The English Benedictine Reform or Monastic Reform of the English church in the late tenth century was a religious and intellectual movement in the later Anglo-Saxon period. In the mid-tenth century almost all monasteries were staffed by secular clergy, who were often married. The reformers sought to replace them with celibate contemplative monks following the Rule of Saint Benedict. The movement was inspired by Continental monastic reforms, and the leading figures were Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester, and Oswald, Archbishop of York.
In seventh- and eighth-century England, most monasteries were Benedictine, but in the ninth century learning and monasticism declined severely. Alfred the Great (871–899) deplored the decline and started to reverse it. The court of Æthelstan (924–939), the first king of the whole of England, was cosmopolitan, and future reformers such as Dunstan and Æthelwold learned from Continental exponents of Benedictine monasticism. The English movement became dominant under King Edgar (959–975), who supported the expulsion of secular clergy from monasteries and cathedral chapters, and their replacement by monks. The reformers had close relations with the Crown, furthering its interests and depending on its support. The movement was confined to southern England and the Midlands, as the Crown was not strong enough in northern England to confiscate property from local elites there to establish Benedictine foundations. The movement declined after the deaths of its leading exponents at the end of the tenth century.
The artistic workshops established by Æthelwold reached a high standard of craftsmanship in manuscript illustration, sculpture and gold and silver, and were influential both in England and on the Continent. In his monasteries, learning reached a high standard, producing competent prose and poetry in the elaborate hermeneutic style of Latin favoured in tenth-century England. His Winchester school played an important role in creating the standard vernacular West Saxon literary language, and his pupil Ælfric was its most eminent writer.
All surviving medieval accounts of the movement are by supporters of reform, who strongly condemned what they saw as the corruption and religious inadequacy of the secular clergy, but historians in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have increasingly seen these accounts as unfairly biased against the secular clergy.
Background The author of the Rule of Saint Benedict, which was the principal monastic code in Western Europe in the early Middle Ages, was Saint Benedict of Nursia (480–550). Under this Rule the lives of the monks were mainly devoted to prayer, together with reading sacred texts and manual work. They lived a communal life and were required to give complete obedience to their abbot. Benedict's achievement was to produce a stable system characterised by moderation and prudence.
The seventh century saw the development of a powerful monastic movement in England, which was strongly influenced by the ideas of St Benedict, and the late seventh-century English scholar Aldhelm assumed that monasteries would normally follow the Benedictine Rule. However, by 800, few foundations could claim high spiritual and intellectual standards, and the ninth century saw a sharp decline in learning and monasticism. Political and financial pressures, partly due to disruption caused by Viking attacks, led to an increasing preference for pastoral clergy, who provided essential religious services to the laity, over contemplative monks. There was a progressive transfer of property from the minsters to the Crown, which accelerated after 850. According to John Blair:
At the end of the ninth century Alfred the Great started to revive learning and monasticism, and this work was carried on by his grandson, King Æthelstan (924–939). Kings before Edgar (959–975) did not take the view, which was adopted by Æthelwold and his circle, that the only worthwhile religious life was Benedictine monasticism. When Gérard of Brogne reformed the Abbey of Saint Bertin in Saint-Omer along Benedictine lines in 944, dissident monks found a refuge in England under King Edmund (939–946). Before the tenth-century reform, the lines between secular clergy and monastics were sometimes blurred. There are cases of communities of monks established to provide pastoral care, and clergy in some secular establishments lived according to monastic rules.
Early development The Benedictine reform movement on the Continent started with the foundation of Cluny Abbey in Burgundy in 909–10, but the influence of Cluny, which was innovative in its customs, was largely confined to Burgundy. England's closest links were with the more conservative Fleury Abbey on the Loire, which had great prestige because it held Saint Benedict's body. The leaders of the English movement were also influenced by the reforms which had been promulgated by the Carolingian Holy Roman Emperor, Louis the Pious, at the Synods of Aachen in the 810s, and particularly their promulgation of uniform monastic rules under the authority of the Crown. Modest religious and diplomatic contacts between England and the Continent under Alfred and his son Edward the Elder (899–924) intensified during the reign of Æthelstan, which saw the start of the monastic revival. Four of Æthelstan's half-sisters married European rulers, resulting in closer contacts between the English and Continental courts than ever before. Many manuscripts were imported, influencing English art and scholarship, and English churchmen learnt about the Continental Benedictine reform movement.
