Kent Past
The History of Kent
Copyright Kent Past 2010
Saint Dunstan
Dunstan was born in Baltonsborough circa. 909-
She was in the church of St Mary on Candleday, when all the lights were suddenly
extinguished. Then the candle held by Cynethryth was as suddenly relighted, and all
present lit their candles at this miraculous flame, thus foreshadowing that the boy
'would be the minister of eternal light' to the Church of England.
The anonymous
author of the earliest 'Life' places Dunstan's birth during the reign of Athelstan,
while Osbern fixed it at the first year of the reign of King AEthelstan, 924 or 925.
This date, however, cannot be reconciled with other known dates of Dunstan's life
and creates many obvious anachronisms. Historians therefore assume that Dunstan was
born c. 910 or earlier.
As a young boy, Dunstan studied under the Irish monks who
then occupied the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey. Accounts tell of his youthful optimism
and of his vision of the abbey being restored. While still a boy, Dunstan was stricken
with a near-
Dunstan soon became a favourite of the king and was the envy of
other members of the court. A plot was hatched to disgrace him and Dunstan was accused
of being involved with witchcraft and black magic. The king ordered him to leave
the court and as Dunstan was leaving the palace his enemies physically attacked him,
beat him severely, bound him, and threw him into a cesspool. He managed to crawl
out and make his way to the house of a friend. From there, he journeyed to Winchester
and entered the service of his uncle, AElfheah, Bishop of Winchester.
The bishop tried
to persuade him to become a monk, but Dunstan was doubtful whether he had a vocation
to a celibate life. The answer came in the form of an attack of swelling tumours
all over Dunstan's body. This ailment was so severe that it was thought to be leprosy.
It was more probably some form of blood poisoning caused by being beaten and thrown
in the cesspool. Whatever the cause, it changed Dunstan's mind. He took Holy Orders
in 943, in the presence of Alfheah, and returned to live the life of a hermit at
Glastonbury. Against the old church of St Mary he built a small cell five feet long
and two and a half feet deep. It was there that Dunstan studied, worked at his handicrafts,
and played on his harp. It is at this time, according to a late 11th Century legend,
that the Devil is said to have tempted him, but St. Dunstan seized Satan's face with
his smith's tongs.
Dunstan worked as a silversmith and in the scriptorium while he
was living at Glastonbury. It is thought likely that he was the artist who drew the
well-
Again, royal
favour fostered jealousy among other courtiers and again Dunstan's enemies succeeded
in their plots. The king was prepared to send Dunstan away. There were then at Cheddar
certain envoys from the Eastern Kingdom, which probably meant East Anglia. Dunstan
implored the envoys to take him with them when they returned to their homes. They
agreed to do so, but it never happened. The story is recorded:
... the king rode out
to hunt the stag in Mendip Forest. He became separated from his attendants and followed
a stag at great speed in the direction of the Cheddar cliffs. The stag rushed blindly
over the precipice and was followed by the hounds. Eadmund endeavoured vainly to
stop his horse; then, seeing death to be imminent, he remembered his harsh treatment
of St Dunstan and promised to make amends if his life was spared. At that moment,
his horse was stopped on the very edge of the cliff. Giving thanks to God, he returned
forthwith to his palace, called for St. Dunstan and bade him follow, then rode straight
to Glastonbury. Entering the church, the king first knelt in prayer before the altar,
then, taking St. Dunstan by the hand, he gave him the kiss of peace, led him to the
abbot's throne and, seating him thereon, promised him all assistance in restoring
Divine worship and regular observance.
Dunstan, now Abbot of Glastonbury, went to
work at once on the task of reform. He had to re-
Dunstan's
first care was to rebuild the Church of St. Peter, rebuild the cloister, and re-
Within two years of Dunstan's appointment, in 946, King
Edmund was assassinated, and was succeeded by Eadred. The policy of the new government
was supported by the Queen Mother, Eadgifu of Kent, by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Oda, and by the East Anglian nobles, at whose head was the powerful ealdorman AEthelstan
the Half-
In 955,
Eadred died, and the situation was at once changed. Eadwig, the elder son of Edmund,
who then came to the throne, was a headstrong youth wholly devoted to the reactionary
nobles. According to one legend, the feud with Dunstan began on the day of Eadwig's
coronation, when he failed to attend a meeting of nobles. When Dunstan eventually
found the young monarch, he was cavorting with a noblewoman named Aelfgifu and her
mother, and refused to return with the bishop. Infuriated by this, Dunstan dragged
Eadwig back and forced him to renounce the girl as a strumpet. Later realizing that
he had provoked the king, Dunstan fled to the apparent sanctuary of his cloister,
but Eadwig, incited by AElfgifu, whom he married, followed him and plundered the
monastery.
Although St Dunstan managed to escape, he saw that his life was in danger.
He fled England and crossed the channel to Flanders, where he found himself ignorant
of the language and of the customs of the locals. The count of Flanders, Arnulf I,
received him with honour and lodged him in the Abbey of Mont Blandin, near Ghent.
