adviser of the king on these matters, concerned in all that Eadgar did to promote the spread of the new monachism. He constantly visited different monasteries, exhorting the obedient and punishing the negligent with stripes, ‘terrible as a lion’ to the rebellious, and ‘gentler than a dove’ to the meek. Although little is known of his conduct during the struggle between the seculars and regulars that ensued on the death of Eadgar, he certainly approved of the armed resistance offered by some of the defenders of the monasteries to the attacks of their enemies (Vita S. Oswaldi, p. 446). He supported the