Editing Eadred (section)

=== Religion ===
[[File:Bodleian Libraries, St Dunstan's Classbook, Homily on the Invention of the Cross, Liber Commonei, Ars Amatoria 1r trimmed.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Portrait of Dunstan kneeling before Christ, probably by Dunstan himself{{sfn|Dodwell|1982|pp=53–54}}]]

The major religious movement of the tenth century, the [[English Benedictine Reform]], reached its peak under Edgar, but Eadred was a strong supporter in its early stages.{{sfnm|1a1=Blair|1y=2005|1p=347|2a1=Williams|2y=1991|2p=113}} Another proponent was Archbishop Oda, who was a monk with a strong connection with the leading Continental centre, [[Fleury Abbey]]. When Eadred came to the throne, two of the future leaders of the movement were at [[Glastonbury Abbey]]: Dunstan had been appointed abbot by Edmund, and he had been joined by [[Æthelwold of Winchester|Æthelwold]], the future [[Bishop of Winchester]]. The reformers also had lay supporters such as Æthelstan Half-King and Eadgifu, who were especially close to Dunstan.{{sfnm|1a1=Williams|1y=2004a|2a1=Williams|2y=2004b|3a1=Brooks|3y=1992|3p=12}} The historian [[Nicholas Brooks (historian)|Nicholas Brooks]] comments: "The evidence is indirect and inadequate but may suggest that Dunstan drew much of his support from the regiment of powerful women in early tenth-century Wessex and from Eadgifu in particular." According to Dunstan's first biographer, Eadred urged Dunstan to accept the vacant see of Crediton, and when he refused Eadred got Eadgifu to invite Dunstan to a meal where she could use her "woman's gift of words" to persuade him, but her attempt was unsuccessful.{{sfnm|1a1=Brooks|1y=1992|1p=12|2a1=Winterbottom|2a2=Lapidge|2y=2011|2p=63}} 

During Eadred's reign, Æthelwold asked for permission to go abroad to gain a deeper understanding of the scriptures and a monk's religious life, no doubt at a reformed monastery such as Fleury.{{sfnm|1a1=Lapidge|1a2=Winterbottom|1y=1991|1pp=xliii, 19|2a1=Yorke|2y=2004}} He may have thought that the discipline at Glastonbury was too lax.{{sfn|Williams|2004a}} Eadred refused his mother's advice that he should not allow such a wise man to leave his kingdom, instead appointing him as [[abbot of Abingdon]], which was then served by [[secular priest]]s and which Æthelwold transformed into a leading Benedictine abbey. Eadred supported the community, including granting it a 100 [[Hide (unit)|hide]] royal estate at Abingdon, and Eadgifu was an even more generous donor.{{sfnm|1a1=Yorke|1y=2004|2a1=Lapidge|2a2=Winterbottom|2y=1991|2pp=19–21|3a1=Thacker|3y=1988|3p=43}} Eadred travelled to Abingdon to plan the monastery there and personally measured the foundations where he proposed to raise the walls. Æthelwold then invited him to dine and he accepted. The king ordered that the mead should flow plentifully and the doors were locked so that none would be seen leaving the royal dinner. Some Northumbrian thegns accompanying the king got drunk, as was their custom, and were very merry when they left. However, Eadred died before the work could be carried out, and the building was not constructed until Edgar came to the throne.{{sfnm|1a1=Thacker|1y=1988|1pp=56–57|2a1=Whitelock|2y=1979|2p=906|3a1=Lapidge|3a2=Winterbottom|3y=1991|3pp=23–25}} 

Supporters of monastic reform were devoted to cults of saints and their relics. When Eadred burnt down Ripon Minster during his invasion of Northumbria, Oda had the relics of [[Saint Wilfrid]], and Ripon's copy of the ''[[Vita Sancti Wilfrithi]]'' by [[Eddius]] (Stephen of Ripon), seized and brought to Canterbury. The ''Vita'' provided the basis for a new [[Metre (poetry)|metrical]] life of Wilfrid (''Breuiloquium Vitae Wilfridi'') by [[Frithegod]], a [[Francia|Frankish]] scholar in Oda's household, and a preface in Oda's name (although probably drafted by Frithegod) justified the theft by accusing Ripon of scandalous neglect of Wilfrid's relics.{{sfnm|1a1=Cubitt|1a2=Costambeys|1y=2004|2a1=Thacker|2y=1992|2p=235}} [[Michael Lapidge]] sees the destruction of the minster as providing the pretext for "a notorious ''furtum sacrum''" (sacred theft).{{sfn|Lapidge|1993|p=157}} Wilfrid had been an assertively independent northern bishop and in the historian [[David Rollason]]'s view the theft may have been intended to prevent the relics from becoming a focus for opposition to the West Saxon dynasty.{{sfn|Rollason|1989|pp=152–153}} Kings were also avid collectors of relics, which demonstrated their piety and increased their prestige, and Eadred left bequests in his will to priests he had appointed to look after his own relics.{{sfn|Rollason|1986|pp=91–92}} 

Under Edgar, the view of Æthelwold and his circle that [[Benedictines|Benedictine monasticism]] was the only worthwhile form of religious life became dominant, but this was not the view of earlier kings such as Eadred.{{sfn|Blair|2005|pp=348–349}} In 951 he appointed [[Ælfsige]], a married man with a son, as bishop of Winchester.{{sfn|Williams |2004b}} Ælfsige was not a reformer and was later remembered as hostile to the cause.{{sfn|Marafioti|2014|p=69}} Eadred's reign saw a continuation of a trend away from ecclesiastical beneficiaries of charters. More than two-thirds of beneficiaries in Æthelstan's reign were ecclesiastics and two-thirds were laymen in Edmund's. Under Eadred and Eadwig, three-quarters were laymen.{{sfn|Stafford|1989|p=37}}

In the mid-tenth century, some religious noblewomen received grants of land without being members of communities of nuns.{{sfn|Brooks1992|p=7 and n. 24}} Æthelstan granted two estates, Edmund seven and Eadred four. After this the practice ceased abruptly, apart from one further donation. The significance of the donations is uncertain, but the most likely explanation is that some aristocratic women were granted the estates so that they could pursue a religious vocation in their own way, whether by establishing a nunnery or living a religious life in their own homes.{{sfn|Dumville|1992|pp=177–178}} In 953, Eadred granted land in Sussex to his mother, and she is described in the charter as ''famula Dei'', which probably means that she adopted a religious life while retaining her own estates, and did not enter a monastery.{{sfn|Foot|2000|pp=141, 181–182|ps=; {{cite web |url=https://esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk/charter/562.html |title=S 562}} }}