In justification of this remarkable man's favourite project of removing the secular clergy from their benefices and supplying their places by the monks, it is enough to say that the former, as a body, had become fearfully corrupt; that luxury, gluttony, avarice, and lust reigned amongst them. Dunstan caused a council of the Church to be held, at which Edgar assisted in person, and made a remarkable oration, which is both curious and interesting as a picture of the corruptions of the clergy of the time, and his subserviency to the views of Dunstan. This harangue, which was most probably written by Dunstan himself, had the desired effect. The three bishops, Dunstan, Ethelwald of Winchester, and Oswald of York, expelled the secular priests, and gave their benefices to the monks, the objects of the king's and archbishop's favour. In many cases, however, expulsion was unnecessary, so depopulated were all the livings through the Danish massacres; and though the celibacy of the clergy which Dunstan enforced was not altogether a step in the right direction, there can be no doubt that the times called for drastic remedies. Nor was the restoration of monasticism the only reform that Dunstan had at heart. "He was," says Bishop Stubbs, "the prime minister, perhaps the inspirer of the consolidating policy of Edgar; he restored through the monastic revival the intercourse between the English church and that of France, and established a more intimate communication with the Apostolic See; in so doing he did what could be done to restore piety and learning. Under his influence the Mercian bishoprics again lift up their heads: the archbishops henceforth go to Rome for their palls: the Frank writers begin to record the lives of the English saints."
The monks were bound in gratitude to make a suitable return for the service Edgar had done them; and, accordingly, their historians have endeavoured, by their excessive commendations, to make him pass for a real saint. But whether from want of attention, or some other reason, they have related some particulars of his life which certainly do not tend to sustain that idea of him. If, indeed, his political actions are only considered, it must be confessed he was a great prince; but a great king and a great saint are two very different characters.