Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/104

THE SAXON CATHEDRAL AT CANTERBURY discipline which resulted. When, however, he found secular clerks at Worcester and at Canterbury, he took no steps to remove them, but the married clergy were expelled from the cathedrals and monasteries. He did not attack the married clergy as such, but as it was uncanonical for a priest to have a wife, he was bound to put her away if he wished to continue his priestly office; if he did not, then he came under the censure of the Penitential. St. Dunstan journeyed to Rome for the pallium and it was upon his return when celebrating the Mass for the first time at the altar of our Saviour in his Cathedral Church, that the miracle of the dove appeared as before related; and he never passed by the tomb of St. Odo afterwards without bending his knee, and calling him "Odo the Good" (Osbern).

St. Dunstan sedulously devoted himself to the duties of the high office to which he had been called, he took energetic and efficient steps for the betterment of his country. He was Chief Adviser to Edgar as he had been to Edred, and the result was that the policy of Conciliation in Church and State led to a peace and unity never seen before in England. On Whit-Sunday 973, Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Oswald, Archbishop of York, with a multitude of Bishops assisting, crowned Edgar at Bath, and he was declared to hold the sole sovereignty of England.

Dunstan had resigned the Abbey of Glastonbury, and the Bishoprics of Worcester and London on his promotion to Canterbury. He did not build a single monastic house in Kent, but was active in restoring and endowing churches, and indeed in every good work. He was the friend to the good, but reproved all evil; and always acted as a True Shepherd of the flock committed to his care. He made the Church the educator of the people, and the clergy the teachers; a system which, when carried out faithfully, has ever been successful. For the guidance of the latter he issued a set of canons from the study of which the character of his policy can best be gauged.

Like his King, Edgar the Peaceful, Dunstan encouraged the people to learn the arts of peace, and again by training the clergy in all kinds of craftsmanship, they became the instructors of the people. He ordered that sermons should be preached every Sunday and that the clergy should strive to live a more spiritual life, and to keep from hawking, dicing, and 66