By Vladimir Moss
In 939, King Athelstan died, having
assumed before his death the Byzantine titles of basileus, curagulus
and “Emperor of Britain”. He was succeeded by King Edmund. Wisely, the new King
chose as one of his counsellors St. Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury, which was
not far from the King’s Court at Cheddar in Somerset. St. Dunstan would be the
main driving force behind one of the great achievements of Anglo-Saxon England,
the tenth-century monastic revival.
However, slander
and envy, which had already caused Dunstan grief in the previous king’s reign,
did not cease to pursue him now. As a result, the king ordered his banishment.
Dunstan then asked some foreign envoys at the court to help him; they promised
him hospitality and everything he might need if he accompanied them back to
their kingdom.
The next day the king rode out hunting with his men. As they came to the
forest, they dispersed in friendly competition along different paths. However,
the baying of the dogs and the calling of the horns enabled many of the stags
to make a quick escape; and only the king, with one pack of dogs, found himself
on the track of a stag. In his flight the exhausted animal came to a very deep
gorge into which he suddenly hurled himself, followed by the dogs. The king,
following close behind, was accelerating when he saw the gorge. Desperately he
tried hold back his horse, but without success. With all hope for his life
gone, he commended his soul into the hands of God, saying within himself: ‘I
thank Thee, O God Most High, that as far as I can remember, I have not harmed
anyone at this time, except only Dunstan, and I shall be reconciled with him
promptly if my life is saved.’ When he had said this, his horse came to a
standstill on the very edge of the abyss.
Praising and
giving thanks to God, the king realized that he had come so near to being
killed in order that Dunstan might be vindicated; and on his return he ordered
him to be brought before him without delay. When Dunstan came in, he said:
‘Hurry up, get a horse, and come with me and my soldiers.’ And, mounting their
horses, they immediately took the road to Glastonbury. On arrival, they went
into the church to pray; and after praying and wiping the tears from his eyes,
the king again called the servant of God to him. Taking him by the hand, he
kissed it and led him to the priest’s chair. Having seated him in it, he said:
‘Be the powerful incumbent of this seat and the most faithful abbot of this
church. And whatever you need, whether for the Divine services or for the
sacred Rule, I shall devoutly supply from my royal bounty.’
Dunstan was placed
in charge of the monastery at Glastonbury in the year 943, and immediately
instituted the strict application of St. Benedict’s Rule for the monks, thus
giving a major impetus to the revival of monasticism in England after the
devastation of the Viking wars. He also began to build many new buildings for
the monastery in accordance with a vision he had had in childhood.
Through a vision
of evil spirits, the saint prophesied the death of King Edmund. For as he was
travelling in the king’s escort, he suddenly saw a black form running among the
king’s trumpeters. After gazing at it for a long time in amazement, he turned
to his neighbour, ‘Half-King’ Athelstan, the alderman of East Anglia, and said:
‘Beloved, do you see what I see?’ ‘Nothing out of the ordinary,’ he replied.
‘Sign yourself with the sign of the Holy Cross, and then see if you can see
what I see,’ said the holy man. When he did this, Athelstan also saw the evil
spirit. When they made the sign of the Cross again, the enemy disappeared.
As they continued
on their way, Athelstan asked the saint to what extent this vision of theirs
was related to a dream he had had, in which he had seen the king fall asleep
while feasting among his nobles, whereupon almost all the chief men and
counsellors had turned into sheep and goats. Dunstan immediately replied: ‘The
king’s sleep means his death; but the changing of the chief men and counsellors
into mute and irrational beasts refers to the future, when almost all the chief
men and rulers will of their own accord deviate from the way of truth.’
As they came to
the king’s quarters, they were still discussing these matters. And at dusk on
the same day Dunstan again saw the evil spirit wandering among the servants at
the king’s banquet. Then, on the very day on which the king was killed, May 26,
946, he saw it for the third time as the king was returning from the Divine
Liturgy to the banquet-hall. During the feast, the king saw a man named Liofa,
whom he had banished from the kingdom six years before, sitting at a table next
to an alderman. He got up and tried to drive the outlaw from the hall, but was
stabbed by him and died. The king’s body was taken to Glastonbury, where St.
Dunstan performed the funeral service.
