Eadgar

Under Eadgar, who reigned from 959 to 975, England of the Anglo-Saxon period rose to its highest point of political power. This was due, not to Eadgar alone, but in no small part to the statesmanlike genius of Archbishop Dunstan, who, with Bishop Ethelwold, was the chief adviser of the king. To these three men working in harmony with each other must be attributed the most important measures which have made Eadgar's reign prominent in English history. For the first time the kingdom was at peace. "Eadgar loved God's law and bettered the peace of the folk beyond any king who had gone before him." This he accomplished in many ways: he guarded the kingdom against invasion, by himself invading Wales and Strathclyde to check rebellious movements; he enlarged the fleet with which he coasted around the island to ward off attacks from the Danes, notably those of Ireland; and he preserved friendly relations with the rulers of the Celts of the north and northwest. And all the kings of this island," says Aelfric, of Cumbrians and Scots, eight kings, came to Eadgar once upon a time in one day, and they all bowed to Eadgar's government." A later chronicler, fond of exaggeration, tells us that eight kings rowed King Eadgar on the river Dee, while the latter steered with a golden rudder. The tale shows the power of Eadgar's name.

Eadgar strengthened the internal government of his kingdom. His predecessors had already recognized the need of improving its organization; for thelstan had placed Essex and East Anglia under the control of ealdormen, who ruled there for the king, and Eadwig had increased the ealdormanries, as they were called, by adding Northumbria and Mercia to Essex and East Anglia. But Eadgar, knowing the difficulty of governing so large a region, in days when communication was slow, divided Northumbria into two ealdormanries and Wessex into three. This system worked well with Eadgar, who was a strong king, but there was no certainty that it would work well under his successors if any of them proved a weak man. The ealdormen were selected from among the most influential men of each region, were indeed often themselves sub-kings, and there was always danger that they would grow more important than the king himself, and would usurp his authority there. But Eadgar controlled his ealdormen. Twice a year, summer and winter, he rode through every shire inquiring into the judgments of his ealdormen, and showing himself a powerful avenger in the name of justice."

Eadgar stirred up the people in their towns and villages by increasing the usefulness of local institutions. He required that the court of the hundred should meet regularly once a month, that of the shire once every six months, and that of the borough once every four months. He increased the importance of the hundred by making it responsible for the preservation of the peace, requiring it to look after thieves, and to have twelve witnesses in whose presence cattle were to be bought. Large towns he ordered to have thirty-three such witnesses. These laws were intended to check murder and robbery, which with perjury were the most frequent offences of these days. Eadgar also made money uniform throughout the kingdom, and established one standard for weights and measures. He sought to conciliate the Danes and to transform them into loyal subjects by allowing them to be tried by their own laws, by appointing many of them ealdormen, and then by summoning these ealdormen to sit with his wise-men. Though this policy made the native English jealous, and led to many complaints at the time, it proved, as the future showed, an eminently wise one.

Dunstan's Reforms

Dunstan had helped the king in all his political reforms, but was himself even more interested in the condition of the church and the clergy. Since the founding of the Benedictine monasteries in England, in the years from 600 to 750, the spiritual life of the monks, not only in England but on the Continent also, had deteriorated, and in the tenth century a movement had begun at the monastery of Cluny in Burgundy for the improvement of the clergy throughout the church. This Cluniac revival spread to England, where Dunstan and Oswald, bishop of Worcester, were eager to take up the new movement.

What they tried to do was this: they wished to bring the church in England into closer touch with the church on the Continent; to increase the number of monasteries in England, and to have them all managed alike under the reformed Benedictine rule of Cluny; to bring in books of higher scholarship and deeper spiritual character, and so arouse the English monks to a greater interest in literary and spiritual things; lastly, to stop the marriage of the clergy, and to prevent the archbishops, bishops, and abbots from taking prominent part in political affairs and so neglecting their religious duties.

Their efforts, however, were only partly successful. Dunstan was able to increase the number of monasteries, both in and out of Wessex, to enlarge the duties of the regular clergy (the monks) by substituting them in many instances for the secular clergy (the priests), and to complete the ecclesiastical unity of England by raising Oswald to be archbishop of York. But his reforms were premature, and roused great opposition. With the death of Eadgar in 975 he lost his best ally, and though he lived thirteen years longer, he made but few attempts to complete what he had begun. When he died in 988, Anglo-Saxon England had already entered on a period marked by disaster and decay.