The Death of St Dunstan

St Dunstan (BL Stowe 12, f.248v)

St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, died on 19 May 988. He was one of Anglo-Saxon England's greatest saints, a hugely dynamic and at times controversial figure who loomed very large over the English church in his lifetime and in the centuries after his death. One mark of his importance is the wealth of hagiographical material about him, which tells memorable stories about his forthright interactions with kings, his encounters with the devil, his learning and teaching, his talents at music and metal-working, the accusations that he was involved in black magic - all kinds of unforgettable things. I wrote about some of these stories here and here, and at some length about the most famous story, Dunstan nipping the devil by the nose, here.

Dunstan and the devil (BL Add. MS 42130, f. 54v)

There are two peaks in the production of hagiographical writing about St Dunstan: the years immediately following his death (which saw the writing of the earliest Life and this hymn to Dunstan, among other things) and the decades after the Norman Conquest. The latter period is my particular interest. In the forty years between c.1090 and c.1130, three Lives of Dunstan were written: by the monk Osbern, precentor of Christ Church, Canterbury and hagiographer of St Alphege, by his younger and more prolific successor Eadmer, and by William of Malmesbury. They differ in subtle and interesting ways, although Osbern's - the first of the three and the most inventive - is always a bit underrated compared to the other two. (It hasn't even been properly edited, since 'inventive' is not exactly what most modern historians look for in a saint's life...)

This is Eadmer's account of the final days of Dunstan's life, which were spent at Canterbury in 988. As the beginning of his life was heralded by a miraculous sign at Candlemas, the end was marked by one on Ascension Day, when he had a vision which revealed he was about to die.

And so the festive day began to break on which the Lord, the Son of God, our God, victoriously ascended to heaven after conquering death, and Dunstan, having finished the night Office, was alone in the church of our Saviour at Canterbury and was fixed in total concentration on Christ as he reflected upon such a joyous event. While he was doing this he looked up and, behold, a countless multitude of men in white, wearing golden crowns upon their heads and gleaming with unimaginable brightness, burst in through the doors of the church and stood gathered together in a group all around Dunstan and with one voice they rendered words of greeting to him in this way: 'Greetings, beloved Dunstan, greetings. The Son of God, whom you piously desire, orders, if you are prepared, that you should come with us and celebrate this day, whose joys you yearn for with undivided love, thankfully and joyously in his court.' Dunstan was not at all disturbed by their faces and voices, and asked who they might be. 'We are the Cherubim and Seraphim,' they said, 'and we would like to know how you wish to respond to these things.' Then Dunstan, in a devout state of heart and mind, and rendering due thanks for such great favour with suppliant voice, said: 'You know, O holy and blessed spirits, what honour, what hope, what joy occurred on this day for the human race th[r]ough the ascension of Jesus Christ, Lord and God of everyone. You know, nonetheless, that it is my duty on this day to refresh the sheep of that same Lord of mine, who have been entrusted to me, with the bread of eternal life and to tell them by what path they ought to follow him, where he has gone before. Moreover, many people have assembled on this account and I must not let them down in such an important matter. For this reason I cannot come today to where you have invited me.' They replied: 'Well then, ensure that on the sabbath you are ready to travel with us from here to Rome and to sing 'Holy, holy, holy' forever before the supreme pontiff. He agreed with what they had proposed”, and they vanished from his sight.

Eadmer of Canterbury, Lives and Miracles of Saints Oda, Dunstan and Oswald, ed. and trans. Andrew J. Turner and Bernard J. Muir (Oxford, 2006), p.151.

In case you're wondering how anyone knew of this private vision: it was witnessed by one Ælfgar, at that time a priest in the church of Canterbury. Eadmer says on that Ascension Day Dunstan preached 'as he had never preached before', three times in one Mass, his face resplendent with such radiance that there was no one in the congregation able to look directly at him. His final promise to the people was that though he might be absent from them in body, his spiritual presence would never leave them. He died the following Saturday, and was buried in the place he had chosen for his tomb: "namely," says Eadmer, "in the place where the divine office used to be celebrated daily by the brothers, which was in front of the steps by which you ascend to the altar of Christ the Lord". This refers to the layout of the Saxon cathedral, which burned down when Eadmer was a child, but which he vividly remembered.

In the later medieval cathedral, the site of Dunstan's tomb was on the right of this picture

The central place of Dunstan's tomb at the heart of the church was important to Eadmer:

I do not doubt that he made this arrangement from a sense of great love. For this most kindly father wished even in bodily death to be constantly present there in the midst of the sons whom he truly loved and was leaving behind him in this troubled world, so that they would be able to declare confidently in his presence whatever they wanted, as if he were alive, and not doubting that his spirit would always be with them, in keeping with the promise he had made them. And indeed I may say this, from what I know happened since that time and from what I see still being done today around his most sacred body by monks of this church. For those who desire solace in their needs, whether of body or soul, hasten there every day and plead for assistance as if from a most blessed father living among them physically... Therefore it should not be doubted that Dunstan knew these things before his death and so promised that he would be amongst his people in spirit, and for these reasons and being full of love he desired all the more for his body to be placed in their midst.

After Dunstan's death his monks sorely needed his fatherly care, as Eadmer goes to explain:

Furthermore, it is clear enough from the chronicles and from our own tribulations without my saying anything what misery has enveloped all of England since his death, and by enveloping it has ruined it. Wherefore I do not see why I should write anything about it since those events are so clearly evident without a single word being written that there is no one could not see the real misery there. I do not know what the outcome of these things might be or when it will occur, but I have no doubt at all that everything which he has done, God has done in true judgement of us because we have sinned against him and not obeyed his commandments. Wherefore, since I do not have the physical strength and have no one to advise me, I do not know what might be said or done, except that God, who has ground us down, should be begged with humble heart that he give glory to his own name and deal with us according to the bounty of his mercy and the merits and intercession of our most blessed father, Dunstan, who predicted these things would happen, and that he deliver us according to his wondrous works. O good Lord and loving omnipotent God, whether you do this at some stage because of your bountiful mercy or do not do it on account of your inscrutable justice, may your name be blessed forever, O God of Israel. Amen.

Eadmer, Lives and Miracles of Saints Oda, Dunstan and Oswald, trans. Turner and Muir, pp.157-9.

This was probably written in the first decade of the twelfth century, some 120 years after Dunstan's death. In that period, England and Canterbury had seen many troubles: England had been conquered twice, by Danes and Normans; Canterbury had suffered a Viking siege, town riots, and a disastrous fire, in which the cathedral and monastery had suffered badly; one of Dunstan's successors as archbishop had been brutally murdered, and two others had been humiliatingly deposed. It was believed at Canterbury that Dunstan had foreseen all these disasters, and prophesied that his death would be the beginning of the end for England, as Eadmer discusses elsewhere. Eadmer may have written this while he was in exile with St Anselm, and the tone is so desolate it's hard not to feel for him. 'Since I do not have the physical strength and have no one to advise me'! Oh, Eadmer, I know the feeling.

