Editing Æthelstan (section)

=== Church ===
[[File:Coronation Gospels Athelstan Saint Matthew.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|Miniature of St Matthew in the Carolingian gospels presented by Æthelstan to [[Christ Church Priory]], Canterbury; now in the [[British Library]], London|alt=refer to caption]]

Church and state maintained close relations in the Anglo-Saxon period, both socially and politically. Churchmen attended royal feasts as well as meetings of the Royal Council. During Æthelstan's reign these relations became even closer, especially as the archbishopric of Canterbury had come under West Saxon jurisdiction since Edward the Elder annexed Mercia, and Æthelstan's conquests brought the northern church under the control of a southern king for the first time.{{Sfn|Foot|2011|pp=95–96}}

Æthelstan appointed members of his own circle to bishoprics in Wessex, possibly to counter the influence of the Bishop of Winchester, Frithestan. One of the king's mass-priests (priests employed to say Mass in his household), [[Alphege of Wells|Ælfheah]], became [[Bishop of Wells]], while another, [[Beornstan of Winchester|Beornstan]], succeeded Frithestan as Bishop of Winchester. Beornstan was succeeded by another member of the royal household, also called [[Ælfheah the Bald|Ælfheah]].{{Sfn|Foot|2011|p=97}} Two of the leading figures in the later tenth-century [[English Benedictine Reform|Benedictine monastic reform]] in Edgar's reign, Dunstan and [[Æthelwold of Winchester|Æthelwold]], served in early life at Æthelstan's court and were ordained as priests by Ælfheah of Winchester at the king's request.{{Sfnm|1a1=Lapidge|1y=2004|2a1=Yorke|2y=2004}} According to Æthelwold's biographer, [[Wulfstan the Cantor|Wulfstan]], "Æthelwold spent a long period in the royal palace in the king's inseparable companionship and learned much from the king's wise men that was useful and profitable to him".{{Sfn|Wood|2010|pp=148–149}} [[Oda of Canterbury|Oda]], a future Archbishop of Canterbury, was also close to Æthelstan, who appointed him [[Bishop of Ramsbury (ancient)|Bishop of Ramsbury]].{{Sfn|Foot|2011|pp=97–98, 215}} Oda may have been present at the battle of Brunanburh.{{Sfn|Cubitt|Costambeys|2004}}

Æthelstan was a noted collector of relics, and while this was a common practice at the time, he was marked out by the scale of his collection and the refinement of its contents.{{Sfn|Brooke|2001|p=115}} The abbot of Saint Samson in [[Ancient Diocese of Dol|Dol]] sent him some as a gift, and in his covering letter he wrote: "we know you value relics more than earthly treasure".{{Sfn|Nelson|1999b|p=112}} Æthelstan was also a generous donor of manuscripts and relics to churches and monasteries. His reputation was so great that some monastic scribes later falsely claimed that their institutions had been beneficiaries of his largesse. He was especially devoted to the cult of [[Cuthbert|St. Cuthbert]] in Chester-le-Street, and his gifts to the community there included [[Bede]]'s Lives of Cuthbert. He commissioned it especially to present to Chester-le Street, and out of all manuscripts he gave to a religious foundation which survive, it is the only one which was wholly written in England during his reign.{{Sfnm|1a1=Foot|1y=2011|1pp=117–124|2a1=Keynes|2y=1985|2p=180}} It has a portrait of Æthelstan presenting the book to Cuthbert, the earliest surviving manuscript portrait of an English king.{{Sfn|Karkov|2004|p=55}} In the view of Janet Nelson, his "rituals of largesse and devotion at sites of supernatural power ... enhanced royal authority and underpinned a newly united imperial realm".{{Sfn|Nelson|1999b|p=112}}

Æthelstan had a reputation for founding churches, although it is unclear how justified this is. According to late and dubious sources, these churches included minsters at [[Milton Abbas]] in Dorset and [[Muchelney Abbey|Muchelney]] in Somerset. In the view of historian John Blair, the reputation is probably well-founded, but "these waters are muddied by Æthelstan's almost folkloric reputation as a founder, which made him a favourite hero of later origin-myths".{{Sfn|Blair|2005|p=348}} However, while he was a generous donor to monasteries, he did not give land for new ones or attempt to revive the ones in the north and east destroyed by Viking attacks.{{Sfn|Foot|2011|pp=135–136}}

He also sought to build ties with continental churches. [[Koenwald|Cenwald]] was a royal priest before his appointment as [[Bishop of Worcester]], and in 929 he accompanied two of Æthelstan's half-sisters to the [[Duchy of Saxony|Saxon court]] so that the future [[Holy Roman Emperor]], [[Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor|Otto]], could choose one of them as his wife. Cenwald went on to make a tour of German monasteries, giving lavish gifts on Æthelstan's behalf and receiving in return promises that the monks would pray for the king and others close to him in perpetuity. England and Saxony became closer after the marriage alliance, and German names start to appear in English documents, while Cenwald kept up the contacts he had made by subsequent correspondence, helping the transmission of continental ideas about reformed monasticism to England.{{Sfn|Foot|2011|pp=101–102}}