He is chiefly notable for his aggressive introduction of new ecclesiastical practices, unwelcome to his Anglo-Saxon monks, and for its terrible consequences.
He was returned to Normandy in disgrace, but is in later years found at the English royal court where he continued as Glastonbury's abbot in absentia.
A clean sweep of English monasteries began in which Anglo-Saxon abbots were gradually replaced by monks from the Norman abbeys.
Under the patronage of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, William the Conqueror's half-brother, he was sent to study at Liège,[5] and became a monk of the Abbey of Saint-Étienne, Caen.
Æthelnoth was, according to later Glastonbury tradition, notable for his squandering of the monastery's property,[7] but it remained the richest of English abbeys.
[9][10] The monks of Glastonbury Abbey in the 11th century were of a somewhat conservative tendency, while Thurstan had more of the temperament of a conquering baron than of a churchman.
[21] He apparently did not return to Glastonbury, where he was still officially abbot, but charter evidence shows him to have been with the royal court at various dates up to 1096.