86 



of the " Most Blessed Samson" himself, who was was formerly 

 Archbishop of Dol.* 



This at Milton is not the only example of Athelstan's muni- 

 ficence to monasteries among his Damnonian subjects. In like 

 manner he endowed and enlarged those at St. Burien and 

 Bodmin. He appointed the native Conan as Bishop of Corn- 

 wall; and was a benefactor to the monasteries at Exeter, at 

 Axminster, and others in this Celtic district ; for so, no doubt, to 

 a great extent it still was. Thus, in accordance with his 

 imperial maxim, " Grloriosius regem facere quarn regem esse," 

 he abandoned the long-continued fruitless endeavour to exter- 

 minate, and, contenting himself with reserving the submission of 

 their rulers and the exaction of tribute, tolerated within certain 

 frontiers their self-government, and promoted their institutions. It 

 was qualified by this policy of conciliation that, as actually recorded, 

 he appointed the Wye as the boundary of the Cambrian Welsh, and 

 the Tamar as that of the Welsh of Damnonia : that is, of those 

 of them who chose to continue under their own national institu- 

 tions. But, although these two are historically mentioned, as 

 being among the most prominent examples ; there is reason to 

 believe that many smaller outlying Celtic communities, that he 

 found in a state of concentration, mostly perhaps in hilly dis- 

 tricts, were treated by him in like manner. 



The recorded, and similarly confirmed, case of Exeter : that 

 Athelstan actually found a separate Welsh community, living on 

 equal terms side by side with a Saxon one, within the walls ; 

 is a testimony, that, in spite of all endeavours of his prede- 

 cessors to suppress it, such a social state existed down to his 

 time. But his having expelled and driven them beyond the 

 Tamar, although an exception to his magnanimous policy, is not 

 a contradiction of it. We are not without examples in our own 

 times of disorders arising from the existence, within the walls 

 of towns or cities, of two nationalities or even of two religions ; 

 but this expulsion would not have been so easy with a more open 

 concentration ; nor so necessary where the two peoples were not 

 * Will. Malmeeb. de Gestis Pontt., Lib. n. 85. 



