Dunstan’s Deliverance
In 978, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan, was being battered in a stormy meeting when he — along with England’s rich monastic heritage — had a miraculous escape.
975
King Edward the Martyr 975-978
In 978, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan, was being battered in a stormy meeting when he — along with England’s rich monastic heritage — had a miraculous escape.
975
King Edward the Martyr 975-978
In 975, King Edgar died and left the country to his son Edward, aged twelve. At once Edward’s stepmother Ælfthryth moved to promote the interests of her own son Ethelred, just eight. As her flagship policy, she chose to defy her late husband’s wishes and close down the monasteries recently revived by the Bishop of Winchester, Æthelwold. Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was forced to back his man.
THESE questions being referred to the blessed Dunstan,* he assembled a synod at Winchester, and in the midst of the conflict of the disputing parties, the image of the Lord, which stood near in the church, distinctly spoke, to the confusion and silencing of the clerks and those who favoured them.
But the minds of the cruel gainsayers not being yet calmed, another synod was held at Calne,* in an upper room, at which were present all the senators of the kingdom; but the king, on account of his tender age, was absent. While the matter was being discussed with much heat on both sides, and numbers assailed Dunstan with great abuse, against which he stood firm as a church wall, on a sudden, the whole of the floor on which they were assembled gave way with the beams and the planks, and all were precipitated with violence to the earth, except Dunstan alone, who remained standing on the only plank which kept its place, and so he escaped uninjured.*
* During the years when the Vikings had controlled much of the country (the late 8th to the early 10th centuries), English monasteries had fallen into neglect or been repurposed as community buildings for married clergy and their families. Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had worked hard with King Edgar (r. 959-975) to re-establish the monasteries as Benedictine houses with celibate monks and nuns in them, but now that Edgar was dead his surviving widow, Ethelred’s mother Ælfthryth, was clearing them out again. The Church in these islands (as in the Eastern Churches) had always allowed married men to be ordained to the priesthood, and that practice continued after Pope St Gregory I and St Augustine of Canterbury re-founded her in 597, but a healthy Church needs both married clergy and abbeys of monks and nuns. On the Gregorian Mission, see The Baptism of Kent.
* A town in Wiltshire on the River Marden, lying in the far northwest of the North Wessex Downs and some 5 miles east of Chippenham. The pronunciation is a hotly-debated topic; for this post, Wiktionary’s pronunciation /ˈkɑːln/ (karln) has been used but many alternatives are vigorously defended online.
* Many of the clergy who had Dunstan figuratively (and perhaps literally) with his back to the wall in that rowdy chamber were hurt or killed in the collapse, but it did not change the direction of Ælfthryth’s faction at court. That did not happen until events had taken an even darker turn. See The Martyrdom of King Edward.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
The Bishop of Winchester founded monasteries. Elfery closed them down. Archbishop Dunstan called a synod at Winchester.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IDiscuss. IIHad. IIIRespond.