Edgar

ON ST. EDGAR, CONFESSOR, KING OF ENGLAND.

AT GLASTONBURY IN ENGLAND.

IN THE YEAR 975.

HISTORICAL SYLLOGE.

Edgar, King of England, at Glastonbury in England (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. P.

§ I. Cult, eulogies, compendium of his life.

Edgar, the pillar and ornament of England, which he ruled, the norm and glory of kings, from ancient times honored with public cult, claims for himself no lowest place among the heavenly ones. Of him treat the more recent writers; namely the first impression of the English Martyrology reckons him on the 24th of May; The cult of St. Edgar the second, on this 8th of July, on which he is also reported by Alford. Ferrarius has him on the 24th of May. Those things may be seen which were said among the Passed-over on that day. These from the more recent. Moreover the cult of the holy King will be established more by the eulogies which I subjoin.

[2] William of Malmesbury, near those times of which he here writes, book 2 on the Deeds of the Kings, chapter 8, hands down that the body of our holy Confessor was found after seventy years subject to no corruption, from the integrity of the body, in testimony of the sanctity exercised in his life. Nor, he says, must this be blotted out; that when abbot Ailward had dug up his tomb in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1052, he found the body conscious of no stain. Which, when it ought to have bent him to reverence, roused him to audacity: for because the little coffin which he had prepared threatened, by reason of the greatness of the body, a difficult entrance, he violated the royal remains with iron. Whence at once blood spurting forth in waves struck the hearts of the bystanders with dread. Thus the royal body was placed in a shrine, which he had conferred on the church itself, above the altar, with the head of St. Apollinaris and the relics of Vincent the Martyr, which he, bought at great price, had added to the adornment of the house of God. But the violator of the sacred body soon lost his mind, and not long after, going out of the church, death found him with a broken neck. This history Vincent of Beauvais wove into his Mirror, book 25, chapter 31.

[3] Nay rather, that the sanctity of St. Edgar was approved by miracles, and established by miracles. the same Author left testified, thus proceeding: Nor did the showing of royal sanctity remain in these, but proceeded to further things, a madman and a blind man being there healed. Deservedly therefore is there no weak report among the English, that no King, either of his own or of a former age, is to be compared in England, by right and equal judgment, to Edgar. Thus nothing was holier than his life, nothing more approvable than his justice, except the vices which he afterward blotted out by ample virtues. Henry of Huntingdon most magnificently proclaims of the merits of Edgar, book 5, page 356, in these words: Edgar the peaceful King, magnificent, a second Solomon, in whose time never came an army of foreigners into England, to whose dominion the Kings and Princes of England are subject; to whose power even the Scots gave their necks, when he had reigned 16 years and two months, living happily, died happily; nor could he die ill, who had lived well, who had founded for God so many churches, who in a short time had established so many perpetual goods; whose plantations'

grace, the more instantly they cease not to praise God, the more the glory of the blessed King in the heavens does not cease to grow. Of whose praise we have been moved to say a little in verse, according to his merits:

Author of wealth, avenger of crimes, bestower of honors, / Edgar the scepter-bearer seeks the supernal realms. / Here a second Solomon, father of laws, orbit of peace, / In that he lacked wars, he shone the more thereby. / Temples to God, to temples monks, to monks he gave fields, / The fall of iniquity, and the place of justice. / For he knew in his reign to seek out the true from the false, / The immense from the small, and the perpetual from the brief.

[4] Nor does Roger of Hoveden disagree with him, burying St. Edgar with this signal apparatus of laudation: The eulogy: In the year 975, he says on page 426, the Basileus of the English world, the flower and ornament of his predecessor Kings, the peaceful King Edgar; no less memorable to the English than Romulus to the Romans, Cyrus to the Persians, Alexander to the Macedonians, Arsaces to the Parthians, Charlemagne to the Franks, Arthur to the Britons, after he had royally consummated all things, in the 32nd year of his age, but in the 19th of his reign in Mercia and Northumbria; and from the time when he reigned over all England, the 16th, in the third Indiction, on the 8th before the Ides of July, on the fifth day of the week, passed from this life, and left his son Edward heir both of the kingdom and of his morals. But his body, brought to Glastonbury, was buried in royal manner. More the same Author adds concerning his most fully equipped naval armament, and his love of justice; by the one of which he struck terror into his enemies, by the other he bound to himself the minds of his subjects; which it is not of this place to transcribe severally.