The leaders of the English Benedictine reform were Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury (959–988), Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester (963–984), and Oswald, Archbishop of York (971–992). Dunstan and Æthelwold reached maturity in Æthelstan's cosmopolitan, intellectual court in the 930s, where they met monks from the European reformed houses which provided the inspiration for the English movement. In the early 940s Dunstan was appointed Abbot of Glastonbury, where he was joined by Æthelwold, and they spent much of the next decade studying Benedictine texts at Glastonbury, which became the first centre for disseminating monastic reform. The Rule of Saint Benedict was translated into Old English at this time, probably by Æthelwold, and it is the only surviving prose translation of the Rule into a European vernacular in the early Middle Ages. In about 954 Æthelwold wished to go to the Continent to study reforms there at first hand, but King Eadred (946–955) refused him permission and appointed him Abbot of Abingdon, which became the second centre. Dunstan was exiled by King Eadwig (955–959) between 956 and 958, and he spent this time observing Benedictine practices at St Peter's Abbey in Ghent. Æthelwold on the other hand appears to have been on good terms with Eadwig, an early indication that the reformers were not united politically. Oswald was a nephew of Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury from 941 to 958. Oda, a supporter of reform, introduced Oswald to Fleury, where he was ordained and spent a large part of the 950s.
Reform and the Crown Rosamond McKitterick observes that "the zeal for monastic reform undoubtedly was a common bond right across Europe". The main centres were Lotharingia, western France and southern England, and the reforms were supported by rulers who saw model monasteries as promoting their power and prestige. However, relations between monasteries and their patrons varied. Where rulers were weak, as in Burgundy, Cluny looked to the papacy for protection, whereas in other areas such as Flanders, monasteries had close links with local rulers. In England there was a close dependence on the royal family and very little papal influence. The accession in 959 of Edgar, the first king to strongly support reform, led to court support for the imposition of Benedictine rules on a number of old minsters with monks imported from houses such as Oswald's Westbury on Trym, Dunstan's Glastonbury and Æthelwold's Abingdon. Hardly any of the reformed houses were new foundations, but a few nunneries, which had royal connections, were established in Wiltshire and Hampshire.
When Edgar became king, he immediately dismissed the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Byrhthelm, and appointed Dunstan in his place. In 963, Edgar appointed Æthelwold as Bishop of Winchester, and with the permission of the pope and the support of the king the new bishop expelled the secular clergy from the city's Old and New Minsters and replaced them with monks. The secular clerks and their supporters were local people of consequence, and the king had to resort to force to confiscate their wealthy benefices. By 975 up to 30 male houses and 7 or 8 nunneries had been reformed, all in Wessex or places in the Midlands where Æthelwold and Oswald held property. However, the reformed houses were then probably only around 10 per cent of the religious establishments. The wealthiest reformed monasteries were far richer than ordinary secular minsters, and the Domesday Book shows in the late eleventh century some possessed land worth as much as all but the greatest lay magnates, but rich and important unreformed houses such as Chester-le-Street and Bury St Edmunds flourished into the eleventh century. The reformers' propaganda, mainly from Æthelwold's circle, claimed that the church was transformed in Edgar's reign, but in Blair's view the religious culture "when we probe beneath the surface, starts to look less exclusive and more like that of Æthelstan's and Edmund's".
Edgar was concerned about divergent interpretations of the Benedictine Rule in different monasteries in his kingdom, and wanted to impose uniform rules to be followed by all. The rules were set out in the key document of the English reform, the Regularis Concordia, which was adopted by the Council of Winchester in around 970. The Concordia was written by Æthelwold, who had sought advice from Ghent and Fleury Abbeys. A major aim of the Concordia was the regularisation of the form of church services, and Æthelwold tried to synthesise what he regarded as the best Continental and English practice.
On the Continent there were different interpretations of the Benedictine Rule, but in England uniform practice was a matter of political principle. The Concordia said that King Edgar "urged all to be of one mind as regards monastic usage ... and so, with their minds anchored firmly on the ordinances of the Rule, to avoid all dissension, lest differing ways of observing the customs of one Rule and one country should bring their holy conversation into disrepute." Fleury's customs were the most important influence on the Regularis Concordia, and Fleury itself may have been influenced by English liturgical practices.
The conquest of the Danelaw by West Saxon kings had united England in a single kingdom for the first time, enabling kings from Æthelstan onwards to see themselves as heirs of the Carolingian emperors; the regulation of monasteries by a uniform Benedictine Rule was designed to unite the kingdom ideologically and enhance royal prestige. The monks depended on the king in a way that the local ealdormen did not, so their loyalty could be trusted and they could act as a counterbalance to powerful local families. The Regularis Concordia required that psalms be said for the king and the queen in monasteries several times a day, and specified that royal consent must be obtained for the election of abbots. The reformers aimed to enhance the Christian character of kingship, and one aspect of this was to raise the status of the queen; Edgar's last wife, Ælfthryth, was the first king's consort to regularly witness charters as regina.