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before their overlord, so that Edgar could proudly say, 'God has reduced under my power all that this island within it holds.' A powerful fleet was stationed to guard the shores; peace was maintained, and with peace commerce and wealth were increased.

But still, England, though welded into one kingdom, was not yet fused into one nation. The old divisions of Wessex, Mercia, and Denalagu were still governed by their Cession of own laws. And the extreme northern portion of Lothian. Northumbria, that part which had been governed first by English under-kings, then by English earls, and which was less Danish than Yorkshire, was so far from one with the rest of England that Edgar found it convenient to grant part of it (namely, Lothian) to Kenneth, king of Scots, to be held under himself.

The kingdom of the Scots has now begun to emerge out of darkness. It was founded by the Scots, who came over from Ireland about the same time that the English Scotland. settled in Britain. In the ninth century it ab

sorbed the old kingdom of the Picts, and thus covered all the northern part of the island, the firths of Clyde and Forth being the boundary between the Scots and English. But towards the end of Edred's reign, the Scots, being themselves pressed by the settlements of the Scandinavians in the extreme north, began to advance southwards. They crossed the Forth; and the royal city of Edinburgh, which our king Edwin of Northumbria had founded, fell into their power (954). It is a sign that Edgar had not much direct power over the more northern part of this kingdom that he was willing to yield such a province as Lothian to the Scots.

When Lothian was joined to the Scotch kingdom, its English inhabitants were undisturbed, and were still governed by their own laws, which in the end became the laws of all Scotland. And though we now call the dwellers between the Tweed and the Forth the Scotch, we ought not to forget that they are as English as ourselves in blood, and that the true Scotland is beyond the Clyde. An old proverb says that whoso crosses the Clyde, going southwards, goes out of Scotland into Largs.

Whether Edgar was a man altogether worthy of so much

glory as brightened his reign we do not know. Many stories Edgar's are told of him which are not at all to his credit. government. But they do not rest on the best authority, and his good government does. He had the wisdom to choose the best men for his councillors and ministers. The leading man in his government was Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury; and to Dunstan's influence were probably due most of the wise measures which were taken in Edgar's reign for the establishment of peace and order.

Dunstan.

Monastic

The name of Dunstan is most commonly associated with the religious revival which took place under his inspiration. Like all religious revivals in those ages, the form revival. which it took was a return to a stricter asceticism. Owing to the wars with the Danes, monastic life in England had fallen into great decay. The monasteries often had laymen for abbots, and had become places to which people retired with their families to spend a life of jollity and idleness; and the lay abbots handed them on to their children as inheritances. Nor were the English priests in general inclined to the monkish views about marriage which were held by the leading churchmen of that day. Dunstan endeavoured to reform the Church by turning out the married clergy from the cathedral bodies, replacing them by monks, and by establishing a strict observance of the rule of St. Benedict in all monasteries. To the men of that day there was no way of keeping the Church pure except by drawing a hard line between it and the world. To preserve the purity and moral power of the Church, strictness of rule was above all things needed. Therefore, the man who worked for monastic re form, and for the spread of monasteries, was a true civiliser; for such a man was also working for learning, for science, for art, for mechanics, which in those days had no other seats but in the monasteries.

Under the guidance of Dunstan, Edgar is said to have founded more than forty Benedictine monasteries. Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, who appears to have been even more active in the cause than Dunstan, and who was called the Father of Monks, drove out the married clergy from the minsters of his diocese. These reforms naturally roused great anger among the laxer monks and the married clergy, and the consequence is that by one party Dunstan's charac

ter has been blackened with many stains, while by the other side he has been praised as a saint. In particular, he and his predecessor Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, have been very much condemned for their conduct to King Edwig, Edgar's brother, who reigned before him, and to his wife Elfgifu. I do not attempt to unravel the truth out of this perplexed story.

It cannot be said that Ethelwold's warfare against the marriage of the clergy was wholly successful; for at the time of the Norman conquest the English clergy were still in the habit of marrying, and most of the cathedral churches were served by secular canons instead of by monks. Secular, which means belonging to this world, was the name now given to priests; while the monks, who had retired from the world, and lived according to a rule, took to themselves the title of regular clergy. And, as might be expected, there never ceased to be jealousy and strife between the seculars and the regulars.

