Dunstan

Saint Dunstan was born in the early tenth century, by long convention about 909, at Baltonsborough in Somerset, in the West Saxon lands of England and within easy reach of the ancient church of Glastonbury. He belonged to a well-placed noble family: his father Heorstan was a West Saxon thegn and his mother Cynethryth was later remembered for her piety. Through his kin he was connected with leading churchmen, among them Athelm (Æthelhelm), who became Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ælfheah the Bald, Bishop of Winchester. As a boy he was educated at Glastonbury, then a church of clerks rather than a fully regular monastery, and received an unusually wide training in scripture, Latin letters, writing, painting, music, and metalwork. In youth he attended the court of King Æthelstan. There his learning, and his interest in books that jealous courtiers branded as suspect, led to an accusation of sorcery. He was driven from court and, according to his earliest biographer, thrown into a muddy pit before he made his way back to Glastonbury.

After illness and a spiritual crisis he took monastic vows and was ordained priest by Bishop Ælfheah of Winchester. He lived for a time as a hermit in a small cell beside the old church at Glastonbury, practising the crafts of the goldsmith and smith, copying manuscripts, and playing the harp. King Edmund I recalled him to royal service and, around 940, made him abbot of Glastonbury. As abbot Dunstan rebuilt the church, established a genuine Benedictine community under the Rule of Saint Benedict, and turned the house into a centre of learning and reform. Under Edmund’s brother King Eadred he became a principal royal counsellor and was entrusted with treasure and diplomatic business. The accession of the young King Eadwig in 955 reversed his fortunes. At the coronation feast, according to a famous and much-embroidered story, Dunstan brought the king back from the company of a noblewoman named Æthelgifu and her daughter; the resulting enmity led to confiscation of his property and exile. He spent about two years at the reformed Benedictine abbey of Saint Peter’s in Ghent, in Flanders, where he saw continental monastic custom at first hand.

In 957 the kingdom was divided and Edgar, Eadwig’s younger brother, became king north of the Thames; he recalled Dunstan and appointed him Bishop of Worcester. Dunstan later held the see of London as well, and after Eadwig’s death in 959 Edgar, now king of all the English, made him Archbishop of Canterbury. Dunstan went to Rome for the pallium from Pope John XII. As archbishop, working closely with Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester and Bishop Oswald of Worcester, he led the tenth-century monastic revival in England. Benedictine houses were founded or restored; in some places secular clerks were replaced by monks; and a customary known as the Regularis Concordia was drawn up so that English monasteries might share an observance influenced by Ghent, Cluny, and Fleury. Dunstan also sought to raise the moral and educational standard of the secular clergy, to encourage clerical celibacy, and to defend church lands. In 973 he officiated at the solemn coronation of Edgar at Bath, a rite that helped shape the later English coronation service. After Edgar’s death in 975 he supported the succession of Edward (later called the Martyr). Following Edward’s murder in 978 he crowned Æthelred. Thereafter his influence at court waned, and he spent his remaining years chiefly at Canterbury.

In old age Dunstan gave himself to the liturgical and pastoral life of his cathedral, to teaching the young, and again to handicraft—correcting manuscripts, making bells, and working as a smith. He died at Canterbury on 19 May 988 and was buried in the cathedral church. Miracles were reported at his tomb almost at once, and his cult spread rapidly through England. By the early eleventh century his feast on 19 May was being observed nationally, and a synod in the time of King Cnut, often dated to 1029, confirmed that observance. He remained one of the best-loved English saints until the cult of Thomas Becket partly overshadowed him at Canterbury. Later legend turned his skill as a craftsman into the tale that he seized the Devil by the nose with red-hot tongs when the fiend came to tempt him at the forge, an image that made him the natural patron of goldsmiths, blacksmiths, locksmiths, silversmiths, armourers, jewellers, and musicians. He lived as a Benedictine monk and bishop, was never married, and had no children. He was neither pope nor Eastern patriarch.