Dunstan of Canterbury The Ohio Anglican.blog

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Dunstan of Canterbury The Ohio Anglican.blog
was born near Glastonbury in the southwest of England about the year
909, ten years after the death of King Alfred. During the Viking
invasions of the ninth century, monasteries had been favorite targets
of the invaders, and by Dunstan's time English monasticism had been
wiped out. In its restoration in the tenth century, Dunstan played the
leading role. He was born of an upper-class family, and sent to court,
where he did not fit in. At the urging of his uncle, the Bishop of
Westminster, he became a monk and a priest, and returned to
Glastonbury, where he built a hut near the ruins of the old monastery,
and devoted himself to study, music, metal working (particularly the
art of casting church bells, an art which he is said to have advanced
considerably), and painting. A manuscript illuminated by him is in the
British Museum. He returned to court and was again asked to leave; but
then King Edmund had a narrow escape from death while hunting, and in
gratitude recalled Dunstan and in 943 commissioned him to re-establish
monastic life at Glastonbury. (Glastonbury is one of the oldest
Christian sites in England, and is associated in legend with King
Arthur and his Court, with Joseph of Arimathea, and with other
worthies. It has been said that the Holy Grail, the chalice of the
Last Supper, is hidden somewhere near Glastonbury.) Under Dunstan's
direction, Glastonbury became an important center both of monasticism
and of learning. The next king, Edred, adopted Dunstan's ideas for
various reforms of the clergy (including the control of many
cathedrals by monastic chapters) and for relations with the Danish
settlers. These policies made Dunstan popular in the North of England,
but unpopular in the South.

Edred was succeeded by his sixteen-year-old nephew Edwy, whom Dunstan
openly rebuked for unchastity. The furious Edwy drove Dunstan into
exile, but the North rose in rebellion on his behalf. When the dust
settled, Edwy was dead, his brother Edgar was king, and Dunstan was
Archbishop of Canterbury. The coronation service which Dunstan
compiled for Edgar is the earliest English coronation service of which
the full text survives, and is the basis for all such services since,
down to the present. With the active support of King Edgar, Dunstan re-
established monastic communities at Malmesbury, Westminster, Bath,
Exeter, and many other places. Around 970 he presided at a conference
of bishops, abbots, and abbesses, which drew up a national code of
monastic observance, the Regularis Concordia. It followed Benedictine
lines, but under it the monasteries were actively involved in the life
of the surrounding community. For centuries thereafter the Archbishop
of Canterbury was always a monk.

Dunstan took an active role in politics under Edgar and his successor
Edward, but under the next king, Ethelred, he retired from politics
and concentrated on running the Canterbury cathedral school for boys,
where he was apparently successful in raising the academic standards
while reducing the incidence of corporal punishment. On Ascension Day
in 988, he told the congregation that he was near to death, and died
two days later.


http://ohioanglican.blogspot.com/2013/05/dunstan-of-canterbury.html