Edmund was
succeeded by his brother Edred, who loved Dunstan no less than his
predecessors, loading him with honours and submitting to his wise counsel.
In 953, Bishop
Ethelgar of Crediton died; whereupon King Edred tried to persuade the saint to
accept the vacant see. But he refused, not wishing to desert the king, whom he
loved, for the sake of the episcopate. The king then asked his mother, St.
Elgiva, to intercede. So she invited him to a royal banquet and again put
forward the same proposal. But he replied: ‘I ask you, lady, not to ask me this
again; for I tell you truly: I must not be made a bishop during the lifetime of
your son the king.’
The Lord,
however, was not pleased by Dunstan’s refusal, as was revealed to him in a
vision that night. For he saw himself returning from a pilgrimage to the
apostles’ tombs in Rome and was coming near the Mons Gaudium. Then St. Peter
and his fellow apostles Paul and Andrew approached him. Each held in his hand a
sword, which they offered him. On Peter’s sword were inscribed the words: ‘In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’
Then Andrew sang sweetly from the Gospel: ‘Take My yoke upon you, for I am meek
and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.’ Peter then raised
a staff which he held in his hand and struck Dunstan lightly on the palm,
saying: ‘Take this as a warning not to refuse the yoke of the Lord in future.’
Waking up, the saint asked a monk who was sleeping in the same room who it was
that had struck him. He said that he did not know. Dunstan thought for a while,
and then said: ‘Now I know, my son, now I know by whom I have been struck.’
In the morning he
recounted his vision to the king, who said: ‘Since the swords you took up with
the apostles’ blessing are the weapons of the Holy Spirit, you can be quite
certain that through the sword given you by the blessed Peter and inscribed
with the word of God, you are to receive the archbishopric from heaven.’ As for
the other swords, that given by St. Paul may have signified the see of London,
whose cathedral church was dedicated to the apostle and which Dunstan held for
a short period before he became archbishop. And that of St. Andrew may have
signified the see of Rochester, whose church was dedicated to the First-Called
and which Dunstan was called upon to defend in his later years.
King Edred had
been chronically sick throughout his reign, and now he came to die. Feeling his
end draw near, he sent a messenger to Dunstan to bring his treasures from Glastonbury,
where the saint had been looking after them, to Frome, where the king lay. As
Dunstan was riding to Frome, on St. Clement’s day, 955, he suddenly heard a
voice from heaven: ‘King Edred now rests in peace.’ At the sound of the voice,
his horse, unable to bear the angelic power, fell dead to the ground,
astonishing the saint’s companions. When he had explained to them the voice and
its meaning, and as they were blessing God and commending the soul of the dead
man into the hands of God, messengers came up and confirmed the truth of the
voice. And so the walls of the palace were resounding to cries of lamentation
as the saint entered. He found the royal corpse abandoned; and so, faithful in
death as in life, he performed the funeral service and buried the king in the
Old Minster, Winchester.[2]
The death of King
Edred marked the end of the peaceful part of St. Dunstan’s tenure of the
Glastonbury abbacy. For he was succeeded by Edwig, the son of King Edmund - a
rash youth under the influence of a mother and daughter, both named Elgiva, who
wanted him to choose one of them to be his wife. This wanton behaviour of the
king was to bring him into conflict with the saint…
Now the time came
for the anointing and consecration of the new king after his election by the
people. The ceremony was duly performed, but then the king had no time to
attend the banquet with his nobles and bishops, but immediately ran after the
loose women. When the holy Archbishop Oda saw that the king’s wilfulness on the
day of his coronation displeased all the counsellors sitting around, he said to
his fellow-bishops and the other leading men: ‘Let some of you, pray, go and
fetch the king, so that he may, as is fitting, be a pleasant companion to his
followers at the royal banquet.’ But one by one, fearing to incur the king’s
wrath or the women’s complaint, they began to demur. Finally, they chose from
among them two whom they knew to be strong in spirit – Abbot Dunstan and Bishop
Cynesige, a kinsman of Dunstan’s, to go in obedience to the command of all and
bring back the king, whether he wished it or not.
