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 policy of Dunstan in maintaining the right of Eadward the Martyr to the crown, and assisted at the coronation (Hist. Rames. p. 73). His work brought him much ill-will, but towards the end of his life this feeling subsided. After the accession of Eadward little is recorded about him. His care for the well-being of the monks and nuns did not cease, and caused him to be called the ‘Father of the Monks’ (A.-S. Chron. an. 984). Although he was a severe disciplinarian, he was a kind teacher. He had many pupils who loved him, and several of them became abbots and bishops; among them were Æthelgar [q. v.], whom he made abbot of New Minster, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, and Eadulf, abbot of Peterborough, and afterwards archbishop of York. He taught his pupils grammar and poetry, and took pleasure in translating Latin books for them. To the poor he was always tender-hearted, and once when there was a grievous famine, not only gave away all that he had, but ordered that the vessels of his church should be broken up and turned into money for their relief. His kindness to all that were in distress is commemorated by the ‘Chronicle’ writer, who speaks of him as the ‘benevolent bishop’ (ib.). The new cathedral church that he built at Winchester was finished in 980, and dedicated by Dunstan, in the presence of King Æthelred and many bishops and nobles, on 20 Oct. While it was still in building he had in 971 translated the relics of St. Swithun to a new shrine within its walls.

Æthelwold's health was weak, and he suffered much in his bowels and from tumours in the legs. His death, which is said to have been foretold to him by Dunstan, took place at Beddington in Surrey on 1 Aug. 984. He was buried at Winchester, and about twelve years later his body was translated to a new shrine by his successor, Bishop Ælfheah [q. v.] In the twelfth century the monks of Abingdon professed that they had some of his bones (Chron. de Abingdon, ii. 157). A treatise on the circle said to have been written by him and addressed to Gerbert, afterwards Pope Silvester II, is in the Bodleian Library (1684, Bodl. MS. Digby 83, f. 24). In obedience to a command of Eadgar he translated the ‘Regularis concordia’ into English. For the performance of this task he received an estate from the king, which he gave to the monastery of Ely (Hist. Eliensis, ii. c. 37). A manuscript of this translation is in the British Museum (MS. Cotton Faustina, 10); it was used by Abbot Ælfric [q. v.] in making his compilation for the monks of Ensham. A full description of the magnificent ‘Benedictional of St. Æthelwold,’ which was written for the bishop, will be found in ‘Archæologia,’ xxiv. 1 sq.

[There are two early Lives of St. Æthelwold, one written by his pupil, the Abbot Ælfric, in Chron. de Abingdon, ii. 255 sq.; the other by Wulfstan, precentor of Winchester, composed a few years later (Gesta Pontiff. p. 406), in Acta SS. Bolland. i. 83 sq., and Acta SS. Mabillon sæc. v. 608; Anglo-Saxon Chron. ann. 963, 984; Chron. de Abingdon, passim (Rolls Ser.); Vitæ S. Oswaldi, Historians of York, i. 427, 446 (Rolls Ser.); Memorials of Dunstan (Adelard, Osbern, Reliquiæ), pp. 61, 115, 364 (Rolls Ser.); Historia Ramesiensis, p. 73 (Rolls Ser.); William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, pp. 165, 191, 327 (Rolls Ser.); Historia Eliensis, pp. 94–161, Anglia Christiana; Dugdale's Monasticon, i. 190, 428, ii. 344, 593, and elsewhere; Robertson's Historical Essays, p. 194; Bale's Scriptt. Brit. Cat. (ed. 1548), f. 68; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 269; Wright's Biog. Lit. 435 sq.] 

ETHELWULF, ÆTHELWULF, ADELWLF, or ATHULF (d. 858), king of the West-Saxons and Kentishmen, the son of Ecgberht, is said to have been sent by his father to be brought up at Winchester by Swithun, afterwards bishop of that see (, i. 68), to have received subdeacon's orders there (Vita S. Swithuni), and even, according to one legend, to have been bishop of Winchester (, p. 737); it is probable that he was educated at Winchester, but this is all that can be said. After the battle of Ellandune in 825 his father sent him with Ealhstan, bishop of Sherborne, and the ealdorman Wulfheard, to gain him the kingdom of Kent. The West-Saxons chased Baldred [q. v.] across the Thames; Kent, Surrey, and Sussex submitted to Ecgberht, and probably in 828 he committed these countries to Æthelwulf, who certainly had a share in the kingship in that year (, Codex Dipl. p. 223). In 838 he joined with his father in the compact the kings made with Archbishop Ceolnoth at Kingston, and in the compact with the church of Winchester, if that ever took place, and either the same or the next year confirmed the Canterbury agreement at a witenagemot at Wilton, over which he presided alone, though there is some reason to doubt whether Ecgberht was then dead (Eccles. Documents, iii. 617–20; for some of these events see more fully under ). He succeeded to the kingship of Wessex on the death of his father in 839, a date arrived at by adding the length of Ecgberht's reign to the date of his accession, 802, while in a charter of 839 Æthelwulf declares that year to be the first after his father's death (, Codex Dipl. p. 240, i. 321; the chronology of the Chronicle