[5] A compendium of his life exhibit Peter de Natalibus and also the new Legend of the Saints of England, of his life in these words: Edgar, the distinguished King of the English, brother of Edwy, began to reign in the 22nd year of the Emperor Otho, while he was still a youth of 16 years: at whose birth, Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, heard a voice from heaven, saying in English: Peace to England, as long as this boy shall reign, and our Dunstan shall live. And he reigned 16 years, and each year founded a new monastery, and governed the whole island in the highest peace and justice: for the King of the Scots, Cinand al. Kinald, of the Cumbrians, Malcolm al. Malcolm, the arch-pirate Mascosius, and all the Kings of the Welsh, five in number, forced to court, he bound to himself by a perpetual oath. Whom, meeting him at Chester, and the pomp of triumph, he led along the river, placed in one ship, which they rowed, and he himself sat in the prow. His countrymen he restrained from excessive drinking by fear and industry, and was so severe, that there was there no private thief, no popular robber, unless one who wished to lose his life. Nay even wild beasts of every kind, greedy of blood, he exterminated from the kingdom.

[6] a compendium To Guidoalus, King of the Welsh, he enjoined that he should pay him every year a tribute of 300 wolves; which while he had done for several years, he professed that he could find no more. In every season after Easter he commanded ships to be gathered along all the shores, and, going up himself, he sailed round the sea, to keep off pirates: but in winter he rode through the provinces, to destroy robbers, seeking out the judgments of the more powerful, lest they should violate right. At a certain time he had gone out to hunt, asking Dunstan, who was with him, to defer the Mass, because it was the Lord's day. As the third hour approached, the Bishop, vested in sacred robes, was waiting for the King at the altar, and suddenly, oppressed by a light sleep, was caught up into heaven, and heard the songs of the Angels, singing Kyrie eleison nine times.

[7] from Peter de Natalibus and the new Legend of the Saints of England. Roused after a little, still waiting, he is rapt, and heard said with a loud voice: Ite Missa est, and the answer: Deo gratias. Then his clerics, running up, said that the King was present; to whom he answered that he had heard Mass, and that there was no need for him to celebrate more that day. Being asked by the King why he said these things, and why he was unwilling to celebrate, he discloses the vision. And taking this occasion, forbidding the King to go hunting on the Lord's day any more; which correction the holy King benignly received and thereafter observed. Who, the kingdom being governed, after 16 years, in the 33rd year of his age rested in peace, and after his death shone with miracles. Thus far Peter de Natalibus and the new Legend of the Saints of England agree; but in the latter is added: As appears more clearly in the life of blessed Patrick, that which is wanting in the former. I am not ignorant that there were various Patricks; but which Patrick the said Legend here wishes to be understood, I have not ascertained; nor is there leisure to investigate.

* al. Kinald.

* al. Malcolm.

§ II. The series of his life, chronologically deduced from various sources.

The year of birth The year 943 was that of St. Edgar's birth, which a prodigy illustrated, as a herald of the great things to be done by the holy King for the safety and glory of the English, to be proclaimed through all the ages to come; of which we have already treated, when from the new Legend of England we reported the voice of the Angels heard by St. Dunstan at the nativity of the holy Prince, of whom we here treat. Add Westminster: In the year of grace, he says, 943, when to the magnificent King Edmund his Queen Algiva had borne a son Edgar, St. Dunstan heard the voices of those singing and saying on high: Peace to the church of the English, of the boy now born, and in the time of our Dunstan. Florence of Worcester and Hoveden agree at the aforesaid year.

[9] But that the birthplace fell to St. Edgar in the Glastonbury territory, and the place. is made out from the Antiquities of Glastonbury, folio 64, cited by Alford, in the following tenor: Edmund had begotten of his Queen Elfgiva two sons, Edwy and Edgar the peaceful. And as the same earth nourishes good and bad herbs, and to the nettle the rose is sometimes nearest, so from the same father Edmund proceeded Edwy the worst and Edgar the most pious. For Edgar was born in a certain village, contiguous to Glastonbury, which now is called Edgarley, where then was the court of the King, quite famous. Of Edwy, Edgar's brother, more things would here recur to be said, which you have on the 4th day, page 71.