His account of Dunstan's last days and death makes much of the promise of Dunstan's continuing, comforting physical presence within the church at Canterbury - quite conventional in hagiography, of course, but poignant in the light of this anguished conclusion. The numerous miracle-stories about St Dunstan recorded by Osbern and Eadmer from the years after the Norman Conquest suggest that it was Dunstan, more than any other saint, to whom the English monks of Canterbury appealed for help in the difficult years after 1066 - his memory which they clung to as an talisman, representing all the Anglo-Saxon church had been and was no longer. In 1067, after fire had destroyed the cathedral (a disaster prophesied by apparitions of Dunstan's ghost) the monks prayed amid the ruins at Dunstan's tomb. When Archbishop Stigand was deposed and Lanfranc appointed, the relics of St Dunstan were removed from the place described by Eadmer, and apparently put in a storage room while the cathedral was rebuilt, in a place where the monks could not access them. No disrespect was necessarily intended, but it was a sore point with Eadmer, and the memory of that time might underlie his emphasis here. His Miracles of St Dunstan (adapted from Osbern's) tells of a hauntingly sad incident from c.1075 in which a young English monk named Æthelweard, while serving at mass in the cathedral, was suddenly seized by a bout of violent insanity in full view of the horrified monks. Although he briefly recovered, the next night at Compline he disrupted the service and assaulted the prior, an appointee of Lanfranc's. Later, in the dead of night, he burst out with terrible screams, attacking his brothers with accusations of the secret sins they were concealing, which had been revealed to him by the devil said to be possessing him. We're told the devil spoke in French, a language Æthelweard did not know. In the chaos Lanfranc and the prior were unable to find a cure, and it was only when an elderly English monk (the Ælfwine named in this story) secretly sought the intervention of St Dunstan that poor Æthelweard could be healed.

So perhaps this kind of incident too explains Eadmer's focus on the comfort and support of Dunstan's physical presence. I wonder if it's relevant that he clearly knew that in 988 the date of Dunstan's death (as this year) fell between Ascension Day and Pentecost, a time when the church is thinking about absence and presence, loss and consolation, Christ's physical departure compensated for by the sending of 'the spirit of comfort'. In the emphasis on Dunstan's fatherly presence in the midst of his sons, you might be reminded of a scriptural verse used in the liturgy of both the Ascension and Pentecost: Christ's promise, 'I will not leave you orphans'. The spirit of comfort, the Paraclete, is called in Old English frofre gast (or the related frefriend 'the one who offers frofre'), and in Old English poetry and prose the alliterating words fæder and frofre ('father' and 'comfort') often appear together, used for God and for such spiritual fathers as Archbishop Lanfranc (in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry which records his death). Typical is a line from an Old English poem on the Ascension: Habbað we us to frofre fæder on roderum 'We have as a comfort to us a Father in the heavens'. Perhaps this association, of fatherly comfort and the Ascension/Pentecost loss and gain, was in the back of Eadmer's mind. If he had been writing in English, rather than Latin, he might have called Dunstan, like Lanfranc, muneca feder 7 frouer, 'comfort and father of monks'.

Readings for St Dunstan's Day, from a Canterbury manuscript (BL Cotton MS Nero C VII, f.73v)

'Sending forth his soul into the hands of the Creator, he slept in peace'

St Anselm's chapel, Canterbury Cathedral

This is an eyewitness account of the death of St Anselm on 21 April 1109, as described by the Canterbury monk Eadmer, Anselm's faithful follower in life, who was with him to the end (from Vita Sancti Anselmi, trans. R. W. Southern (Oxford, 1972), pp. 141-3):

Palm Sunday dawned and we were sitting beside him as usual. One of us therefore said to him: 'My lord and father, we cannot help knowing that you are going to leave the world to be at the Easter court of your Lord.'

He replied: 'And indeed if his will is set on this, I shall gladly obey his will. However, if he would prefer me to remain among you, at least until I can settle a question about the origin of the soul, which I am turning over in my mind, I should welcome this with gratitude, for I do not know whether anyone will solve it when I am dead. Truly I think I might recover if I could eat something, for I feel no pain in any part of my body, except that I am altogether enfeebled by the weakness of my stomach which refuses food.'

Then, on the Tuesday evening, when he could no longer speak words which could be understood, he was asked by Ralph, bishop of Rochester, to give his absolution and blessing to those of us who were present and to his other sons, and to the king and queen and their children, and to the people of the land who lived under his authority subject to God. He raised his right hand as if nothing was wrong with him, and, after making the sign of the holy Cross, he sat with his head bent down.

Now, when the community of the brethren was singing lauds in the morning in the main church, one of us who were with him took the copy of the Gospels and read to him the account of the Passion which was appointed to be read at Mass on that day. And when he came to the words of the Lord 'Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations; and I appoint you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom,' he began to draw his breath more slowly than usual. We felt therefore that he was now on the point of death, and he was lifted from his bed onto sackcloth and ashes. The whole congregation of his sons gathered round him and, sending forth his soul into the hands of the Creator, he slept in peace. And so he passed away as dawn was breaking on the Wednesday before the institution of the Lord's Supper, on 21 April in the year of our Lord's Incarnation 1109, which was the sixteenth year of his pontificate, and the seventy-sixth of his life.

Eadmer believed that Anselm's death had been miraculously foretold by St Dunstan:

There was a certain monk of the church of Canterbury, Elias by name, an upright man endowed with a simple innocency of life. To him there appeared a vision one night almost three months before the death of Father Anselm. He thought that he was standing alone in the church praying as God gave him utterance. While he was thus occupied he looked up, and behold Father Anselm was prostrate in prayer before the tomb of St Dunstan. He saw that, while Anselm was praying, the lid of the tomb began to move so that it was gradually withdrawn from its place. Anselm was disturbed by this movement and, rising from his prayers, he saw St Dunstan raising himself gradually in his tomb as if to sit up; but he was hindered by the lid of the tomb which had not yet withdrawn sufficiently to leave him room for sitting. Anselm tried with all his might to move the weight, but without success. He therefore beckoned to the aforesaid brother, who stood at a distance, to approach and to help him to achieve what he was unable to effect alone. He approached and together they succeeded in doing what one had been unable to do.

The obstacle being thus removed, the most holy Father raised himself and sitting up he turned to Anselm and said 'My dearest friend; know that I have heard your prayers.' And stretching out his right hand he offered him a gold ring, saying 'Take this as a sign that I have spoken the truth to you.' But when Anselm put out his hand to receive the ring, St Dunstan drew back his hand and said, 'You will not have the ring this time, but I shall keep it and on the fourth day before Easter you will receive it from the hand of the Lord.'

The brother described this vision to me next day in conversation, but I — being more eager that my Father and lord should live than that he should die — tried at that time to interpret it in a way different from what later fell out. But when it came to the day, it was then clear what the vision had foretold, for as dawn broke on that day the Father was taken from this life and received the glory of a heavenly reward, as another vision which I shall describe made clear.

