Id to have been either founded or restored by Edgar. Bishop Ethelwold
was entirely of one mind with the King and Archbishop, in the
ecclesiastical reforms of the day. Mr Poole well describes the
commencement of the work. "At Medeshamstede the ruins were made to their
hands, and they at once commenced the grateful task of their restoration
and appropriation. As usual, we find certain supernatural interferences
assigned as indications of the divine approval of the work. It is
related how Ethelwold was directed by God, in a dream, to go to the
monastery of S. Peter, among the Mid-English; how he halted first at
Oundle, supposing that to be the monastery intended; but being warned in
a dream to continue his eastward course, at length discovered the ashes
of the desolated Medeshamstede. It needs but little ingenuity to collect
from this that Ethelwold, having received some vague intelligence of the
present condition both of Oundle and Medeshamstede, started from
Winchester, determined on reaching either or both; and that being less
pleased with what he saw at Oundle than he expected, he extended his pro