[10] But God, the most just avenger of crimes, punished this same man Edmund's son Edwy, infamous for filthiness, and giving loose to unbridled lust with impunity, and therefore unfit to rule others, who could not rule himself, Having obtained part of the kingdom, by taking from him the better part of the kingdom, and transferring it to his brother, namely Edgar; of which matter Florilegus thus narrates: In the year of grace 957 Edwin, because he acted unwisely in the government committed to him, was utterly forsaken by the peoples of Mercia and the North; namely, ruining all the wise and noble of the kingdom out of hatred of vanity, he cherished nonetheless the ignorant and iniquitous with zeal of affection. Him being cast down by the unanimous conspiracy of all, they chose, God dictating, his brother Edgar as King, and, the people assenting, the public affairs of the kingdom were divided between the brothers, so that the river Thames should bound the realm of both.

[11] The most pious Prince therefore, having obtained no common part of the English throne, recalls Dunstan from exile, held nothing older than that he should, by a most just sentence, recall from exile St. Dunstan the abbot, unjustly proscribed by his brother Edwy, to be restored to the Glastonbury monastery and its estates; which indeed he committed to execution, no delay being interposed. And this Hoveden thus expressed: Soon the King of the Mercians, Edgar, recalled the blessed abbot Dunstan with honor and glory from exile. Nor indeed did Edgar rest, until, not by his own suffrage only, but also by the public consent of the Bishops and nobles, it was decided that the exile of St. Dunstan was utterly void, invalid, and null, and had been imposed by the impulse of a disturbed mind, as is wont to happen in similar cases. Wherefore he convokes an assembly at Bradford, which Spelman calls a council, and fixes in the year 959, but wrongly, as it seems, for the year 957, if we believe Osbern, who in the life of St. Dunstan, published on the 19th of May, chapter 7, thus narrates: A few days after his election Edgar the Dyarch commanded a council of his whole Kingdom to be celebrated, in which, all things being annihilated which had been decreed by iniquitous laws by his brother, and all things restored which had been taken away by his violent domination, he also recalled the venerable Abbot Dunstan in great glory from exile, and exalted him with greater glory than he had been honored by all the former Kings.

[12] If a few days after his election Edgar, a council being convoked, recalled Dunstan from exile; if again that election happened in the year, as we said, in what year? 957; what remains, but that we connect the recall of Dunstan not with the year 959, but with the year 957; which is also marked in the Saxon Chronicle, Matthew of Westminster, Worcester, Hoveden, and Baronius. Edwy being taken from the living, repenting of the crimes committed, Edgar alone began to reign. This deed Baronius reports in the year 959, after various English writers, Edgar being in the 16th year of his age. The most auspicious beginnings of the said reign Malmesbury thus sets forth, book 2 on the Deeds of the Kings, chapter 8: In the year of the Lord's Incarnation 959 Edgar, the honor and delight of the English, son of Edmund, brother of Edwin, a youth of 16 years, obtaining the kingdom, held it for nearly the same number. His affairs, very splendid, are celebrated even in our time. There shone upon his years a propitious love of the divinity, which he himself earned by assiduous devotion of soul and vivacity of counsel. Finally it is well known, namely, that an Angelic voice was heard at his birth by St. Dunstan, as we have above recorded. The truth of things answered to the heavenly oracle: so far, they living, did ecclesiastical splendor flourish and the tumult of war wither. The same year of Edgar's accession to the English throne is marked by Hoveden, Worcester, and Alford.

[13] Whether it is rightly marked in the Saxon Chronicle and the Winchester Annals. Not rightly does the Saxon Chronicle place the year 957, thus recording at the aforesaid year: In this year died King Edwy on the Kalends of October, and Edgar, his brother, took the kingdom both among the West Saxons, and in Mercia, and in Northumbria: but he ruled over it 16 years, zealous for peace, loving God, and sedulously intent on amplifying His glory. With the same fault labor the Winchester Annals, when they report that in the year 957 Edgar, a youth of 16 years, at the city of Acham, that is, Bath, on the Ides of May, on the day of Pentecost, was consecrated King, who at once recalled Dunstan from exile. For I ask, how can the year of Edgar's birth 943 cohere with the year 957, of his age the 16th, in which he is placed as beginning his reign? Another error from these Annals is here committed as to the coronation, and can be corrected from what will be said below concerning the same coronation and its time. It will not moreover be foreign to our purpose to commemorate the singular endowments, worthy of a great King. To pass over in silence the praises which Florence of Worcester adorns in his honor, when he had placed Edgar on the throne of the kingdom, concerning which he may be seen here; Henry the Archdeacon of Huntingdon, of Edgar's beginnings thus pronounces, book 4, page 356.