Entering the
king’s chamber in accordance with their superiors’ command, Dunstan and
Cynesige found the king’s crown, which was bound with gold, silver and precious
stones, and shone with a many-coloured light, carelessly thrown on the floor
far away from his head, while the king himself wallowed between the two women
as if he were in a pig-sty. They said to him: ‘Our nobles have sent us to you
to ask you to come as quickly as possible to your proper seat, and not to scorn
to be present at the joyful banquet of your chief men.’ But when the king did
not want to rise, Dunstan, after first rebuking the folly of the women, drew
him by his hand from his licentious reclining with them, replaced the crown on
his head, and brought him with him to the royal assembly by force.
Like Jezabel of
old, the elder Elgiva now conceived a violent hatred for Dunstan and obtained
the consent of the king to deprive him of all his honours and possessions, and
to expel him from the kingdom. Dunstan’s friends and supporters were also
persecuted. Elgiva even sent secret agents to kill Dunstan before he could
leave the country. But he eluded her grasp, and made a speedy passage to the
continent. There he was kindly received by Count Arnulf of Flanders, staying in
the Abbey of St. Peter in Ghent.
The saint did not
cease to weep and groan day and night, thinking of his country and the
spiritual condition of his monastery. One night, he dreamed that he was with a
group of brethren as they were coming to the end of the Vespers psalms. After
the canticle, ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord’, they began to sing the antiphon
from Job: ‘Why have ye disparaged his truthful words, and composed speeches to
reprove him, and…’ At this point the chant stopped and they all fell silent;
nor was he able to persuade them to complete either the words or the melody.
Several times they went back to the same point in the chant, never did they say
the last words. And he, rebuking them in the same vision, said: ‘Why do you not
want to end the antiphon with the words: “what ye have had in mind ye
discharge”?’ Then came the Divine reply: ‘Because, I say, they will never
discharge what they are striving for in their minds – to tear you away from the
government of this monastery.’ Waking up, the saint gave thanks to God the Most
High, his Comforter. And indeed, some of the people in the vision turned out
later to have been plotting against him in secret.
King Edwig
married the younger Elgiva, although the union was within the forbidden degrees
of kinship. As a result, the northern parts of the English kingdom, Mercia and
Northumbria, rebelled against him, and chose his brother Edgar as their king.
And in the next year Archbishop Oda dissolved his marriage. When Elgiva tried
to rejoin the king, she was caught by men from the north; they severed the
muscles and sinews of her lower limbs, and she died in agony a few days later.
Finally, Edwig died, and when Edgar reunited the kingdom under his sole rule,
he recalled Dunstan from exile…
Edgar ‘the
Peaceable’ ascended the throne in 958. In the same year St. Dunstan was made
Bishop of Worcester. Then, in 959, he was transferred to the see of London. And
in 960 he was elected Archbishop of Canterbury.
After Dunstan had
been elected archbishop, he set off, like all English archbishops-elect, for
Rome, to receive the pallium (omophorion) from the Pope. On his return, he
immediately set about spreading the monastic reforms which he had initiated at
Glastonbury; and he found the king a willing helper in this holy task. Already,
as Bishop of London, he had founded a small monastery of twelve monks at
Westminster with St. Wulsin as abbot. Now he appointed his disciples Saints
Aethelwold and Oswald to the sees of Winchester and Worcester respectively; and
under their vigorous leadership the south of England was soon covered with
Benedictine monasteries.
In King Edgar’s
reign, England reached the peak of her glory as an Orthodox kingdom, founded on
a strong monastic revival supported by a powerful king and a sainted
archbishop. The relationship between them was truly symphonic, but with a
particularly strong role assigned to the king: “I have in my hand the sword of
Constantine; you hold that of Peter,” wrote King Edgar to Dunstan in 967. “Let
us join our right hands sword to sword, so that the sanctuary of God may be
cleansed.”
The truly
‘symphonic’ cooperation of King Edgar and Archbishop Dunstan laid the
foundation of a golden age in the history of the Anglo-Saxon Church. This age
had been prophesied by a heavenly voice which St. Dunstan had heard in 943, at
the birth of Edgar: ‘Peace to England as long as this child reigns, and our
Dunstan survives.’ ‘The succession of events,’ wrote William of Malmesbury,
‘was in unison with the heavenly oracle; to such an extent did ecclesiastical
glory flourish and martial clamour decay while he was alive.’
