With his uncle's death, Oswald needed a patron and turned to another kinsman, Oskytel, who had recently become Archbishop of York.

His activity for Oskytel attracted the notice of Archbishop Dunstan who had Oswald consecrated as Bishop of Worcester in 961.

[4] The influence of Fleury was to be evident later in Oswald's life, when it was one of the inspirations for the Regularis Concordia, the English code of monastic conduct agreed to in 970.

[8] Soon after his consecration, he persuaded Germanus to come back to England and made him head of a small religious community near Westbury-on-Trym.

[4] After the establishment of this group about 962, Oswald grew worried that because the monastery was located on lands owned by the see of Worcester, his successors in the see might disrupt the community.

He was offered the site of Ramsey Abbey in Huntingdonshire by Æthelwine, son of Æthelstan Half-King, and Oswald established a monastery there about 971 that attracted most of the members of the community at Westbury.

Aided by King Edgar, he took a prominent part in the revival of monastic discipline along the precepts of the Rule of Saint Benedict.

[14] It was Oswald who changed the cathedral chapter of Worcester from priests to monks,[15] although the exact method that he employed is unclear.

[10] Another tradition claims that, instead, Oswald expelled any of the clergy in the cathedral that would not give up their wives and replaced them with monks immediately.

[6] In 972 Oswald was made Archbishop of York[8] and journeyed to Rome to receive a pallium from Pope John XIII.

[17] Ramsey, however, was not disturbed, probably due to the patronage of Æthelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia, son of Æthelstan Half-King.

[19] A surviving manuscript gives a list compiled by Oswald, setting forth estates that had been taken from the diocese of York.