[14] Edgar's reign happily begun Edgar the peaceful, brother of the aforesaid King Edwy, reigned sixteen years. In his days this land of England was greatly improved, and by the grace of Almighty God, which he himself most devoutly earned according to his power, he reigned always in peace while he lived. For he most strongly enlarged the faith of Christ in his kingdom, and most brightly made fruitful the works of salvation by his own example. For, beloved of God and men, he ever strove to pacify the nations of his land; nor could any of his predecessors hold the kingdom in such peace and joy. For he himself honored the name of God, and, more often inquiring into the law of God, gladly learned it and gladly taught it; and by words and deeds he readily invited his people to the exercise of good works. But the omnipotence of the Lord repaid to His servant Edgar his good deeds not only in the future, but also in the present world; because he subjected to him all the petty kings and consuls and the nation of the whole country, with trembling and love, at his will, without battle and any disturbance of Mars. But the fame and name of the King, most illustrious, was spread most amply to all lands, and strangers came to see his glory, and to hear the doctrine of his mouth.

[15] To these most auspicious beginnings of King Edgar, most praised in his morals and life, the same integrity of life did not always answer. there did not always answer the same continuation of integrity and virtues; as one who, fallen into lust, not a little obscured his former glory, seeming for a short time to suffer an eclipse of the former light with which he shone, which by most profound humility, by penance, notable for the memory of posterity, enjoined by St. Dunstan, continued for the space of seven whole years; which by good works, many in number, excelling in eminence, he restored anew to himself and his own. And indeed we know that divine providence not rarely permitted great falls even in most holy men, who seemed like the sacred Atlas with head set beneath to be able to sustain the axis of heaven, by a judgment inscrutable indeed, yet most equitable, that men might remember that they are, while they live here, weak, infirm, inconstant, and finally born with that imbecility, that our life is exposed to various falls. But the deed itself Osbern narrates in the life of St. Dunstan; which, although given on the 19th of May, yet here too deserves its place, most pathetically described, and for that reason to be produced entire, so far as it pertains here. And so from the beginning of chapter 8 Osbern there thus speaks:

[16] But the malign one, desiring to disturb these common joys of the whole Church, A seven-year penance enjoined by St. Dunstan on the fallen King kindled the mind of the most Christian King to the love of a virgin devoted to God, that since he could not cast Dunstan from the path of justice, he might attempt to cast down him whom Dunstan especially loved, and upon whom the vigor of all religion rested. The sin therefore being perpetrated upon a veiled virgin, and brought to the public hearing of the people, Dunstan, affected with the gravest grief both for the fault and for the infamy of the King, soon, that other but far severer Nathan, intrepid approached him, as another David sleeping with Bathsheba, furious he entered in to him. But the King, rising to meet the coming Pontiff, extended his hand, that he might lead him to the royal throne. Who, refusing to give his hand, turned his eyes with a certain indignation of mind upon him, and said: Do you dare to touch the hand of a Pontiff, who did not fear to snatch away a virgin, betrothed by the gift of the Deity? You have adulterated the Spouse of your Creator, and do you think that the friend of the Spouse can be appeased by any service of yours? I will not be a friend to him to whom Christ has been an enemy. Terrified therefore by the thunder of the words, the King is straightway prostrated at the feet of the Pontiff rebuking him, tearfully confesses his crime, humbly begs pardon. Which when the Pontiff saw, he was affrighted, and the King bathed in tears, himself also dripping with tears, he raised from the ground.