At that same hour when he was to take leave of this life, a certain monk of the neighbouring abbey of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and St Augustine, who was anxious about the Father's death, was suddenly overcome with sleep as often happens when we are weary with anxiety. As he slept it seemed to him that he stood near to Anselm in the room where he lay dying, and the room was filled with a host of people most wonderfully and beautifully arrayed in white apparel and seeming to await the arrival of someone who was swiftly to come to them. The company was under the authority and direction of a bishop of outstanding splendour dressed in full pontifical robes, and all awaited his signal. He appeared to go in and out, exhorting those who were outside to watch without fainting. And when Anselm was on the point of death, he went out in haste and said, 'Behold he whom you await is at hand. Receive him, and lead him where the Lord has ordained, with the voice of joy and praise.' While this was taking place, the brother was roused from sleep and knew that father Anselm had exchanged this present for eternal life. It was perfectly clear from his appearance and bearing that the bishop presiding over the others was St Dunstan, who with full honour and glory gave Anselm the ring, which had been promised as we have described.

Vita Sancti Anselmi, trans. Southern, pp. 154-6.

A Candlemas Miracle: 'a light to lighten the English'

BL Additional 49598, f. 34v

A few years ago I posted an Old English sermon for Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, celebrated on February 2. In that sermon, Ælfric describes the practice of blessing candles and carrying them in procession on this day:

Wite gehwa eac þæt geset is on cyrclicum þeawum, þæt we sceolon on ðisum dæge beran ure leoht to cyrcan, and lætan hi ðær bletsian: and we sceolon gan siððan mid þam leohte betwux Godes husum, and singan ðone lofsang ðe þærto geset is. Þeah ðe sume men singan ne cunnon, hi beron þeah-hwæðere þæt leoht on heora handum; forðy on ðissum dæge wæs þæt soðe Leoht Crist geboren to þam temple, seðe us alysde fram þystrum, and us gebrincð to þam ecan leohte, seðe leofað and rixað a butan ende.

'Be it known also to everyone that it is appointed in the custom of the church that on this day we should carry our lights to church, and let them be blessed there: and that we should go afterwards with that light among the houses of God, and sing the hymn which is appointed for that. Though some people cannot sing, they can nevertheless bear the light in their hands; for on this day was the true Light, Christ, borne to the temple, who redeemed us from darkness and will bring us to that eternal light, who lives and rules for ever without end.'

The Benedictional of St Æthelwold, made for the Bishop of Winchester in the second half of the tenth century, contains a text for the blessing of candles (as well as the image of the Presentation at the top of this post):

BL Additional 49598, f. 33

The feast, and the custom, are associated with a story told about one of Anglo-Saxon England's foremost saints - and Æthelwold's close friend - St Dunstan, whose future holiness was said to have been revealed by a prenatal miracle on Candlemas Day in Glastonbury, c.910. The miracle is first mentioned in a series of lections composed for the feast of St Dunstan between 1006 and 1012, but this is the story as told more fully by Osbern of Canterbury in the first post-Conquest Life of Dunstan (freely translated and abridged).

While Dunstan's mother was pregnant with her holy unborn child, the feast of the Purification of the blessed ever-virgin Mary shone forth. People from all the surrounding area flocked to the church dedicated to the Virgin in Glastonbury, to render the service of devotion at this great festival to Christ, the King of Kings. The boy's father Heorstan went with his wife, Cynethryth, to be present with their lighted candles at the Mass. During the service, it began to be read how the child Jesus was brought by his parents to the temple. And suddenly the glory of the Lord appeared in the temple: all the lights were extinguished, and the whole building was plunged into darkness by a thick mist. A cold fear crept through the congregation, their hair stood on end, their knees knocked together; they stood paralysed and stupefied by fear. But - so that all that the Lord intended should be made clear - suddenly a light from heaven blazed forth in the temple, and lit the candle which the pregnant woman bore in her hand. If they had marvelled at the loss of light, now they marvelled still more at its appearance!

Prenatal miracles, in which the holiness of a child is made known to its pregnant mother, are very common in hagiography, but the liturgical context of this miracle makes it particularly apt: this is a miniature Anglo-Saxon version of the presentation in the temple, a greater light kindling a less. The mother bears her child to the church, with her offering; the glory of God is revealed in the sight of the people ('in the midst of thy temple', as the Introit for Candlemas says), and the future of the holy baby is prophetically revealed. As Osbern explains:

And so we have a new John born of a new Elizabeth, we have a Jeremiah of our own time; both were declared to be holy in their mother's womb, one by God, the other by an angel of God. On the day when the Son of God was presented in the temple by his Virgin Mother, truly this child of God was carried to the temple in his mother's womb. 'A light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of Israel,' St Simeon joyfully proclaimed; and Christ, who is the true light, revealed that a light had risen to lighten the land of the English.

The opening of Osbern's Life of Dunstan (BL Arundel 16, f. 2)

A final note on Anglo-Saxon Candlemas. This is how the Old English Menologium describes the feast:

And þæs embe ane niht
þæt we Marian mæssan healdað,
cyninges modor, forþan heo Crist on þam dæge,
bearn wealdendes, brohte to temple.
Ðænne þæs emb fif niht þæt afered byð
winter of wicum.

And then after one night
we keep the feast of Mary,
mother of the King, because on that day Christ,
the Ruler's child, she brought to the temple.
Then after five nights winter is
carried out of the camps.

According to Anglo-Saxon calendars (as you may remember from this post in November), winter runs from 7 November to 6 February, which means that Candlemas coincides nicely with the beginning of spring: Mary carries Christ to the temple, and winter is carried away (afered). But more on that in a few days' time...

'What an inestimable benefit have they conferred on posterity...'

BL Harley 624, f. 115

13 January is the anniversary of the death of Eadmer of Canterbury, who is probably my favourite medieval historian. The year of his death isn't known, but it most likely took place in or shortly after 1126; at that time he was in his sixties, and had returned after many travels to his first home, the cathedral priory of Christ Church, Canterbury. I've written about Eadmer fairly often, most recently here, and at greater length here. Born on the cusp of the Norman Conquest (c.1060), he grew up to be not only a monk, historian, and hagiographer but also the friend and biographer of St Anselm. He bridges the gap between Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England, rooted in traditional Anglo-Saxon spirituality but fitted by taste and talent to flourish in the new world of twelfth-century continental monasticism. His work, especially the Historia Novorum and his biography of Anselm, is of great historical value and interest. But besides this, he's just very likeable: it's hard not to be fond of eager Eadmer, with his care for detail, his ear for conversation, his loyalty to his home, his tendency to hero-worship. He takes us with him, vividly, into particular moments in his life: we see him as a child in the pre-Conquest monastery at Canterbury, listening to the stories of the older monks; as a young adult, tempted to rebel against authority by adventuring without permission into the archives of the monastery; talking with Anselm, half familiar and half in awe; in exile, dreaming of his guardian angel; excited at meeting bits of Canterbury history while far from home; attending at Anselm's deathbed, and anxiously pretending to himself that his friend and mentor would live; and we see him at the end of his own life, reflecting on why he found his childhood memories so very tenacious. His historical work is in general clear-sighted, accurate, and scholarly, but it's also intensely personal; he wrote about people and subjects which mattered a great deal to him, and somehow in reading him you feel like you are being invited to share in his love.

