 Blair describes the basic aim of the movement, both in England and on the Continent, as being "to establish and disseminate high liturgical, spiritual and pastoral standards". On the Continent, cathedral chapters were staffed by secular canons, and only monasteries had monks. Æthelwold rejected this distinction; his expulsion of clerics in favour of monks from Winchester Cathedral (the Old Minster) as well as the New Minster introduced a unique feature to the English reform. Dunstan and Oswald hesitated to follow his example, probably because unlike Æthelwold they had lived abroad and understood continental practice, and also because they preferred a gradualist approach to Æthelwold's confrontational strategy. Oswald installed monks at Worcester Cathedral, but he built a new church for them and retained the clerics, who were educated with the monks in the same classroom. Canterbury did not become fully monastic until after Dunstan's death. Æthelwold was a historian who was reviving what he believed to be the practice of the past, particularly Pope Gregory the Great's injunction to Augustine in the Libellus Responsionum, as reported by Bede, that Augustine should continue as a bishop to live the life of a monk. Blair argues that large religious institutions could not function without priests carrying out parochial duties, and he comments that "Æthelwold's rejection of all forms of religious life but the monastic was decidedly odd. The lurid stigmatizations of clerics as foul, lazy, and lascivious come mainly from his circle." Although the Rule of Saint Benedict barred monks from engaging in external ministry, English Benedictines were actively engaged in pastoral work and teaching the secular clergy.