Edgar’s first
anointing had taken place in 960 or 961. For many years he was not allowed to wear
his crown in penance for a sin he had committed. But in 973, the penance came
to an end, and at the age of thirty (perhaps not coincidentally, the canonical
age for episcopal ordination in the West) he was anointed again, this time as
“Emperor of Britain” in the ancient Roman city of Bath (again not
coincidentally, for Edgar was emphasising the imperial, Roman theme). In the
same year, again emphasising the imperial theme, he was rowed on the River Dee
by six or eight sub-kings, include five Welsh and Scottish rulers and one ruler
of the Western Isles.[3] “This was a move,”
writes Lavelle, “that recalled the actions of his great-uncle Athelstan, the
successful ruler of Britain, but it was also an English parallel to the
tenth-century coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto of Germany, in which
the stem-dukes had undertaken the task of feeding the emperor.”
Edgar’s adoption
of the trappings of Romanitas was not without foundation. The economy
was strong, the tax and legal systems were sophisticated, the coinage was
secure (with an impressive system of monetary renewal whereby all coins issued
from the royal mints had to be returned and reissued every five years). England
was now a firmly Orthodox, multi-national state composed of three Christian peoples,
Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Danes, living in mutual amity. She was at peace at home
and respected abroad, spreading her influence in a beneficial way through
missions to the Norwegians and Swedes.
*
If St. Dunstan was the leader of the
monastic revival, its most powerful executive, as it were, was his disciple,
St. Aethelwold. It was while Aethelwold was prior of the monastery at
Glastonbury that St. Dunstan had a prophetic dream about him. Wulfstan, a pupil
of Aethelwold’s at Winchester, relates that Dunstan was sitting outside the
monastery dormitory when he saw “a certain tree as if it were of wondrous
height. It seemed to spread its branches east, west, north, and south, over the
entire region of Britain, astonishingly extensive in its length and breadth.
The branches of this tree were laden with countless cones, large and small,
while the tree itself bore at the very top a huge cone which, rising above,
protected the others with the covering of its scales, and surpassing them all
together with its great height, touched the very sky. But the man of the Lord,
Dunstan, very astonished by such a vision from above, questioned the elder
adorned with white angelic hair, who was pointing this tree out to him, and
said: ‘I beseech you, venerable elder, what is this strong and lofty tree whose
branches spreading out far and wide seem to support so many countless cones?’
The elder answered him: ‘This tree which you see, Abbot Dunstan, represents the
site of this island; moreover, the great cone which rises on the pinnacle of
this tree represents your monk Aethelwold who serves Christ devoutly in this
monastery. Now the other cones with which these branches appear laden represent
the multitude of monks who are to be instructed by his learning and who are to
be gathered together in this area from all regions for the service of Almighty
God. Under his leadership they will reach the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven
and the fellowship of the blessed spirits who reign with Christ.’ Having
received this reply, the holy man awoke and reflected silently upon the vision,
and afterwards made it known to the faithful by a true account. The report of
the vision, spreading with the passage of time, became known to many and at
length came also to my humble notice.
“And it was also
no less fitting,” continues Wulfstan, “that another dream be fulfilled which
Aethelwold, the holy man of God, once related to me concerning himself, saying:
‘I thought that I was standing by the sea shore where it seemed to me that there
appeared a certain great ship, in which there was contained a plentiful number
of fish, especially eels, heaped up from the bottom to the top. And when I
silently considered the meaning of this vision which I saw, I suddenly heard a
voice calling me by my own name, and saying to me: “Aethelwold, Aethelwold,
this command has been sent to you by God from heaven: Call forth those fish,
with which the ship that you perceive is filled, and bring it about by your
prayers that they may be men, just as they were before.” Thereupon, complying
with this command I stood before them to pray and overcome with a shower of
tears, I said sighing: “Lord Jesus, for Whom nothing is impossible, look
favourably upon these souls deceived by diabolical trickery, who have been alienated
from the slimy mud of this world. I beseech Thee, Good Jesus, do not allow the
enemy of the human race to glory in his triumph over them, but grant that,
through the almighty power of Thy Name, they may be restored to life, so that,
escaping the sleep of eternal death, they may acknowledge Thee as the true and
only Saviour of the world, and thereafter, always fleeing towards the peaceful
gate of salvation, may be rescued from all dangers of the world and remain
secure under Thy governance. For it is Thine, O Christ, to make the dead live,
and to restore to its former glory Thine own image which Thou hast created.
