was going at full speed and was beyond control. Eadmund uttered a prayer and confessed that he had done Dunstan wrong, for death seemed close upon him. The horse brought himself up on the very edge of the precipice. When the king came home he sent for Dunstan, and as soon as he appeared bade him ride with him, for he would go somewhither. The abbacy of Glastonbury was vacant, and it was to the monastery that the king and the monk rode together. They entered the church and prayed, and then the king took Dunstan by the hand, kissed him in token both of peace and honour, led him to the abbot's seat and there installed him, promising that whatever he needed for the better performance of divine worship or for the conduct of the house, he would give him of his royal bounty. Dunstan's appointment to the abbacy was not later than 945, when he was about twenty-one. The next year it is said that he received a warning of the death of Eadmund, and that he foretold the defection of the nobles that took place on the death of Eadred, a story the real importance of which lies in the fact that the abbot is said to have uttered the prophecy while riding with Æthelstan of East Anglia; for his alliance with the East-Anglian house helps to explain some of the leading events of his life. When Eadmund was slain, Dunstan conveyed his body to Glastonbury and buried it there.
As abbot, Dunstan at once began a reform of his house, following a movement that had probably been set on foot by his kinsman, Bishop Ælfheah (Vita St. Æthelwoldi, Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, ii. 257). He laid the foundation of a new church to take the place of the old St. Peter's, leaving the ancient church of the Virgin untouched as a building too sacred to be meddled with, and he is said to have also raised claustral buildings, so that the monks might live together and not in the world. He certainly brought about a state of things that was wholly different from that which existed before he became abbot. At the same time the reforms he introduced at this period, though they had a tendency towards Benedictinism, were not founded on the Benedictine rule, which was as yet unknown in England; and though his convent was now probably chiefly peopled with monks of some kind, secular clerks seem also to have formed part of the congregation, for when Æthelwold [see Ethelwold] left Glastonbury on his appointment to the abbacy of Abingdon, he took with him certain clerks from his old house. Nothing indeed that Dunstan did at this time is to be confused with the later introduction of pure Benedictinism into England. Whatever the exact nature of the change was that he was now engaged in working out at Glastonbury, it is evident that it was largely concerned with education. Under him the abbey became a famous school. The work of teaching was no longer left to strangers, for the abbot himself loved to teach others, and the inmates of his house are more often spoken of as scholars or disciples than as monks (Stubbs). Shortly after his appointment to the abbacy, Dunstan entered on his career as a statesman. Eadred [see Edred], who was about the same age as the abbot, and had probably been one of his young companions at Æthelstan's court, made him his treasurer and his chief adviser. The largest part of the royal ‘hoard,’ the king's treasure, was kept at Glastonbury, and as we are told that very many charters or deeds concerning the royal estates were also placed in Dunstan's keeping, it is probable that he performed duties similar to those which were afterwards discharged by the chancellors of our early kings. Eadred was sickly, and the government seems to have been wholly in the hands of the queen-mother Eadgifu and Dunstan. They were evidently supported by the East Anglian party, headed by the chief ealdorman, Æthelstan, and later events show that the West-Saxon nobles, who had been in power during the reigns of Æthelstan and Eadmund, must to some extent have been opposed to their government. This opposition may perhaps explain the statement that Dunstan's expulsion in boyhood from the court of Æthelstan was largely the work of his own kinsmen. A strong attachment existed between him and the king. On the death of Æthelgar, bishop of Crediton, in 953, Eadred pressed Dunstan to accept the see. He refused, declaring that he was not as yet fit for the episcopal office; he had not indeed attained the canonical age. At the king's request Eadgifu urged him to yield, and he then plainly said that as long as the king lived he would not leave him. The following night in a vision he dreamed that he was on a pilgrimage to Rome and had reached the brow of Monte Mario (Mons Gaudii), from which pilgrims ‘saw the city of their solemnities lie spread before them’ (Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, p. 313). There the three apostles Peter, Paul, and Andrew met him and talked with him of his future life. When they had finished their discourse, Andrew gave him a sharp blow with the rod he carried in his hand, saying, ‘Take this as thy reward for having tried to refuse part in our apostleship.’ When Dunstan told this vision to the king, Eadred declared that it