Here are some extracts from Eadmer's writing which give a fairly representative sense of what he thought the purpose and value of his work might be. First, from what is probably his earliest surviving work, this is a short sketch of English history as seen from the perspective of Canterbury, c. 1090:

Britain, which the English, since they defeated and expelled the Britons, inhabit and call England is surrounded on every side by the ocean and from ancient times has abounded to an amazing extent in riches both native and imported from everywhere. Just as Britain was rich in resources provided by the earth, so too was it in its great abundance of very holy men. The grace of Almighty God, by the exacting merits of these men and out of his own bountifulness, adorned the whole island to such an extent that worship and obedience to him were also increased everywhere; moreover, public as well as private affairs enjoyed much peace and blessed prosperity.

But since nature has conceded to worldly matters nothing that is perfect in every respect, the blind mistress of the mind – excessive desire – had led certain people to the point of not knowing how to be content with their own affairs, and she tore apart the ramparts of peace; and when peace was thus torn apart, she gave birth to acts of pillage and arson, civil discords, wars and the destruction of all good things. Sometimes the effect of these things was lessened by the holy men of that province; sometimes, because the calamities increased to an immeasurable degree, those who were struggling to prevent them were themselves ground down by the immensity of troubling events... [M]any were deprived of their rank, many were exiled from their native land, many also were slain by a most cruel death – and these were crowned most gloriously by God, who is a just Judge. The Church of the English experienced these things among its fathers: in the first stages of the faith as it was taking root, when they came to the church as preachers; it endured these things against its own preachers who had been brought forth within it as that faith developed; it suffered these things no less cruelly when the same faith had been established everywhere, at the hands of their own people and at the hands of foreign enemies. And so, to pass over to other matters, the venerable priests Mellitus and Justus were expelled from England and made for Gaul; the most holy father, Wilfrid, was removed many times from his seat of personal authority; and the most glorious King Edmund and the most blessed bishop Ælfheah were condemned to an unjust death and were crowned most worthily with glorious martyrdom. So also, it is well known that Dunstan, a very distinguished man and a father of most exceeding sanctity, was driven into exile. But let it suffice that I have touched upon these matters briefly. For our ancestors made note of many things worthy of memory about these people, and subsequently left their own writings – distinguished by the light of truth – for posterity.

Vita Sancti Wilfridi Auctore Edmero: The Life of Saint Wilfrid by Edmer, ed. and trans. Bernard J. Muir and Andrew J. Turner (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1998), pp. 9-11.

Like every good historian of Anglo-Saxon England, Eadmer is here partly following Bede, whom he calls "the most noble author of the history of our people"; but this is Bede's history of the English church updated for the post-Conquest world. It's a story of good people in each generation standing up against injustice and oppression, from Mellitus and Justus in the very earliest days of the English church, through Wilfrid in the seventh century, then Edmund of East Anglia and St Ælfheah, martyrs of the Viking Age, down to St Dunstan, who was in Eadmer's time Canterbury's most important saint. In the century after Eadmer wrote these words, two more archbishops of Canterbury were to follow Dunstan into exile: first Anselm, whose exile Eadmer himself would share (although at the time of writing this Eadmer had only met Anselm once); then, some forty years after Eadmer's death, Thomas Becket, who became the most famous of Canterbury's exiles and martyrs. I don't know what Eadmer would have thought of Thomas Becket (I don't really feel he would have been a fan), but he would have recognised Becket as the latest in a long line of succession, archbishops standing up for the rights of their church even if it meant their own suffering and death.

An initial from Eadmer's Life of Anselm (BL Harley 315, f.21v)

Some fifteen years after writing the above, Eadmer wrote a Life of Dunstan - perhaps while he was in exile with Anselm - which closes with a moving passage reflecting on the state of England in the first decade of the twelfth century.

it is clear enough from the chronicles and from our own tribulations without my saying anything what misery has enveloped all of England since his death, and by enveloping it has ruined it. [Dunstan died in 988.] Wherefore I do not see why I should write anything about it since those events are so clearly evident without a single word being written that there is no one could not see the real misery there. I do not know what the outcome of these things might be or when it will occur, but I have no doubt at all that everything which he has done, God has done in true judgement of us because we have sinned against him and not obeyed his commandments. Wherefore, since I do not have the physical strength and have no one to advise me, I do not know what might be said or done, except that God, who has ground us down, should be begged with humble heart that he give glory to his own name and deal with us according to the bounty of his mercy and the merits and intercession of our most blessed father, Dunstan, who predicted these things would happen, and that he deliver us according to his wondrous works. O good Lord and loving omnipotent God, whether you do this at some stage because of your bountiful mercy or do not do it on account of your inscrutable justice, may your name be blessed forever, O God of Israel. Amen.

Eadmer of Canterbury, Lives and Miracles of Saints Oda, Dunstan and Oswald, ed. and trans. Andrew J. Turner and Bernard J. Muir (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), p.159.

BL Harley 624, f.134v

In such times, what can a historian do? Well, he can record what he sees and hears around him, in the hope that future generations will find his testimony valuable, as Eadmer describes at the beginning of his most famous work:

What an inestimable benefit have they conferred on posterity who with an eye to the good of future generations have committed to writing a record of the events of their own times. This is the conclusion which seems to be borne in upon me when I note how men of the present day under stress of difficulties of one kind or another search laboriously into the doings of their predecessors, anxious to find there a source of comfort and strength and yet, because of the scarcity of written documents which has resulted in the events being all too quickly buried in oblivion, they cannot for all their pains succeed in doing so as they would wish. I cannot doubt that those who have composed such records, provided they have laboured with a good motive, will receive from God a good reward. Accordingly, having this consideration in mind I have determined, while aiming at brevity, to set down in writing the things which I have seen with my own eyes and myself heard. This I do both to comply with the wishes of my friends who strongly urge me to do so and at the same time to render some slight service to the researches of those who come after me if they should chance to find themselves involved in any crisis in which the events which I record can in any respect afford a helpful precedent.

Eadmer’s History of Recent Events in England: Historia Novorum in Anglia, trans. Geoffrey Bosanquet (London, 1964), p. 1.

(Eadmer has done much more than 'some slight service' to later historians!)

BL Harley 624, f. 141v

As well as recording the events of the present, the historian can look to the past, to the saints and great people about whom 'our ancestors made note of many things worthy of memory':

Wherefore, being mindful of what these writers have said in all respects, I trust that I shall say almost nothing which cannot be confirmed by their authority, nothing, to be sure, which may be wholly contrary to what they have said. Certainly, I pray that whoever deigns to read or listen to these things should understand that I have written them in this way, not as if I preferred what I have written to those, as it were, ancient versions, whatever they may be with respect to this matter, but rather that he should think that I wanted both to please my friends, who are asking it of me (as I have said), and to show some indulgence of my love and, at the same time, reverence to this holy man of God [Wilfrid].

