tion of Sunday, as also for the management of ordeals. Another constitution, probably of this time, attests the continuance of a judicious anxiety, long prevalent, for the foundation of village churches. It shews besides, that our Anglo-Saxon ancestors did not make rank in society a mere matter of caste. The dignity of thane, or gentleman, was open to every one possessed of a certain property, provided with the usual appendages of wealth, and admitted among the royal officers. But then one of such a person's qualifications was a church upon his estate'. A wealthy aspirant of inferior origin would be careful to prevent any deficiency in this particular from crossing his ambitious views.

As the whole period from the death of Alcuin to that of Athelstan is remarkably deficient in literary monuments, its doctrinal character is necessarily rather a matter of inference than of direct evidence. From Alfred's mutilated decalogue, however, a triumph must

'Ib. 406. "If a churl thrived so as to have five hides of his own land, a church, and kitchen, a bell-tower, a seat, and an office in the king's court, from that time forward he was esteemed equal in honour to a thane."(JOHNSON'S Transl.) "It has been observed that a Triburg, that is, ten or more families of freemen, eat together. But it will appear that every thane's, or great man's family, was of itself esteemed a Triburg by law, 14 of Edw. Conf. 1065; therefore, at that time for a man to have a kitchen for the dressing of his own meat might well be esteemed the mark of a thane."- (Ib. note.) "The bell-house may denote the hall, which was the place of ordi

nary diet and entertainment in the houses of lords. It may well so signify, if the Saxons used the like reason in imposing the name on the lord's hall, as some say, the Italians, Spanish, and French have done in calling it Tinello, Tinelo, and Tinel; which in our laws also is retained in Tinel le Roy, for the King's Hall."-(SPELMAN. Titles of Honour. Lond. 1631, p. 623.) "Tinel. C'est le lieu où les domestiques des grands seigneurs mangent."-(MENAGE, in voc.) The word seems to have come from the tingling, or sound of the bell used in announcing meals. The seat or burh-geat-setl, as the Saxon has it, Selden considers to mean, a judicial seat, or court for the tenants.

have been gained by image-worship. In the train of this insidious usage could hardly fail of following some disposition for invoking angelic and departed spirits. But that practice was not yet established. Alfred's friendship for Erigena, and the decisive testimony borne by a subsequent age against transubstantiation, prove sufficiently that England still continued completely free from the main distinction of modern Romanism.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM DUNSTAN TO THE CONQUEST.

928-1066.

THE MONASTIC SYSTEM-BIRTH OF DUNSTAN-HIS EDUCATION-INTRODUCTION TO COURT-EXPULSION THENCE- DISINCLINATION TO A MONASTIC LIFE-SUBSEQUENT ADOPTION OF ONE-FOUNDATION OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY THE BENEDICTINES FIRST ESTABLISHEDLEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF LONDON-ARCHBISHOP ODO-HIS CANONS -ETHELWOLD-EDWY-DUNSTAN'S EXILE-HIS RETURN-HIS ADVANCEMENT TO THE SEE OF CANTERBURY-EDGAR-LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF ANDOVER-CIVIL PENALTIES AGAINST THE SUBTRACTION OF TYTHES-OTHER LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS UNDER EDGAR — OPPOSITION TO THE MONASTIC SYSTEM-OSWALD-MONKISH MIRACLES-LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF WINCHESTER-OF CALNE-EDWARD THE MARTYR-ETHELRED THE UNREADY-DEATH OF DUNSTANHIS INDEPENDENT REPLY TO THE POPE-PRETENDED TRANSFER OF HIS REMAINS TO GLASTONBURY-LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF EANHAM -OF HABA—ECCLESIASTICAL DUES-ELFRIC, ASCERTAINED PARTICULARS OF HIS LIFE-HIS WORKS-OBSCURITY OF HIS HISTORYPROBABLE OUTLINE OF IT-MENTION OF HIS NAME BY MALMESBURY AND OSBERN-APPARENT CAUSE OF THE INJUSTICE DONE TO HIS MEMORY CANUTE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF WINCHESTER UNDER HIM-EDWARD THE CONFESSOR-STIGAND- -HAROLD'S FOUNDATION FOR SECULAR CANONS-DOCTRINES.