Dunstan

Dunstan himself was no narrow ascetic, but an artist, a painter and musician, and a cunning worker in metals. We still have his portrait, painted by himself in an and Art. old missal. It is often said that the study of the Greek and Latin poets was discouraged by churchmen; but it was Dunstan's opinion that though the Scriptures were the great objects of Christian study, yet the writings of the poets and other ancient authors were not to be neglected, because they tended to polish the minds and improve the style of those who read them. Dunstan's enemies made it a charge against him that he was too fond of the old English songs and tales. We know how fond Alfred was of these, and how he caused his children to learn them. It is worth noting that these two great Englishmen thought so much of their own tongue and their native poetry. Poetry and art had their work in that age as in every other. Whatever man has seen, felt, or imagined, he strives to make again in some form, solely for the delight of it, and that others may know it too. The very lowest savages draw figures of themselves and animals upon the rocks. That is the first rude working of the art-instinct; but the true power and charm of all art lies not in its giving us a mere imitation of the things we see and hear, but in its raising in our minds the same feelings

which the objects themselves would give. The poet and singer in Old-English (as in Greek) was called the maker, because by singing of the things which thrilled and stirred men most deeply he made those feelings in their minds. These ideal feelings raised them out of the vulgar rut of their common life. It is true that the gleeman or minstrel at the AngloSaxon feasts sang chiefly of wars and battles, the things which his hearers liked best, and never failed to put in a hint for a good reward at the end of the song; but every now and then he touched a deeper chord; he spoke of duty and faithfulness, or across his music flitted the dark question, Whence come we? whither do we go? which, even in heathen times, continually rose to the earnest minds of our forefathers.

Poetry, painting, and the Church.

When Christianity came, this power of song was made use of to spread the Gospel. We are told how Aldhelm, one of the most learned churchmen of the seventh century, finding that the people were apt to rush away from mass without waiting for the sermon, used to post himself on a bridge, and begin to sing sweetly to his lute the old tales which the people loved; then when they thronged about him, he changed his song and sang the Gospel stories, and such things as he thought it good for them to hear and remember. I have told of Cædmon's hymns, and how useful they were. Painting the Church had already pressed into her service, and brought it with her to England as her handmaid. The walls of Benedict Biscop's Church at Wearmouth (where the same good Benedict had collected a library, which Bede afterwards used) were adorned with 'the lovely image of Christ and his saints,' or with pictures from Old and New Testament history placed side by side to illustrate each other. By these pictures the unlearned folk who could not read were taught the truths which were most useful.

The danger in those days was lest the Church should keep painting and poetry entirely to herself; and therefore one is glad to hear that Dunstan was so fond of the Old-English songs. In those days everyone, even the poorest, could play and sing a little; and at night, when all the company were met in some great hall, after the feast, the harp was passed round, and each man in turn was to give a song. We may

be sure that men would not be content to sing only hymns at such times; therefore it is pleasing to know that even the monks in their cloisters were humming the 'Battle of Brunanburh,' and one of them could not help putting it into his chronicle. These national songs are of the very greatest importance to us. They were the only form in which history lived then among the common folk, and therefore they teach us what the people thought about events of which we have only scanty notes elsewhere.

It is pleasant after so much fighting with the Danes to think of Dunstan and his civilising work, to listen to his harp, or to watch him working at his anvil, where his cunning fingers wrought the twisted gold, and where between whiles he had fights with the devil. For conflict was still the great thought of this age, and of all the middle ages. The old heathen songs told of wrestlings with dragons and giants. That time has gone by; but the Christian songs sing of another warfare, not less deadly, not less absorbing, between the Flesh and the Spirit-the Soul and Christ on one side, the Flesh and the Devil on the other; and the man who wins in it is the man whose soul, in the words of an ancient AngloSaxon song, 'is filled with brand-hot love.' I have said enough about this conflict before;1 I only note it now in passing, to remind you that all the deepest moral life of the middle ages is set to that tune, 'Who shall deliver me from this body of death?'

DATES.

Edward the Elder

Conquest of Central England from the Danes
Athelstan

Conquest of Northern England from the Danes
Battle of Brunanburh

Edmund

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940

Conquers Cumberland and gives it as a fief to Mal-
colm King of Scots

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