Vita Sancti Wilfridi Auctore Edmero, trans. Muir and Turner, pp.11-13.

BL Harley 624, f. 103v

And he can stand up for the importance of accuracy and telling the truth. This is Eadmer describing why he felt it necessary to rewrite Osbern's Life of Dunstan, to correct a number of minor errors:

When asked by my friends the plain truth in all these matters I was concerned to investigate them with such zeal that it did not trouble me to send letters for this reason everywhere throughout England where I knew that studies in these sorts of things were thriving, and I myself was not able to go, believing it clearly despicable in every way to provide in either spoken or written form things deviating from the strict facts to people wishing to ascertain the truth. Therefore let no one judge me to be motivated by some sort of arrogance or jealousy when I set my hand to writing these things; since my conscience bears witness in the very truth from which it is not permitted for a Christian to deviate, I declare that unless the blindness of the human mind deceives me, in this regard the errors which I described have not had any influence, but the love of truth alone, by which I desired to commend this great father, with all ambiguity set aside both to those living and to those who will follow later...

Therefore if anyone should deign either to read or to listen to these things, I beg that he not read or listen in such a way as to rebuke the simplicity of my good intention. For I declare that these things have been described according to my ability not for those who are anxious to criticise, but for those who know how and are prepared to make allowances for my simple style and that of others like me. And so if anyone is not sympathetic to what I am seeking to do, may he not waste his time with the things I am writing.

Lives and Miracles of Saints Oda, Dunstan and Oswald, trans. Turner and Muir, pp. 45-9.

(I'd gladly put that last disclaimer on everything I write, too...)

BL Harley 624 f. 101v

The images in this post are all from manuscripts Eadmer himself would have known: BL Harley 315 and 624 are the remains of a multi-volume legendary from Christ Church, Canterbury, which was probably produced during Eadmer's time as precentor of the monastery and under his direct supervision. And this is his own handwriting, in a fragment of a Canterbury manuscript written around the same time as the first extract quoted above (BL Harley 5915, f. 12):

His personal manuscript of his works can also be viewed online.

'Eadmund se eadiga, Eastengla cynincg'

Today is the feast of St Edmund, King of East Anglia, who was killed by an invading Viking army in 869. I've posted about St Edmund quite a bit over the years I've been writing this blog, not only because the Vikings in England are my particular interest, but because Edmund is today one of the most popular of Anglo-Saxon saints, especially beloved in his former kingdom. (And therefore much depicted in modern church art). I wrote about the later medieval developments in Edmund's legend here, but today I want to post some of the Old English Life of Edmund written at the end of the tenth century by the homilist Ælfric. I've posted an extract from this text at least once before, but I'll do so again because - well, why not. This was one of the first pieces of Old English I ever learned, as a first-year undergraduate, so it has a special place in my heart.

It's a translation of a Latin Passio of Edmund by Abbo of Fleury, and Ælfric begins by explaining the chain of sources which led to the composition of his Life:

Sum swyðe gelæred munuc com suþan ofer sæ fram sancte Benedictes stowe on Æþelredes cynincges dæge to Dunstane ærcebisceope, þrim gearum ær he forðferde, and se munuc hatte Abbo. Þa wurdon hi æt spræce oþþæt Dunstan rehte be sancte Eadmunde, swa swa Eadmundes swurdbora hit rehte Æþelstane cynincge þa þa Dunstan iung man wæs, and se swurdbora wæs forealdod man. Þa gesette se munuc ealle þa gereccednysse on anre bec, and eft ða þa seo boc com to us binnan feawum gearum þa awende we hit on englisc, swa swa hit heræfter stent.

'A very learned monk came from the south across the sea from St Benedict's monastery [i.e. Fleury], in the days of King Æthelred, to Archbishop Dunstan, three years before he died; and the monk was called Abbo. They talked together until Dunstan told the story of St Edmund, just as Edmund's sword-bearer told it to King Æthelstan in the days when Dunstan was a young man and the sword-bearer was a very old man. Then the monk set down all the story in a book, and afterwards when the book came to us a few years later we turned it into English, as follows hereafter.'

This is an impeccable chain of authorities: learned Abbo, saintly Dunstan, the glorious King Æthelstan, and an eyewitness. The chain covers about 130 years between Edmund's death and Ælfric translating the Life: Edmund was killed in 869, Æthelstan ruled between 924-39, and Dunstan died in 988. The East Anglian royal line was wiped out by Edmund's death, and by the time of Æthelstan the kings of Wessex, now kings of all England, had in a sense adopted the martyred East Anglian king as one of their forebears. So we can imagine the old sword-bearer telling his story at Æthelstan's court, and young Dunstan listening ('with tears in his eyes', Abbo says) in between all his music, metalwork, manuscript-correcting, and devil-fighting. (This was presumably before Dunstan was driven out of Æthelstan's court by accusations of black magic...) If there weren't already enough reasons to admire multi-talented Dunstan, his role in preserving Edmund's story gives him a claim to the gratitude of all fans of Anglo-Saxon saints.

Ælfric produced his Lives of Saints in the late 990s. Between Dunstan telling the story to Abbo in 985, and Ælfric translating Abbo's Passio some ten years later, Edmund's death had suddenly become all too topical. The Vikings were back, more organised and effective than ever. In the last years of Dunstan's life, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records Viking raids along the south coast of England for the first time in decades, and it was later believed that Dunstan in his last days knew this was the beginning of worse to come - that he prophetically foresaw all the disasters which would befall England through the course of the eleventh century. If Dunstan was telling stories from his youth about St Edmund in 985, this might be why. And by the late 990s things had only grown worse: one might argue (I would, in fact) that at the same time as Ælfric was writing his Life of Edmund a poet somewhere in Edmund's old kingdom was busy writing The Battle of Maldon, a poem which similarly tells of an East Anglian nobleman slain by a Viking army, and which in a different way finds heroism in a catastrophic defeat.

Edmund, Ely Cathedral

The whole Life can be found online in Old English and in Modern English, but here are some extracts. (I've added punctuation, and the translation is mine. Abbo's original can be found here.) It's particularly worth seeing the Old English alongside the translation because this text is written in Ælfric's distinctive style of alliterative, rhythmical prose, which can produce some beautiful effects - as exemplified by a line like 'Eadmund se eadiga, Eastengla cynincg', the first line of the Life proper. Here the alliteration also plays on the first element of the saint's name (ead, blessed).

Eadmund se eadiga, Eastengla cynincg, wæs snotor and wurðfull and wurðode symble mid æþelum þeawum þone ælmihtigan god. He wæs eadmod and geþungen and swa anræde þurhwunode þæt he nolde abugan to bysmorfullum leahtrum ne on naþre healfe he ne ahylde his þeawas ac wæs symble gemyndig þære soþan lare: 'þu eart to heafodmen geset? ne ahefe þu ðe, ac beo betwux mannum swa swa an man of him.' He wæs cystig wædlum and wydewum swa swa fæder and mid welwillendnysse gewissode his folc symble to rihtwisnysse and þam reþum styrde and gesæliglice leofode on soþan geleafan.