ANGLO-SAXON Ecclesiastical History between Athelstan and the Conquest, is distinctly marked by a controversy that agitated every branch of society. From various and obvious causes, ascetic principles are likely to become popular, at any time, among religious professors. Oriental Christians had early been smitten with admiration of monkish devotees'. By this example of her elder sister, the western Church was readily infected; and the fifth century produced in Benedict, an Italian monk, a

1 See Hist. Ref. ii. 51.

monastic patriarch of her own. The system of this eminent recluse had gained extensive celebrity abroad, before England bestowed upon it any great attention. Wilfrid's claim as the importer of it scarcely merits notice, as not a single Benedictine monastery seems to have arisen from his efforts. The country, it is true, was early and abundantly supplied with wellendowed conventual foundations. But these were colleges, rather than regular monasteries. They provided accommodation for ordinary clergymen, education for youth, and a home for some few ascetics bound by solemn vows'. Such establishments were obviously unfavourable to the strict discipline of a cloister, and monks had consequently sunk in popular estimation. When Alfred, accordingly, founded his religious house at Athelney, he was driven to seek a motley group of monkish inmates for it from every quarter. Scandinavian piracy was assigned as a reason why the AngloSaxons possessed so little taste for monachism3. But England, probably, had never offered, in societies exclusively and uniformly ascetic, any sufficient facilities for nurturing such a disposition. The munificence which had consecrated so many spots by religious houses,

1 WHARTON. Angl. Sacr. ii. 91. | tus desierat; quamvis perplurima "Siquidem a temporibus antiquis, adhuc monasteria in illâ regione ibidem et episcopus cum clero, et constructa permaneant: nullo abbas solebat manere cum mona- tamen regulam illius vitæ ordinachis, qui tamen et ipsi ad curam biliter tenente (nescio quare), aut episcopi familiariter pertinerent." pro alienigenarum infestationibus, -MARSHAM. Propyl. Monasticon. quæ sæpissime terrâ marique hostiliter irrumpunt, aut etiam pro nimiâ illius gentis in omni genere divitiarum abundantiâ, propter quam multo magis id genus despectæ monasticæ vitæ fieri existimo."-ASSER. 61.

"In quo monasterio diversi generis monachos undique congregavit."-ASSER. 61.

"Per multa retroacta annorum curricula monasticæ vitæ desiderium ab illâ totâ gente, nec non a multis allis gentibus fundi

appears, indeed, usually to have been stimulated by palpable deficiencies of religious instruction. In raising and endowing a minster, the vernacular form of monasterium, Anglo-Saxon piety had apparently little else in view than a church for ordinary worship, surrounded by a body of clergymen, who might both serve it and itinerate in the neighbourhood. Eventually many of these establishments became monasteries, in the sense affixed to that word by after ages. But one part of the generation, witnessing this change, condemned it as an injustice based upon delusion. The other part, probably, assumed without reflection or inquiry, that an ecclesiastical foundation of any magnitude would most completely answer the pious donor's meaning, in the hands of professed ascetics, bound regularly to certain mortifications. Innovations upon established usage and vested interests, require, however, time and perseverance. A complete monastic triumph was accordingly delayed until after the Norman Conquest'.

The struggle that atchieved it, originated in the talents, energy, and address of one celebrated individual. Dunstan was born, a contemporary says, in the reign of Athelstan'; but his birth hardly could have been later

1

'W. Thorn informs us, that the secular canons were not expelled for the cathedral church of Canterbury until the year 1005. -(X. Script. 1780.) Nor did this expulsion, then, meet with a ready acquiescence. On the contrary, the intrusive monks were not firmly established in possession until the primacy of Lanfranc.INETT. i. 329.

2

"Hujus (Æthelst.) imperii temporibus oritur puer strenuus

in West-Saxonum finibus, cui pater Heorstanus, mater verò Cynethrith vocitatur.”—(Brit. Mus. MSS. Cotton. Cleopatra, B. 13. f. 60.) This life appears to have been written by Bridferth, a monk of Ramsey, eminent for mathematical knowledge. It has been printed by Mabillon, in the Acta Sanctorum, from a foreign MS. containing a preface which the Cotton MS. wants, but not offering so good a text.-(WRIGHT'S