[17] Then, when he had set forth by amplification the greatness of the sin, and accepted and fulfilled by the same. and had rendered him prepared for every satisfaction, he enjoined on him a seven-year penance, that in all this space he should not wear the crown of the kingdom, should keep a two-day fast in the week, should largely disperse to the poor his ancestral treasures; above these that he should found some monastery for virgins to be consecrated to God, that he who by sin had taken away one virgin from God, might gather to Him more through the courses of the age. That he should also drive away ill-acting clerics from the churches, introduce companies of monks, sanction just and God-accepted regulations of laws, write out holy ones, and command the written ones to be kept by the peoples through all the bounds of his empire. Nothing therefore was left over, which the King fulfilled less or more slowly than had been enjoined by the Ruler of his life. But in the seventh year, when as by a returning jubilee-term the time of penance had been fulfilled, the sacred Prelate, all the Princes of the empire of the English being summoned, the Bishops, Abbots, and all the orders of ecclesiastical dignity, placed the crown on the King before all the multitude of the English people, all rejoicing and with ineffable voices of jubilation praising God in Dunstan. Learn in passing from the notes there on this place, letter [a], that the girl, of whom above, was one who at Winchester dwelt among the nuns unveiled, but, fearing for her modesty, had hastily placed a veil on her head. Thus there from Osbern. There is added Malmesbury, who asserts that St. Editha was born to him of Wulfritha, whom it is certain, he says, was not then a nun, but a lay girl who had veiled herself for fear of the King, and soon the same, the veil being snatched, was subdued to the imperial bed: whence blessed Dunstan, offended that he had lusted after her who had been even in shadow a nun, exercised the pontifical vigor against him. This deed Alford fixes in the year 963.

[18] This fall and perhaps others There are, Malmesbury being witness, who attempt to set a blemish on his immense glory, saying that in the first times he was cruel to his citizens, lustful toward virgins. Then, three examples being commemorated to this purpose, of Athelwold or Ethelwold the Count slain, of the virgin violated, of whom above we spoke from Osbern, they subjoin, he says, a third, in which both vices appear, and which, when the said Author had narrated, he thus proceeds: But however these things may be, this is established, that from the 15th year of his age, in which he was constituted King, even to the 30th he reigned without the royal insignia. This we shall report a little after: I add, for my part, that it is most certain, that he applied himself uniquely to this; that by the manifold exercise of good works he might wash away and purge his past stains; as may even be gathered from this, that he partly restored, partly built from the ground, monasteries almost more numerous than belief, as the instrument in Spelman, tome 1 of the Councils, page 432, makes credible, whence I excerpt the following fragment; where Edgar thus speaks: In the times of my predecessors, the Kings of the English, the monasteries both of monks and of virgins were destroyed, utterly cast down in all England. Which I, for the praise of God, for the remedy of my soul, have vowed to repair, and to multiply the number of the servants and handmaids of God. And, my aforesaid cooperators strenuously striving, I have already constituted forty and seven monasteries with monks and nuns. And if Christ shall have granted me life so long, even to the number of 50 of remission I have decreed to extend the offering of my munificence devoted to God. Wherefore now at present the monastery which the aforesaid reverend Bishop Oswald amplified in the episcopal see of Worcester, in honor of the holy Mother of God Mary, and, the blemishes and foul lasciviousness of the clerics being eliminated; supported by my consent and favor, placed there religious servants of God, monks; I, to these men of the monastic religion, confirm it by royal authority, and by the counsel and stipulation of my Princes and Nobles corroborate and consign it, so that it be no longer lawful or right for the clerics to reclaim anything thence.

[19] It would be long and not necessary to transcribe the whole diploma word for word, most fully stuffed with various donations, granted with most ready and truly royal munificence. he expiated by the exercise of good works. At the end is appended: These things were done in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 964, in the eighth Indiction, but in the sixth of the reign of King Edgar, in the royal place, which by the inhabitants is named † † † †, on the Nativity of the Lord, on the festivity of the holy Innocents, on the fourth day of the week, the subscriptions being added. Alford, when he had said that the year coheres with the chronological characters appended to the diploma, adds, how it agrees with the contents in the diploma, and with Edgar's title, subduer of the Kings and of Ireland, is deservedly asked; but, he says, it is easily answered, that almost all things must be referred to the following years, when namely, monasteries being everywhere constituted, and the heteroclite ministers of the Church expelled, God subjected to him as a reward Kings and Kingdoms. But of these things it will be spoken more in the following paragraph.

§ III. The continuation of his life, chronologically deduced from various sources; his death, burial.