'Edmund the blessed, King of the East Angles, was wise and honourable, and always honoured Almighty God in noble conduct [þeawas]. He was humble and virtuous and endured so resolutely that he would never submit to shameful vices, nor on either side deviate from his virtuous practices, but was always mindful of the true teaching: 'Have you been appointed as ruler? Do not exalt yourself, but be among men as if you are one of them.' [Ecclesiasticus 32.1] He was generous to the poor and like a father to widows, and with benevolence always guided his people to righteousness, and restrained the violent, and blessedly lived in the true faith.'

Bury St Edmunds

Hit gelamp ða æt nextan þæt þa deniscan leode ferdon mid sciphere hergiende and sleande wide geond land, swa swa heora gewuna is. On þam flotan wæron þa fyrmestan heafodmen Hinguar and Hubba, geanlæhte þurh deofol, and hi on norðhymbralande gelendon mid æscum and aweston þæt land þa leoda ofslogon. Þa gewende Hinguar east mid his scipum and Hubba belaf on norðhymbralande gewunnenum sige mid wælhreownysse. Hinguar þa becom to east englum rowende on þam geare þe ælfred æðelincg an and twentig geare wæs, se þe west-sexena cynincg siþþan wearð mære. And se foresæda Hinguar færlice swa swa wulf on lande bestalcode and þa leode sloh weras and wif and þa ungewittigan cild, and to bysmore tucode þa bilewitan cristenan.

He sende ða sona syððan to þam cyninge beotlic ærende þæt he abugan sceolde to his manrædene gif he rohte his feores. Se ærendraca com þa to Eadmunde cynincge and Hinguares ærende him ardlice abead. "Hinguar ure cyning, cene and sigefæst on sæ and on lande, hæfð fela þeoda gewyld and com nu mid fyrde færlice her to lande þæt he her wintersetl mid his werode hæbbe. Nu het he þe dælan þine digelan goldhordas and þinra yldrena gestreon ardlice wið hine and þu beo his underkyning, gif ðu cucu beon wylt, for ðan þe ðu næfst þa mihte þæt þu mage him wiðstandan.

'It happened in the end that the Danish people came with a ship-army, harrying and killing throughout the country, as is their habit. [!] The foremost leaders of the fleet were Inguar and Ubbe [i.e. Ivar the Boneless and his brother, sons of the legendary Danish king Ragnar Lothbrok], united through the devil, and they landed in Northumbria with their ships and laid waste the land and slew the people. Then Inguar turned east with his ships, and Ubbe remained in Northumbria, having won the victory with cruelty. Then Inguar came rowing to East Anglia in the year that Alfred the prince was twenty-one years old, who was later to be the glorious king of the West Saxons [that's Alfred the Great, of course]. And this Inguar suddenly stalked the land like a wolf, and slew the people, men and women and innocent children, and too shamefully harassed blameless Christians.

Soon afterwards he sent a boasting message to the king, saying that he should submit to enter his service if he valued his life. The messenger came to King Edmund and quickly told him Inguar's message. "Inguar our king, brave and victorious on sea and on land, rules many peoples, and is now swiftly coming with an army here to this land, so that he can take winter-quarters here with his company. Now he commands you to quickly share your concealed gold-hoards and your ancestors' treasure with him, and you must become his under-king, if you want to live, because you don't have the power to withstand him."'

Before answering the messenger, Edmund consults with a bishop, who advises him to submit. Edmund says he would rather fight and die in battle than do that, but the bishop reminds him that he does not have the forces to fight, because so many of his people have been killed. His only options are to submit or to die.

Þa cwæð Eadmund cyning, swa swa he ful cene wæs, "þæs ic gewilnige and gewisce mid mode, þæt ic ana ne belife æfter minum leofum þegnum þe on heora bedde wurdon, mid bearnum and wifum, færlice ofslægene fram þysum flotmannum. Næs me næfre gewunelic þæt ic worhte fleames, ac ic wolde swiðor sweltan gif ic þorfte for minum agenum earde, and se ælmihtiga God wat þæt ic nelle abugan fram his biggengum æfre, ne fram his soþan lufe, swelte ic, lybbe ic."

'Then King Edmund said, in his great courage, "This I desire and wish in my mind, that I may not survive alone after my dear thegns who have been suddenly slain in their beds, with their children and wives, by these seamen. It was never my custom to flee; I would rather die, if I must, for my own land, and Almighty God knows that I will never turn away from his service, or from his true love, whether I live or die."'

Edmund's death (St Mary's, Bury St Edmunds)

He sends a message back to Inguar saying that he will not submit unless the Danish king converts to Christianity. Inguar orders Edmund to be captured, bound and killed. The Danes descend on Edmund as he stands within his hall, and he does not resist them.

Hwæt þe arleasan þa Eadmund gebundon and gebysmrodon huxlice and beoton mid saglum, and swa syððan læddon þone geleaffullan cyning to anum eorðfæstum treowe and tigdon hine þærto mid heardum bendum, and hine eft swuncgon langlice mid swipum, and he symble clypode betwux þam swinglum mid soðan geleafan to hælende Criste, and þa hæþenan þa for his geleafan wurdon wodlice yrre for þan þe he clypode Crist him to fultume. Hi scuton þa mid gafelucum swilce him to gamenes to oð þæt he eall wæs besæt mid heora scotungum swilce igles byrsta, swa swa Sebastianus wæs. Þa geseah Hingwar se arlease flotman þæt se æþela cyning nolde Criste wiðsacan, ac mid anrædum geleafan hine æfre clypode, het hine þa beheafdian, and þa hæðenan swa dydon. Betwux þam þe he clypode to Criste þagit þa tugon þa hæþenan þone halgan to slæge and mid anum swencge slogon him of þæt heafod, and his sawl siþode gesælig to Criste.

Þær wæs sum man gehende, gehealdan þurh God behyd þam hæþenum, þe þis gehyrde eall and hit eft sæde swa swa we hit secgað her. Hwæt ða se flothere ferde eft to scipe and behyddon þæt heafod þæs halgan Eadmundes on þam þiccum bremelum þæt hit bebyrged ne wurde.

'Then the wicked ones bound Edmund and shamefully mocked him, and beat him with clubs, and afterwards led the faithful king to a tree fixed in the earth and tied him to it with hard bonds. They scourged him for a long time with whips, and he constantly cried out between the strokes with true faith to the Saviour Christ, and the heathen were madly enraged by his faith because he cried to Christ to help him. They shot at him with missiles as if for their amusement, until he was entirely covered with their shots like the spines of a hedgehog, just as Sebastian was. When Inguar, the wicked seaman, saw that the noble king would not forsake Christ, but with steadfast faith constantly called upon him, he ordered him to be beheaded, and the heathens did this. While he was still calling upon Christ, the heathens dragged the holy one away to slay him, and with one stroke cut off his head; and his soul travelled in blessedness to Christ.

