King Edgar ruled England for a short but significant period in the middle of the tenth century. Two of his four children succeeded him as king and two were to become canonized. He was known to later generations as "the Pacific" or "the Peaceable" because his reign was free from external attack and without internal dissention, and he presided over a period of major social and economic change: early in his rule the growth of monastic power and wealth involved redistribution of much of the country's assets, while the end of his reign saw the creation of England's first national coinage, with...

King Edgar ruled England for a short but significant period in the middle of the tenth century. Two of his four children succeeded him as king and two were to become canonized. He was known to later generations as -the Pacific- or -the Peaceable- because his reign was free from external attack and without internal dissention, and he presided over a period of major social and economic change: early in his rule the growth of monastic power and wealth involved redistribution of much of the country's assets, while the end of his reign saw the creation of England's first national coinage, with...