The most pious Prince Edgar willed his munificence to be bestowed on the monastery of Croyland, when, How excellently St. Edgar deserved well Turketul striving, the Abbot of the same monastery, he issued a public diploma, sanctioned, as is appended, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 966, in the presence of the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, and Nobles of the kingdom of Edgar subscribed. The said diploma is had in Ingulf from page 880; with how many and how great donations enriched, may be seen there. Nor indeed did that singular care win St. Edgar little of merit and praise, by which he willed that monastic discipline should most sedulously and paternally be consulted and provided for. Of which matter Harpsfeld handed down the following, tenth century, page 185: Nor should I believe, he says, that that incomparable felicity flowed from any other source more, than that from a boy Edgar (although sometimes through the slipperiness of age, and, as happens in so great power, he humanly fell) was piously and holily affected toward God and divine things, on which the rest of the commonwealth, and its whole felicity, depends. And after a few things concerning his familiar intercourse and acquaintance with the most holy men, Oswald, Æthelwold, and Dunstan, and also concerning the monasteries which, through the Danish incursions so violent, and so far and wide extending, had through almost all England either been utterly overthrown or greatly weakened, partly restored, partly built anew, of which above, he proceeds to our purpose. It will help to recount the text word for word:

[21] The monastic discipline also, which had almost wholly perished, was restored, and monks being summoned from the most celebrated monastery of Fleury of the Benedictine discipline, concerning monastic discipline; and from other places, certain prescribed dictates were composed, collected from the decrees of Benedict and other Fathers, which by one and the same and accurate observation should be preserved in all the monasteries; which are still seen, worthy indeed to be read by others, and by the exact observance especially of monks: and a famous synod was held at Winchester, which willed those decrees to be ratified, firm, and fixed: to which Edgar wrote letters, by which both he animated them to persevere in the holy purpose, and moreover exhorted that they should provide with all caution, that, as far as could be done, one and the same observance of monastic discipline should everywhere be prescribed to all. And he himself indeed recalled the monasteries of men to his own care and defense, and enjoined on his wife Elfrida the care of the holy virgins and their monasteries.

[22] The Bishops of England summoned to Winchester for that cause. What? That at Edgar's bidding the Bishops of England assembled at Winchester, that the statutes made by Dunstan for the monastic religion of the Benedictine religious of both sexes, by whose aid, notwithstanding the difference of places, all unanimous, and of one custom, might dwell in the house of God and serve Him, should be approved by the common vote of all. This deed Alford fixes in the year 966; after whose proem, which from a most ancient exemplar, both in Saxon and in Latin, written in very fine characters, faithfully transcribed, he records to have been exhibited to him by Selden, with this superscription: The proem of the regular concord of the monks and nuns of the English nation begins; after whose proem, I say, is subjoined an epitome of 12 chapters concerning the sacred and solemn Offices of monks, the whole context of the chapters themselves being omitted for brevity's sake, since they are rather long. Spelman, at the same year 966, produces a charter of King Edgar, witness of his paternal mind toward the monks, drawn up in favor of the new Winchester monastery, which they called Hyde, and divided into 23 chapters, and issued in the said year. Besides another for this Winchester monastery, at about the year 967, he produces ecclesiastical laws, which, as is premised, in a frequent senate for the glory of God, the ornament of the royal majesty, and the utility of the commonwealth he sanctioned, and also canons concerning those things which pertain to the constitutions of King Edgar on the manner of living of the ordained. Finally, about the year of Christ 969, he attributes to the oft-praised King an oration, delivered to the Bishops, and efficacious to persuade, in which, the vices of the clerics being enumerated, he decrees that monks be substituted in their place, this care being committed to the Bishops, supported by royal authority.