There was a certain man nearby, kept hidden by God from the heathens, who heard all this and afterwards told it just as we say here. So then the sailors went back to their ships and hid the head of holy Edmund in the thick brambles so that it could not be buried.'

BL Yates Thompson 13, f. 192

When the Danes are gone, people come to look for Edmund's body, and search the woods to find his concealed head:

Wæs eac micel wundor, þæt an wulf wearð asend þurh Godes wissunge to bewerigenne þæt heafod wið þa oþre deor ofer dæg and niht. Hi eodon þa secende and symle clypigende swa swa hit gewunelice is þam ðe on wuda gað oft, "Hwær eart þu nu, gefera?" and him andwyrde þæt heafod, "Her, her, her!" and swa gelome clypode andswarigende him eallum swa oft swa heora ænig clypode oþþæt hi ealle becomen þurh ða clypunga him to. Þa læg se græga wulf þe bewiste þæt heafod. And mid his twam fotum hæfde þæt heafod beclypped grædig and hungrig and for Gode ne dorste þæs heafdes abyrian, and heold hit wið deor. Þa wurdon hi ofwundrode þæs wulfes hyrdrædenne and þæt halige heafod ham feredon mid him, þancigende þam ælmihtigan ealra his wundra, ac se wulf folgode forð mid þam heafde oþþæt hí to tune comon swylce he tam wære and gewende eft siþþan to wuda ongean. Þa landleoda þa siþþan ledon þæt heafod to þam halgan bodige and bebyrigdon hine swa swa hí selost mihton on swylcere hrædinge and cyrcan arærdan sona him onuppon.

'Then there was a great wonder, that a wolf was send by the guidance of God to protect the head against other wild beasts by day and night. They went seeking and constantly crying out, as is common for those going through the woods, "Where are you now, friend?" And the head answered them, "Here, here, here!" And so it repeatedly called, anwering them as often as any of them cried out, until they all came to it because of its calling. There lay the grey wolf which had guarded the head, and it had the head clasped between its two feet - greedy and hungry, and yet for God's sake it dared not eat the head, but protected it against wild beasts. They marvelled at the guardianship of the wolf and carried the holy head home with them, thanking the Almighty for all his marvels, but the wolf followed with the head until they reached the town, just as if he were tame, and then went back again to the woods. Then the people of that region laid the head with the holy body, and buried him as best they could in such haste, and soon built a church over him.'

BL Yates Thompson 47, f. 54

Some time later, after peace has been restored, it is decided to build a better church for the saint. His body is inspected:

þa wæs micel wundor þæt he wæs eall swa gehal swylce he cucu wære mid clænum lichaman and his swura wæs gehalod þe ær wæs forslagen and wæs swylce an seolcen þræd embe his swuran ræd, mannum to sweotelunge hu he ofslagen wæs. Eac swilce þe wunda þe þa wælhreowan hæþenan mid gelomum scotungum on his lice macodon wæron gehælede þurh þone heofonlican God and he liþ swa ansund oþ þisne andwerdan dæg, andbidigende æristes and þæs ecan wuldres.

'There was a great wonder, that he was as whole as if he were alive, with an intact body, and his neck was healed which had previously been cut; it was as if there were a red silken thread about his neck, to show men how he had been killed. And the wounds which the cruel heathen had made in his body with many shots were healed by heavenly God, and he lies thus uncorrupted until this present day, awaiting the resurrection and eternal glory.'

Ælfric then recounts some miracles which took place after Edmund's death, and concludes by saying "Nis Angelcynn bedæled drihtnes halgena" - 'the English are not deprived of the saints of God' - and he lists a few other examples as well as Edmund. This is, of course, characteristic Anglo-Saxon understatement - what he means is that the English have plenty of saints of their own.

These are the ruins of the abbey church at Bury St Edmunds, which was founded in the eleventh century, some thirty-five years after the writing of Ælfric's Life. According to Bury St Edmunds tradition the abbey was founded by Cnut; after he became king of England Cnut was an enthusiastic patron of St Edmund's cult - one way for a Danish king of England to reconcile his dual roles as successor to the kings of Wessex and heir to the conquests of the Danish kings (including Ivar the Boneless). Later legend said that St Edmund was responsible for the death of Cnut's father Svein Forkbeard in 1013, getting some revenge on the Danes from beyond the grave.

Bury St Edmunds soon became one of the leading religious houses in England, a prominence it retained throughout the medieval period, and the church which now lies in ruins was once in size and splendour the equal of any cathedral in the country. So in case the death of St Edmund was making you think ill of the Vikings today, it's salutary to remember it was a Viking king who helped to build this monastery, which for hundreds of years fostered physicians, poets, artists, chroniclers, administrators, and key moments in constitutional history, as well as many hidden lives of pilgrimage and prayer. Next time you feel like using 'medieval' as a pejorative, consider that a Viking king founded this place - and in 1539 a Tudor king tore it down.

I visited Bury St Edmunds last summer, and, knowing that its abbey had been destroyed, had not really been expecting to find it very interesting. But it's an absolutely lovely town - the extensive abbey ruins are now a public park, where children were climbing over the graves of Abbot Samson and his fellows, and the size of the ruins has to be seen to be believed. There are some more substantial medieval relics, such as a Norman tower:

But this would once have been dwarfed by the towers around it. When I was there the tower contained the friendliest group of bell-ringers you could ever hope to meet; I think they must have been the guardian spirits of the place, they were so overwhelmingly welcoming.

The present-day cathedral is tiny compared to what the abbey church would have been (it only became a cathedral in 1914, and was previously a parish church on the edge of the abbey precincts) but is a rather wonderful mixture of the medieval and the brand-new:

This tower was built in 2005!

Since Bury St Edmunds was once a great centre of manuscript production, it was lovely to see some tapestries in the cathedral based on manuscripts made at the abbey:

These are based on images from the fifteenth-century BL Harley 2278 and the twelfth-century 'Bury Bible', respectively. More former monastic churches should do things like this - when manuscripts have been swallowed up into institutional libraries, it's all too easy to forget where they originally came from.

The cathedral also houses this new statue of Edmund, which has become my favourite modern depiction of the saint. It shows him as a young king, proud and defiant in his bonds.

'Books are Glorious'

Re-reading the Old English poem known as 'The Dialogue of Solomon and Saturn' (which I wrote about this time last year), I was reminded of a lovely passage on the value of books. This poem is a debate between the wise king Solomon and a pagan prince named Saturn, who exchange questions and answers about the nature of the world - and on the subject of books, they agree. Solomon says:

Bec sindon breme, bodiað geneahhe
weotodne willan ðam ðe wiht hygeð.
Gestrangað hie and gestaðeliað staðolfæstne geðoht,
amyrgað modsefan manna gehwylces
of ðreaniedlan ðisses lifes.
Saturnus cwæð:  
Bald bið se ðe onbyregeð boca cræftes;
symle bið ðe wisra ðe hira geweald hafað.
Salomon cuæð:  
Sige hie onsendað soðfæstra gehwam,
hælo hyðe, ðam ðe hie lufað.