Thou camest into this world to save sinners and having suffered the dreadful
punishment of death on the Cross, Thou didst deign to pour forth Thy precious
Blood for the salvation of us all.” When I uttered these and similar words of
prayer with a remorseful heart and spirit of humility, behold the fish which I
had seen before covered in the filthy mud and in the waters of misery, I
suddenly saw made into men and revived from death. There arose from the ship
and proceeded hastily to land a great multitude of men, many of whom I had
known personally. One man among them who fell behind was transformed again into
an eel. Without doubt he was that Athelstan, who had long ago been ordained
priest with me, and whom thereafter I had been unable to rouse by any means or
to bring it about that he might become a man. Indeed, all the others with one
accord raised their voices to heaven, clapping their hands and offering thanks
to Almighty God because through His ineffable mercy and my insignificant
coming, they were worthy to be recalled from death to life and to be restored
to human reasoning which they had lost. But I, rejoicing in God and wishing
them joy, awoke, and thus I recall this vision for you, my children, so that
with the labour of good works you may persevere in the holy purpose; whereby,
through the grace of God, you are able to be counted in the number of those who
have been entrusted to me, although I am unworthy, so that they may be freed
from the unclean abyss of this world and be saved in eternal blessedness
without end.’”
After some time,
the saint wished to go overseas to Cluny to learn more about the monastic life.
However, the Dowager-Queen Elgiva, King Edred’s mother, was against this
(Aethelwold later sent the monk Osgar to Fleury instead of himself); and she
persuaded her son to give Aethelwold the derelict monastery at Abingdon,
together with a large area of land to support it. And so, with St. Dunstan’s
blessing, the saint went to Abingdon, and set about rebuilding the monastery.
He was ordained as abbot at the king’s request.
“Under
Aethelwold,” writes Andrew Prescott, “Abingdon grew into a ‘glorious minster’.
One of his first actions was to establish a school, and the future King Edgar
studied there. Aethelwold’s reputation for sanctity and strict observance
attracted men from all over the country to follow the monastic life at
Abingdon. He established contact with reformers on the Continent, and sought to
ensure that observance at Abingdon was in line with the most up-to-date
Continental practice. Monks from the reformed monasteries at Fleury and Corbie
came to Abingdon to instruct their English counterparts in the forms of
chanting. The monastery’s endowments were substantially increased, particularly
by gifts of royal land. A magnificent new church was built, furnished in the
most sumptuous fashion. A twelfth-century description of the church states that
‘the chancel was round, the church itself was also round, having twice the
length of the chancel. The tower also was found.’ It has been suggested that
this means that the church was an aisled rotunda, recalling the royal symbolism
of the palatine chapel at Aachen. Aethelwold himself is said to have built the
altar table, which was made of gold and silver, decorated with the sculpted
figures of the twelve apostles. It cost the enormous sum of three hundred
pounds. Also attributed to Aethelwold was a gold-plated wheel which supported
twelve lamps and from which were suspended little bells. Other treasures of the
church included three crosses of gold and silver, each four feet in length, and
texts to adorn the church made of silver and precious stones. Most of these
treasures were destroyed or dispersed after the Norman Conquest [in 1066]…”
Once, as Abbot
Aelfric relates, “the king came to the monastery to plan himself the structure
of the buildings, and he measured out all the foundations of the monastery with
his own hand, exactly as he had determined to erect the walls. Then the abbot
invited him to dine in the refectory with his men. The king agreed immediately;
and since there were several Northumbrians with him at the time, they all came
with the king to the feast. The king was merry, and ordered mead to be supplied
in abundance to the guests, having closed the doors so that no one could hurry
away and leave the drinking at the royal banquet. The whole day the servers
drew drink for the revellers in full measure, and yet a span’s depth remained
until the Northumbrians were swinishly drunk and withdrew in the evening.”
