ST. DUNSTAN
Day, May 17, 988, he fell ill; and two days afterwards, "being the sabbath day, that most blessed confessor of the Lord, the Archbishop Dunstan, finished his praiseworthy course of life."[1] He sent for his household and his brethren to come to him after matins had been sung, the Eucharist was celebrated before him and he received the Viaticum. He gave thanks to God and began to sing "The Merciful and Gracious Lord hath so done his marvellous works that they ought to be had in remembrance; He hath given meat unto them that fear him" (Psalm cxi. vv. 4 and 5, Vulgate Version), with which words he expired.
He was buried before the entrance to the Confessio in the centre of the choir of the Saxon Cathedral at its east end, in a grave six feet deep beneath the pavement which he had had prepared for himself two days before his death. The grave was separated from the Saxon crypt by the wall of steps, and it had at the head of the saint the matutinal altar, used for the daily service.
His body was deposited in a leaden coffin, and a tomb was afterwards constructed over it in the form of a large and lofty pyramid. As the chronicler Osbern says in his "Life", "by choosing so conspicuous a spot, he left a mournful and tender memorial of himself to the brethren singing in the Choir, or ascending the steps of the Altar."
After the fire of 1067, the remains of St. Dunstan were removed, and an altar and shrine erected on the south side of the High Altar in St. Anselm's church, where remains of the decoration of the shrine may yet be seen in the beautiful diapered wall of the choir screen, built by Prior Eastry in 1308.
Two of the triforium windows[2] on the north side of the choir in the Cathedral, contain roundels filled with painted glass of about the year 1200 representing scenes in the Life or St. Dunstan. Mr. Caldwell[3] thinks that these beautiful windows depicting episodes in the life of St.
- ↑ Flores Historiarum (Rolls Series).
- ↑ There are five of these windows on the north of the choir aisle and five on the south; they form a tier above the great choir windows. They were inserted by William of Sens in 1177 or 1178. The windows are broad but shallow, and have trefoiled heads; each of the three cusps of the trefoil is a segment of a circle. They are the earliest examples in England of the trefoiled arch.
- ↑ Mr. S. Caldwell, the artist in stained glass, of Blackfriars North, Canterbury, whose family for three generations have had the care of the Cathedral glass.
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