ndowning communities, regain
once more their old position as centres of culture and learning. During
his own time his efforts were successful, and even after his death the
movement which he had begun continued in this direction to make itself
felt, though in a feebler and less intelligent form.

[2] It is impossible to avoid noticing the increased
importance of semi-Celtic Britain under Dunstan's
administration. He was himself at first an abbot of the old
West Welsh monastery of Glastonbury: he promoted West
countrymen to the principal posts in the kingdom: and he had
Eadgar hallowed king at the ancient West Welsh royal city of
Bath, married to a Devonshire lady, and buried at
Glastonbury. Indeed, that monastery was under Dunstan what
Westminster was under the later kings. Florence uses the
strange expression that Eadgar was chosen "by the
Anglo-Britons:" and the meeting with the Welsh and Scotch
princes in the semi-Welsh town of Chester conveys a like
implication.

One act of Dunstan's policy, however, had far-reaching results, of a
kind which he himself could never have anticipated. He handed over all
Northumbria beyond the Tweed--the region now known as the Lothians--as a
fief to Kenneth, king of Scots. This accession of territory wholly
changed the character of the Scottish kingdom, and largely promoted the
Teutonisation of the Celtic North. The Scottish princes now took up
their residence in the English town of Edinburgh, and learned to speak
the English language as their mother-tongue. Already Eadmund had made
over Strathclyde or Cumberland to Malcolm; and thus the dominions of the
Scottish kings extended over the whole of the country now known as
Scotland, save only the Scandinavian jarldoms of Caithness, Sutherland,
and the Isles. Strathclyde rapidly adopted the tongue of its masters,
and grew as English in language (though not in blood) as the Lothians
themselves. Fife, in turn, was quickly Anglicised, as was also the whole
region south of the Highland line. Thus a new and powerful kingdom arose
in the North; and at the same time the cession of an English district to
the Scottish kings had the curious result of thoroughly Anglicising two
large and important Celtic regions, which had hitherto resisted every
effort of the Northumbrian or West Saxon over-lords. There is no reason
to believe, however, that this introduction of the English tongue and
En