[23] [Most powerfully for the restoration of monks in the place of clerics, living dissolutely,] But with how great and how fervent a spirit the great zealot of divine honor there speaks, how severely he rebukes, how powerfully he pleads! Have a specimen from the few things which I subjoin: Emulate, he says, O Priests, admonishing the Bishops of their office; emulate the ways of the Lord and the justices of our God. It is the time of rising up against those who have dissipated the law of God. I have the sword of Constantine, you have the sword of Peter in your hands. Let us join right hands; let us couple sword to sword, that the lepers may be cast out of the camp, that the sanctuary of the Lord may be purged, and the sons of Levi may minister in the temple … Act, I pray, solicitously, lest it repent us to have done what we have done, to have given what we have given, if we shall see it consumed not in the service of God, but in the luxury of the worst men with unpunished liberty. Let the relics of the Saints move you, in which they insult; the venerable altars, before which they rage. Let move you the wondrous devotion of our predecessors, whose alms clerical madness abuses. My great-grandfather Edward, as you know, tithed all his land to the churches and monasteries. My ancestor of holy memory Alfred, that he might enrich the church, thought that neither his treasures, nor his patrimony, nor his expenses, nor his revenues should be spared. My grandfather the elder Edward, how much he conferred on the churches, is not hidden from your paternity. My father and brother, with what gifts they heaped the altars of Christ, it becomes you to remember.

[24] O Father of fathers Dunstan, contemplate, I pray, Edgar pleads before the Bishops. the eyes of my father, radiating upon you from that bright region of heaven. Hear his plaintive voices, resounding with a certain piety in your ears. You are to me a father, Dunstan, you gave me wholesome counsel concerning the constructing of monasteries and the building of churches. You were my helper in all things and my cooperator. You I chose as it were as a shepherd, father, and Bishop of my soul, and guardian of my morals. When did I not obey you? What treasures did I ever prefer to your counsels? … You used to say that alms is eternal, nor any more fruitful than what is conferred on monasteries or churches, whereby the servants of God are sustained and, what is left over, is dispensed to the poor. O precious alms, and a worthy price of the soul! O wholesome remedy for our sins, which from the bosom of a Sybil reeks in a foreign skin upon the walls, which adorns her little ears, which composes her little fingers, which binds the delicate body in fine linen and purple … What will you answer to this complaint? I know; when you saw a thief, you did not run with him, nor did you put your portion with adulterers. You argued, besought, and rebuked. Words are despised, we must come to blows, and the royal power will not be wanting to you. You have here with you the venerable father Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester; you have the reverend prelate of Worcester, Oswald; to you I commit this business, that by episcopal censure and royal authority those living basely may be cast out of the churches, and those living orderly may be introduced. A signal oration indeed, and most worthy of a pious King!

[25] There may also be seen in the same Spelman a council held at London in the year of Christ 970 or 971, [Privileges in the London council for the Glastonbury monastery; others granted to others;] in which the most celebrated privileges, granted by King Edgar to the Glastonbury monastery, are confirmed, etc. Various privileges granted to monasteries, and breathing the most ready affection of the holy Prince toward the servants of God, Alford collected in the years 970 and 971, to which are added the legation sent to Pope John XIII in the cause of the monks of Glastonbury, in the year 971 marked by the same author; where likewise it is treated of the estates granted by the King to the same monastery. (Concerning the body of St. Swithun, in the year 971, this most pious King reigning, divinely disclosed to the English, see tome 1 of this month, page 328.) Add the oath of fealty and homage brought to him by seven Kings in the year 973; in which besides the royal robe, given to the Glastonbury monastery, in which the great soul in a small body, in which the tribute of 300 wolves imposed on the Britons, in which the huge and to enemies formidable apparatus of ships are recounted. And in this year finally that King Edgar was consecrated, Malmesbury, Worcester, and Hoveden report, and that he imposed the appointed end on the seven-year penance. Which all things to commemorate here more distinctly would be of longer and by no means pertinent labor. In passing the Saxon Chronicle: In this year 973 Edgar, governor of the English, was with great honor consecrated King in the old city of Acemannesceaster so called. But the inhabitants by another name call it Bath. There was there great joy to all; it arose on that auspicious day, which the common people name and call the day of Pentecost.