Once a brother
named Aelfstan (the future Bishop Aelfstan I of Ramsbury) was ordered by the
saint to provide food for the builders of the monastery. He very zealously
prepared meat every day for the workmen, and personally served them, kindling
the fire, fetching water and cleaning the vessels, while the abbot thought that
he did all this with the help of a servant. One day, while the abbot was
wandering around the monastery as was his custom, he was Aelfstan standing by a
boiling cauldron, preparing food for the workmen. Then, entering the kitchen,
he saw all the vessels spotless and the floor swept. Going up to Aelfstan, he
said joyfully: ‘My brother, you have robbed me of this obedience which you
practise without my knowledge. But if you are as much of a soldier of Christ as
you seem, put your hand in the boiling water and draw out a bit of food for me
from the bottom.’ Without hesitating, Aelfstan put his hand to the bottom of
the cauldron and drew out a hot morsel, feeling no heat from the boiling water.
When the saint saw this, he ordered Aelfstan to put down the food and reveal
the miracle to no one.
Another time, the
saint was working on the building when a huge post fell on him and threw him
into a pit, breaking nearly all his ribs on one side. If the pit had not
received him, he would have been completely crushed. However, with the help of
God he recovered.
On November 29,
963, before the building at Abingdon was completed, Aethelwold was consecrated
Bishop of Winchester by St. Dunstan at the king’s request.
On arriving at
his see, Aethelwold found the Old Minster occupied by secular clergy, who, as
Wulfstan writes, “were involved in wicked and scandalous behaviour, victims of
pride, insolence and riotous living to such a degree that some of them did not
think fit to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in due order. They married wives
illicitly, divorced them, and took others; they were constantly given to
gourmandising and drunkenness.’ With King Edgar’s permission, he expelled these
clerics, and replaced them with monks from Abingdon. “Now it happened,” writes
Abbot Aelfric, “that while the monks who had come from Abingdon were standing
at the entrance to the church, the clerics inside were finishing the Divine
Liturgy and singing the communion hymn: ‘Serve ye the Lord with fear, and
rejoice in Him with trembling. Lay hold of instruction, lest at any time the
Lord be angry, and ye perish from the righteous way.’ As if they were saying:
‘We could not serve God, nor observe His discipline; you at least act so that
you not perish like us.’ And the monks, hearing the singing, said to each
other: ‘Why are we waiting outside? Look, we are exhorted to enter.’”
St. Aethelwold
also came, together with a thegn of King Edgar’s called Wulfstan of Dalham.
Wulfstan gave the clerics the royal ultimatum: either give place to the monks
or become monks yourselves. The clerics, no lovers of the monastic life,
decided to leave, although three of them, Edsige, Wulfsige and Wilstan, later
accepted the monastic tonsure. “Such ruthless action,” writes Prescott, “in
pursuit of introducing new standards of religious life earned Aethelwold
enemies, and there was afterwards at least one attempt to murder him. According
to Wulfstan, the expelled canons plotted to poison Aethelwold and recover their
old places. They poisoned Aethelwold while he was entertaining guests in his
own hall. He managed to stagger to his bed, but became completely paralysed.
[However,]… by bringing to mind declarations of Christ, such as that ‘if
believers drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them’, Aethelwold found
that the pain and paralysis caused by the poison gradually disappeared. He
returned to the hall showing no signs of his terrible experience. The canons,
recognising that they could not defeat Aethelwold, fled.”
However, they had
not yet given up the fight. They appealed to the king, who in turn referred the
matter to St. Dunstan, who then asked the king to convene a Council in
Winchester. This took place in about the year 970 in the presence of the king
and queen, nobles and clergy. The final decision was announced by St. Dunstan:
‘This Old Minster was founded as a habitation for monks. Let those who benefit
from its revenues live henceforth as true monks.’ It is said that during the
Council, when the possibility of restoring the secular clergy to the Old
Minster was being discussed, a cross spoke from the wall: ‘Far be it from you!
You have done well; to change again would be wrong.’
