Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osgar
OSGAR, OSCAR, or ORDGAR (d. 984), abbot of Abingdon, was one of the clerks who left Dunstan's community at Glastonbury to go with Æthelwold [q. v.] when he was appointed abbot of Abingdon (Hist. Abingdon, ii. 258). He was sent by Æthelwold to Fleury on the Loire to learn the Benedictine rule, and returned with a written account of it. When Æthelwold became bishop of Winchester (963), he appointed Osgar his successor in the abbacy of Abingdon.
Osgar was present at the expulsion of secular canons from Winchester, and made a speech on that occasion. In a letter from Fleury, written partly in cipher, apparently by a friend of Dunstan, or on behalf of Abbo, abbot of Fleury, an abbot is blamed for not returning a copy of Florus's commentary on St. Paul's Epistles ; the name Oscarus will be found to nt the cipher (Stubbs, Dunstan. p. 376), and the borrower is no doubt identical with the abbot of Abingdon. He purchased and obtained large tracts of land for his convent, and his name is appended to 43 genuine charters of the years 967-974, and to thirteen marked by Kemble as spurious. He died in 984, having finished the buildings begun by his master Æthelwold at Abingdon.
[Wulstan's Life of Æthelwold ; Migne's Pat. Lat. 137, cols. 89, 92 ; Chron. de Abingdon, ed. Stevenson ; Will. Malmesbury's Gosta Poutifieum, ed. Hamilton, p. 191.]