ST. DUNSTAN
drink, as well as from immorality, so that they might be able to rebuke the laity without incurring the charge of hypocrisy. He invented the system of putting pegs into the drinking pots so that all might know how much a man had drunk, a Peg-tankard (Derbyshire) held two quarts; the quantity between each peg was one gill (half a pint) Winchester measure, quite sufficient for one draught, the act of taking a man "down a peg or two" was therefore that of a sot, and to be avoided.
Dunstan was essentially practical, and at the same time full of sympathy for the sinner; the rich man who gave way to violent fits of anger or other deadly sin, was not just to call himself "a miserable sinner" and go on as before. Nor did he have a penance consisting of bodily mortificaton, but his pride and his soul were to be mortified, as he first had to forgive his enemy—that is the person he had injured—and then comfort those he had made sorrowful.[1] Afterwards he could redeem his penance by the building or restoration of churches, repairing foul ways, helping the poor, and freeing the slave.
As Archbishop, Dunstan was strict; on one occasion an important personage had made an illegal marriage; the Archbishop remonstrated with him, and as he took no notice, he excommunicated him. Then the noble obtained from Rome a mandate from the Pope ordering the Archbishop to lift the excommunication: this he refused to do, insisting that he would rather die than be unfaithful to his Lord.
King Edgar died in 975 and was buried at Glastonbury. At this time there arose a dispute between the regulars and seculars, and those in high positions took sides. In Mercia, the monks were turned out of the churches, and the married clergy were reinstated in their old positions; but in East Anglia the monks were supreme. In the height of this contest, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York attended a Witenagemote at Winchester, elected Edward, son of Edgar, as King and crowned him. At this meeting the question of regulars and seculars again came up, and on the demand that the monks should be expelled and seculars retained, a miracle occurred. At the upper part of the hall a rood was placed and whilst all were waiting for the decision of the Archbishop, a voice was heard coming from the Crucifix, "Let it not be so;
- ↑ How different was the standard of the educated heathen: Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris. Tacitus, Agricola, 42, 4.
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