'Books are glorious. They abundantly proclaim 
the appointed purpose to anyone who thinks at all.
They strengthen and made stable the steadfast thought,
gladden the heart of every man
amid the pressing miseries of this life.
Saturn says:
Bold is he who tastes the skill of books;
he will ever be the wiser who has command of them.
Solomon says:
Victory they send to each of the true-hearted,
the haven of healing for those who love them.'

The value to be found in books, and in learning and wisdom generally, is a common theme in Anglo-Saxon poetry - although the most famous bookworm in Old English gets nothing by the books he devours! The 'Solomon and Saturn' example is particularly nice because it doesn't just talk about the value but the pleasure of books: they amyrgað 'make merry, gladden' the heart in the midst of the troubles of the world. Don't they, indeed?

This image shows one of my favourite medieval bibliophiles, St Dunstan (in BL Royal 10 A XIII, f. 2v), of whom we are told "Many were the meadows of sacred and divine volumes which, like some bee of genius, he flew over on the swift wings of his able nature." Something for every reader to aspire to! Dunstan has been proposed as a possible author of 'Solomon and Saturn'. In twelfth-century Canterbury, today (21 October) was celebrated as the feast of St Dunstan's ordination.

An Equinox Miracle

An unusual miracle recorded in Eadmer of Canterbury's Life of St Dunstan, written in the early years of the twelfth century:

[Dunstan], while setting up his hospices at suitable intervals in his villages which were far afield from Canterbury, built a wooden church at Mayfield, just as he had in the locations of his other hospices. And while he was dedicating it and walking around it according to ritual he noticed that it was not aligned with the rising of the sun at the equinox; it is related that while passing near it he pushed it slightly with his shoulder and immediately changed it from its former orientation into direct alignment with the East where he wanted it. No one doubts that he could do this easily unless there exists someone who doubts the words of Christ our Lord in which he promises to those who have faith like a mustard seed that they can move even a mountain with their words.

Eadmer of Canterbury, Lives and Miracles of Saints Oda, Dunstan and Oswald, ed. and trans. Andrew J. Turner and Bernard J. Muir (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), pp.124-5. The place named may be Mayfield in East Sussex. The editors note:

The reference in this episode to the correct orientation of a church is very rare in the literature of the period, if not unique, although the archaeological record shows that Norman builders were usually concerned to obtain correct orientation, and that rebuilt Anglo-Norman churches were often aligned closer to true East-West than their predecessors.

This incident may, therefore, reflect the interests of Eadmer's time more than of Dunstan's; but it's an interesting curiosity, all the same.

A diagram drawn in the second quarter of the twelfth century at Peterborough Abbey (BL Harley 3667, f. 8), showing the correspondences between the four seasons, months, equinoxes, solstices, astrological signs, twelve winds, and four ages of man. Like Eadmer's Life of Dunstan, this diagram shows the twelfth century looking back to the Anglo-Saxon world: the diagram was devised in c.1011 by Byrhtferth of Ramsey, perhaps the best scientist Anglo-Saxon England ever produced, in his Enchiridion.

An Anglo-Saxon Hymn to St Dunstan

Dunstan, BL Royal 10 A XIII, f. 2v

Today is the feast of St Dunstan, one of the greatest saints of Anglo-Saxon England - statesman, archbishop of Canterbury, scholar, monk, musician, metal-worker, and noted tormenter of devils. The multi-talented Dunstan, who died on 19 May 988, is a fascinating saint for a number of reasons: an influential figure in a formative period for the Anglo-Saxon church and state, adviser to successive kings and credited with a leading role in the tenth-century monastic revival, he was also for centuries after his death a genuinely popular saint in England and beyond. Two years ago I wrote a series of posts with my seven favourite stories about him, starting here (and it was hard to narrow it down to seven!); there you can read about Dunstan's skill in metal-working and music - and magic (alleged) - as well as his various encounters with the devil and posthumous miracles.

This is a hymn to St Dunstan for use on his feast-day, which was probably composed at Canterbury early in the eleventh century.

Ave Dunstane, presulum
sidus decusque splendidum,
lux vera gentis Anglice
et ad deum dux praevie.

Tu spes tuorum maxima,
dulcedo necnon intima
spirans odorum balsama
vitalium melliflua.

Tibi, pater, nos credimus,
quibus te nil iocundius,
ad te manus expandimus,
tibi preces effundimus.

Oves tuas, pastor pie,
passim premunt angustie.
Mucrone gentis barbare
necamur, en, cristicole.

Offer, sacerdos, hostias
Christo precum gratissimas,
quibus placatus criminum
solvat catenas ferreas,

Per quas Anglorum terminis
ecclesiæque filiis
et nationes perfide
pestesque cedant noxiæ.

Per te, pater, spes unica,
per te, proles, pax unica
et spiritus, lux unica
adsit nobis in secula. Amen.

The text comes from Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Inge B. Milfull (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 317-8. Here's a translation:

Hail Dunstan, star and shining adornment of bishops, true light of the English nation and leader preceding it on its path to God.

You are the greatest hope of your people, and also an innermost sweetness, breathing the honey-sweet fragrance of life-giving balms.

In you, Father, we trust, we to whom nothing is more pleasing than you are. To you we stretch out our hands, to you we pour out our prayers.

Your sheep, holy shepherd, are oppressed by troubles on all sides. See how we Christians are being slaughtered by the swords of the pagan nation!

Offer, O priest, the sacrifice to Christ of most welcome prayers, so that by them he may be appeased and release us from the iron fetters of our transgressions.

Through them may heathen peoples and harmful diseases depart from the lands of the English and the sons of the church.

Through you may the Father, our only hope, through you may the Son, our only peace, and the Spirit, our only light, be with us forever. Amen.

In the manuscript, the 'Durham Hymnal' (Durham Cathedral, B.III.32), this hymn has an Old English gloss, which tells us that Dunstan is, among other things, a 'tungel 7 wlite scinende biscopa' and an 'arfæsta heorde', 'orþiende wyrtbræþa swetnyssa, liflicra hunigswete'. It seems likely that the 'swords of the pagan nation' (swurde þeode hæþenre) mentioned in the fourth verse are neither hypothetical nor hyperbolic; they must be the swords of the Danes, who were pressing close on Canterbury and the whole of England in the first decade of the eleventh century. Archbishop Dunstan had lived through a few decades of respite from Viking attacks on England, but the last years of his life saw a return of raiding along the sea-coast, which was to increase in intensity, and spread further inland, in the years following his death in 988. In those years the first Lives of Dunstan were composed, along with this hymn and a number of prayers to England's newest saint. We could probably picture the monks of Canterbury singing this hymn on St Dunstan's day 1011, not knowing that within a few months the Danish army would occupy and burn the city itself, and capture and kill Archbishop Ælfheah. Ælfheah had been a protégé of St Dunstan, and strenuously promoted his cult at Canterbury, so this hymn may well have been written at his instigation. This context adds great poignancy to the hymn: never had Dunstan's sheep had greater need of their shepherd's prayers.

Dunstan in Canterbury Cathedral