St. Dunstan
St. Dunstan, Abbot and Archbishop, and one of the greatest Saints of the Anglo-Saxon Church, was born, it is commonly supposed, at Baltonsborough, near Glastonbury about A.D.910. In his youth he was committed to the care of Irish scholars who lived at Glastonbury.
Through the recommendation of Athelm, Archbishop of Canterbury, his uncle, with whom he lived for some time, he was called to the Court of King Athelstan. He was frequently with the Court during the next eight or nine years, especially when it was in residence at Cheddar. Somehow he incurred the ill-will of his friends at Court who accused him of magic practices, and obtained his expulsion from Court.
In his youth Dunstan had received clerical Tonsure and Minor Orders; and now, after much prayer and deliberation he took the monastic habit at the hands of Aelfheah, Bishop of Winchester, who ordained him priest in A.D.939.
Returning to Glastonbury he built for himself a small cell with an oratory adjoining the Old Church of St. Mary. Here he spent his time in prayer, study and working at his handicrafts. Here, also, he endured many temptations from the devil; and it was probably on one of these occasions that he is said to have tweaked the devil's nose with a pair of tongs. (See Tapestry.)
On the death of King Athelstan, A.D.939, his throne passed to his half brother, Edmund, who was only 18 years old, but who knew and admired Dunstan. He revoked the sentence of expulsion from Court, and Dunstan became a frequent visitor to him at Winchester and Cheddar to offer counsel on important matters of state.
In A.D.943 King Edmund had a miraculous escape from death while pursuing a stag near Cheddar Gorge. In thanksgiving he went straight to Glastonbury, and taking Dunstan by the hand, led him to the Abbot's Throne, and promised him every assistance in restoring Divine Worship and furthering the holy Rule.
On becoming Abbot he reorganised the whole place, and revived the monastic life on the lines of the new reforming movements which had started at Cluny and in the Low Countries. He built an extension to the east of King Ina's Church of SS. Peter & Paul. The graveyard he enclosed by a wall, and “raised it into a mound”, making of it “a pleasant meadow removed from the noise of passers-by...”. His reforms changed not only Glastonbury but the whole of England, while the abbey provided a steady stream of well-disciplined monks to the task of the religious revival. Glastonbury could indeed be called the motherhouse of most medieval monasteries in England, as so many old foundations were revived under the direction of Dunstan and his monks. Excavations in the abbey have revealed the remains of Dunstan's great cloister, the earliest discovered north of the Alps, and of glass and metal furnaces dating back to his time.
King Edmund met a violent death; on 26th May A.D.946 he was murdered during a feast at Pucklechurch, near Bristol, by a man named Liofa, whom he had banished from England six years before. The King's body was carried to Glastonbury where his Requiem was sung by Dunstan.
King Eadwig, Edmund's son, did not have a happy reign. Dunstan rebuked him for his scandalous conduct, for which he banished Dunstan from the country in A.D.955. Dunstan took refuge in a monastery in Flanders.
Things were happier when Edgar became King. Dunstan was restored to favour, was consecrated bishop by Archbishop Oda of Canterbury, and appointed to the see of Worcester in A.D.957: in 959 he held two sees, Worcester and London. The highest seat in England, Archbishop of Canterbury, he accepted in A.D.960, though he used every possible device to decline the appointment.
Assisted by Archbishop Oswald of York he presided at the Solemn Coronation of King Edgar at Bath on Whit Sunday, A.D.973. Its ritual, drawn up by Dunstan himself, gave England its first Coronation Service properly so called. 1
For twenty-eight years as Archbishop of Canterbury, he continued to care for the needs of the Church. Writers now refer to him as the “maker of England”. His advice was frequently sought in spiritual matters as in matters of state. He was assiduous in the spiritual and temporal welfare of his people, in the building and restoring of churches, in establishing schools, in promoting peace and enforcing respect for authority.
On Ascension Day, 17th May 988, he chanted Mass in his Cathedral, and during it spoke three times to his priests and his people. He went to rest after dinner and never rose from his bed again. He died on 19th May, and was buried in his Cathedral at Canterbury.