[26] the good works following his coronation; More nearly to our purpose it looks, to show severally, with how many and how signal supports of virtues Edgar adorned his coronation, namely by piety toward God, religion toward the Saints, munificence toward the servants of God, as it were sending before so many most precious pearls, which should adorn a crown in the heavens, never failing and unfading unto the ages. That he deserved most excellently of the monastery of Malmesbury, of Thorney, and of Ramsey, is established from the public records, which on this matter are left to posterity. As for Malmesbury; Edwy, Edgar's brother, angry at Dunstan and the monks, had defiled it, situated in the Wiltshire territory, with new inhabitants, the regulars being excluded, bringing in men of looser life; which William, a monk of that place, briefly deplores, book 2 on the Deeds of the Kings, chapter 7, where, writing of Edwy, he thus speaks: In that time the face of the monks was foul and miserable: for he made the Malmesbury monastery, inhabited by monks for more than two hundred and seventy years, a stable of clerics. But Edgar met this evil, purged this stable: he cast out the unworthy inhabitants of the place, substituted men of holier life, giving them as Prefect Alfric, of whom Ingulf, edited with the other writers of English affairs (which in the foregoing citations we always wish to be understood), page 884, speaks in these words: At this same time, the clerics being cast out of the monastery of Malmesbury, whom his brother Edwin, the monks being expelled, had wickedly intruded, he recalled the monks, setting over them as abbot Alfric, a man then most celebrated in ecclesiastical offices, granting him his charter in this manner. There follows the diploma, at the end of which is appended the year of the Lord's Incarnation 974 and the first of his royal consecration. Whence you see confirmed the year of the royal consecration marked above.

[27] most munificent in restoring monasteries. Thus indeed Ingulf, who on page 885 adds in praise of the most pious King: But I, he says, have appended the charter of so remote a monastery, that I might show with how great a fire of the Holy Spirit the mind of King Edgar was kindled, to restore ruinous churches and demolished monasteries. But now what the holy Prince did for the Thorney monastery in the Cambridge territory, you have from the diploma, which from Reyner's tract 1, folio 14, Alford cites, who also weighs and explains those words of the diploma, by which Edgar says, in the eighteenth year of my earthly empire, etc., when he reigned only sixteen years. Why do I linger in many words? The royal diploma for the foundation of the Ramsey monastery, situated in the county of Huntingdon, taken from the Cottonian library, Alford inserted in the English Annals at the year 974, from page 378. And let these things suffice, and be held as most certain arguments, by which King Edgar may deservedly be exhibited to posterity as everywhere pious, everywhere religious, everywhere most studious of ecclesiastical and monastic discipline, everywhere a strenuous and untiring cultivator of good works, making for himself bags which grow not old, a treasure that fails not in heaven, redeeming his sins by alms, raised by the works of virtues from his youthful iniquity, and made whiter than snow.

[28] At length Edgar, full of merits, precocious in age, but ripe for heaven, when he had lived two years above thirty, and reigned sixteen years, most worthy of a much longer life, migrated from the earthly kingdom, which he had most religiously governed, to the heavenly, in the year of the Lord 975, leaving to all the good the deepest longing for himself. Ingulf, Malmesbury, and Westminster, where they treat of his death, do not express the day. Worcester and Hoveden clearly mark the day of death, and say that it fell on the 8th before the Ides of July, and on the fifth day of the week. Which fifth day is invincibly deduced from the Dominical letter c, falling on the fourth of July. The Saxon Chronicle wrongly assigns a different day of death, in these words: In this year 975 Edgar, King of the English, finished the triumphs of earth … That month everywhere in the fatherland, those who before were duly instructed in the chronological art call July, on the eighteenth day of which the youth Edgar, the bestower of torques on the nobles, departed from this life.

[29] it is established against Spelman; Concerning the year of death just now determined, there is sufficient agreement among the authors. Wrongly from these dissents Spelman, fixing Edgar's death in the year immediately preceding, 974, thus speaking, page 489. About this time, namely in the year of Christ 974, migrated from the world the renowned King Edgar the peaceful, most ardent champion of his country and of monastic discipline, who among his other constitutions, which we once saw, written in golden letters (but not occurring to me today) set himself over the company of monks, his queen over the nuns as governors.

[30] where he was buried. As for the burial of Edgar, we have already said, where we recounted his eulogies, that he was buried at Glastonbury. The authors assent. Let it suffice to have produced

the words of Ingulf, which by way of a coronis may be added to those which we have brought forward concerning the day and year of death, and concerning the burial: And so he thus speaks, page 889: Moreover to the renowned King, who was the flower and ornament of all his predecessors and the Basileus of the whole western region of the globe of the earth, the honor and rose of Kings, in the year of the Lord 975, but in the 16th of his reign over all England, in the 32nd of his age, deceased and buried at Glastonbury, succeeded in the kingdom his first-born son.