This was one of the centres of the Benedictine revival in that country, and Dunstan
was able for the first time to observe the strict observance that had seen its rebirth
at Cluny at the beginning of the century. His exile was not of long duration. Before
the end of 957, the Mercians and Northumbrians revolted and drove out Eadwig, choosing
his brother Edgar as king of the country north of the Thames. The south remained
faithful to Eadwig. At once Edgar's advisers recalled Dunstan. On his return, the
archbishop consecrated Dunstan a bishop and, on the death of Coenwald of Worcester
at the end of 957, Oda appointed Dunstan to that see.
In the following year, the See
of London became vacant and was conferred on Dunstan, who held it in conjunction
with Worcester. In October 959, Eadwig died and his brother Edgar was readily accepted
as ruler of Wessex. One of Eadwig's final acts had been to appoint a successor to
Archbishop Oda, who died on 2 June 958. First, he appointed AElfsige of Winchester,
but he perished of cold in the Alps as he journeyed to Rome for the pallium. In his
place Eadwig nominated Byrhthelm, the Bishop of Wells. As soon as Edgar became king,
he reversed this act on the ground that Brithelm had not been able to govern even
his former diocese properly. The archbishopric was then conferred on Dunstan.
Dunstan
went to Rome in 960, and received the pallium from Pope John XII. On his journey
there, St Dunstan's charities were so lavish as to leave nothing for himself and
his attendants. His steward complained, but Dunstan seems to have suggested that
they trust in Jesus Christ.
On his return from Rome, Dunstan at once regained his
position as virtual prime minister of the kingdom. By his advice, AElfstan was appointed
to the Bishopric of London, with Oswald to that of Worcester. In 963, AEthelwold,
the Abbot of Abingdon, was appointed to the See of Winchester. With their aid and
with the ready support of King Edgar, Dunstan pushed forward his reforms in the English
Church. The monks in his communities were taught to live in a spirit of self-
In 973, Dunstan's statesmanship reached its zenith when
he officiated at the coronation of King Edgar. Edgar was crowned at Bath in an imperial
ceremony planned not as the initiation, but as the culmination of his reign (a move
that must have taken a great deal of preliminary diplomacy). This service devised
by St Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in the Anglo-
Edgar died two years after his coronation, and was
succeeded by his eldest son Edward (II) 'the Martyr'. His accession was disputed
by his stepmother, AElfthryth , who wished her own son AEthelred to reign. Through
the influence of Dunstan, Eadward was chosen and crowned at Winchester.
Edgar's death
had encouraged the reactionary nobles, and at once, there was a determined attack
upon the monks, the protagonists of reform. Throughout Mercia, they were persecuted
and deprived of their possessions. Their cause, however, was supported by AEthelwine,
the ealdorman of East Anglia, and the realm was in serious danger of civil war. Three
meetings of the Witan were held to settle these disputes, at Kyrtlington, at Calne,
and at Amesbury. At the second of them, the floor of the hall where the Witan was
sitting gave way, and all except Dunstan, who clung to a beam, fell into the room
below, several men were killed.
In March 978, King Eadweard was assassinated at Corfe
Castle, possibly at the instigation of his stepmother, and AEthelred the Unready
became king. His coronation on Low Sunday 31 March 978 was the last state event in
which Dunstan took part. When the young king took the usual oath to govern well,
Dunstan addressed him in solemn warning. He criticised the violent act whereby he
became king and prophesied the misfortunes that were shortly to fall on the kingdom,
but St Dunstan's influence at court was ended. Dunstan retired to Canterbury, to
teach at the cathedral school.
In 980, Dunstan joined AElfhere of Mercia in the solemn
translation of the relics of King Eadward II, soon to be known as St Edward the Martyr,
from their grave at Wareham to a shrine at Shaftesbury Abbey. In 984, in obedience
to a vision of St Andrew, he persuaded King AEthelred to appoint AElfheah as Bishop
of Winchester in succession to AEthelwold. In 986, Dunstan induced the king, by a
donation of 100 pounds of silver, to stop his persecution of the See of Rochester.
Dunstan's
retirement at Canterbury consisted of long hours, both day and night, spent in private
prayer, as well as his regular attendance at Mass and the daily office. He visited
the shrines of
The English people accepted him as a saint
shortly thereafter. He was formally canonised in 1029. That year at the Synod of
Winchester, St Dunstan's feast was ordered to be kept solemnly throughout England.
Until
The
monks of Glastonbury used to claim that during the sack of Canterbury by the Danes
in 1012, Dunstan's body had been carried for safety to their abbey. This story was
disproved by Archbishop William Warham, who opened the tomb at Canterbury in 1508.
They found St Dunstan's relics still to be there.
Within a century, his shrine was
destroyed during the English Reformation.
He functions as the patron saint of goldsmiths
and silversmiths, as he worked as a blacksmith, painter, and jeweller. His Feast
Day is 19 May, which is why the date year on hallmarks runs from 19 May to 18 May,
not the calendar year.
St Dunstan's -
English literature contains many references to
him, for example in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and in this folk rhyme:
St
Dunstan, as the story goes,
Once pull'd the devil by the nose
With red-
That he was heard three miles or more.
From this, the tongs have become
a symbol of St Dunstan and are featured in the arms of Tower Hamlets.
Another story
relates how Dunstan nailed a horseshoe to the Devil's hoof when he was asked to re-
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