Internally, Dunstan revived the declining spirit of monasticism, which had died down during the long struggle with the Danes, and attempted to reintroduce some tinge of southern civilisation into the barbarised and half-paganised country in which he lived.

Wherever it was possible, he "drove out the priests, and set monks," and he endeavoured to make the monasteries, which had degenerated during the long war into mere landowning 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.