Glastonbury having by the successive incursions of the Danes been reduced nearly to ruin, Edmund, the successor of Athelstau, appointed Dunstan to be the abbot of that house, with full power to draw funds from the royal treasury for its restoration. This was in 912, and from is charter granted in 944 the work appears to have been soon accomplished.
Edred, the successor of Edmund, on the retirement of Turketul to the cloister, in 948, surrendered his conscience, his treasures, and hie authority into the hands of Dunstan. Taking advantage of the implicit confidence reposed in him by the king, Duustau determined to carry out his favourite project of the establishment of a strictly monastic system, and the bringing the clergy under the more direct supremacy of the papal power. As the first step, he imported into England a new order of monks, the Benedictine., who, by changing the state of ecclesiastical affairs, excited on their first establishment the most violent commotions. The discontinuance of marriage among the clergy, and the adoption of the most rigid monastic rules, were his great objects, and he iutroduced that reformation into the monasteries of Glastonbury and Abiugdon. This conduct however incurred the resentment of the secular clergy, who, joioiug with such of tho courtiers as had become indignant at the haughty demeanour of Dunstan, formed a powerful party against him. Upon the death of Edred, and succession of Edwy, Dunstan was accused of malversation in his office. On attempting to maintain his authority, he even went so far as to use personal violence to the king (Euwe]; but ho will deprived of his abbacy, and banished the kingdom lu 955, demoniacal laughter being heard to ring through the church, according to his partisans, at his departure, as, on the othor hand, miraculous mani festations had on various occasions been exhibited on his behalf. Edgar, who succeeded Edwy in the followiug year, restored him to Glastonbury, having promoted him first to the see of Worcester ; he then made him bishop of London, and in 959 advanced him to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury. Dunstan repaired to Rome to receive the papal sanction to his appointment, and nut only obtained that, but the pope'e owu appointment of him to be the papal legato in England. Upon his return, so absolute did his influence over the king become, that he was enabled to give the newish see an authority and jurisdiction of which tho English clergy had been before to a considerable degree independent. Iu order more effectually and
completely to accomplish this object, the secular clergy were excluded from their livings and disgraced, and the monks were appointed to supply their places. The scaudalous lives of the secular clergy furnished one plea for this Pleasure, and it was not altogether ground less; but the principal motive was that of rendering the papal power absolute in tho English Church. Dunstan, supported by Edgar's authority, overpowered tho resistance which the country had long maintained against the papal dominion, and gave to the monks an Influence, the baneful effects of' which were experienced in England till the Reformation. Drinstau has accordingly been highly extolled by the monks and partisans of the ItemIsh Church. During the whole reign of Edgar, Dunstan maintained his interest at court; and upon Edgar's death, in 975, his influence served to raise Edward, Edgar'e eldest son, to the throne, though the succession of Ethelred, the younger son, was much pressed by Elfrida. Whilst Edward was in his minority, Duuntau ruled with absolute sway both in church and state ; but upon the murder of that prince in 979, and the accession of Ethelred, his credit and influence declined; and the contempt with which his threatenings of divine vengeance were regarded by the king is said to have mortified him to such a degree that, on his return to his archbishopric, he died of grief and vexation, May 19th, 988. A volume of St. Dunstan's works was published at Donny in 1626. His successful ambition has given him a considerable place in ecclesiastical and civil history. He appears to have been a man of extraordinary talents, of great energy, stern self-will, and unscrupulous purpose ; and he exerted all his talents, energy, and unscrupulousness to advance the ecclesiastical power, and to subject all to papal supremacy. Dun stan'a Concord of Monaatic Rules' is printed at large in Reyner's Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia,' fol., Duac., 1626, at the beginning of the third part of the Appendix, p. 77. A notice of the other writings attributed to him will be found in Wright, pp. 459-62.
(William of Malmesbury, History; Life of St. Dunstan in the A eta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, month of May, tom. iv., pp. 344-84; Wright, Biog. Brit. Lit., Any. Sax. Period ; Kemble, Saxons in Eng land, book ii.; Lingard, Hist. of Eng. ; Knight, Pop. Hist. of Eng.)