Besides this, the
Council decided on the establishment of a slightly modified form of the Rule of
St. Benedict, the Regularis Concordia (Agreement of the Rules), for all
the monastics of England. Up to that time, there had been different versions of
the rule in different parts of the country. But now a single Rule was agreed on
to ensure that “all be of one mind as regards monastic usage… lest differing
ways of observing the customs of one rule and one country should bring their
holy conversation into disrepute’. The monks were to be under the patronage of
the king, and the nuns – of the queen. Composed in about 973, writes Ryan
Lavelle, “the Regularis Concordia,… was intended as a rulebook and
liturgical guide for English monks and nuns, but it was also a bold statement
of the relationship between God, the king and a Christian people. The king and
queen were seen as protectors of monks and nuns in the temporal world, while,
in return, the souls of the West Saxon royal family were protected with prayers
by the same monks and nuns. The positions of the king and queen were therefore
inextricably linked with the survival of Christianity in the kingdom. This was
part of a process of legitimising royal power to an extent that was hitherto
unparalleled in Anglo-Saxon England. The king had become part of the
ecclesiastical order in a coronation ceremony that made him God’s
representative on earth. The original meaning of Christ’s name, Christus
meant ‘the anointed [king]’, and the inauguration of Edgar used an ordo (an
order of service) that put Edgar on a similar level – directly anointed by God.
The monastic reform movement gave this a new impetus…”
King Edgar
supported Aethelwold’s reforms in Winchester, not only in the Old Minster, but
also in the New Minster, as well as in the women’s Nunnaminster. “The three
abbeys,” writes Eleanor Duckett, “stood on adjoining lands, the New Minster a
little to the north of the Old, and the Nuns’ Minster a little on the east.
Trouble was constant among them. They were jealous of possessions; they
disputed the lines of their boundaries; they declared respectively that they
could not sing their office in the proper manner because of the noise of
chanting from their monastic neighbours. King Edgar at Aethelwold’s petition
issued an order for an exact division among them and even tore down the houses
of private citizens nearby in order that space might be given for the monks of
Winchester ‘for living more peacefully in God’s service, removed from the
clamour of townspeople’. Such action was hard for the townspeople, yet
Aethelwold in the end also did them untold good. With extraordinary imagination
and practical skill he made his engineers and their workmen conduct a sorely
needed supply of water by channels through the streets of Winchester to
cloisters and to private homes alike.”
The influence of
the holy bishop extended far beyond the bounds of Winchester. With the help of
King Edgar, he revived three great monasteries in the East - Peterborough, Ely
and Thorney. Land was bought and cleared, abbots of stricter discipline
imported, and the veneration of forgotten local saints revived. St. Aethelwold
probably also helped in the reform of monasteries at Milton (Dorset), St.
Neot’s (Cambridgeshire) and Chertsey (Surrey).
Duckett has
described the re-founding of Thorney thus: “This ‘Isle of Thorns’ in the midst
of the waters of the great marsh had once been, it was said, the home of three
hermits, Tancred and Torhtred, and their sister, Tova, who settled to her
prayer a little distance from them, in the heart of the thickets. They were following,
we may think, in the line of a few adventurers in religion who had come in the
seventh century from Medeshamstede [Peterborough], having gained permission
from their abbot, Saxulf, to retreat into this deeper solitude. In the time of
these brothers and their sister the Danes arrived to destroy. The tradition of
Aethelwold relates that he bought the ruins the Danes had left from their
owner, Aethelflaed [Ethelfleda], that he installed some monks – and the number
is given as twelve – and built for them in 972-3 an abbey with its church,
dedicating the altar at the east end to our Lady, the west end to Saint Peter,
and a chapel in the north transept to Saint Benedict. This account points to an
altar at either end, after Carolingian fashion.”
To Ely, which
Edgar and Aethelwold refounded as a monastery for men, another Abingdon monk
Brihtnoth, was brought as abbot. Ely was the home of the incorrupt body of St.
Etheldreda. However, not content with having the relics of St. Etheldreda and
her holy sisters Sexburga and Ermenhilda, Brihtnoth also desired the relics of
the fourth sister, the hermitess St. Withburga. So, after fasting and prayer,
he and some of his monks travelled to the little monastery of East Dereham in
Norfolk, where St. Withburga had struggled. Then he carried off the holy
relics, to the displeasure of the monks and citizens of Dereham.
But he never
allowed church-building to get in the way of almsgiving. Thus during a famine
he ordered the treasures of the Church to be broken down to make money for the
poor, saying: “What is lifeless metal compared with bodies and souls created
and redeemed by God?”
*
On July 15, 971 there took place one of the most
splendid events – from both a material and a spiritual point of view – in
English Orthodox history: the translation of the relics of St. Swithun, Bishop
of Winchester. For over a hundred years after his repose in 862, St. Swithun’s
memory was forgotten, and, as he had wished, people walked over his grave on
their way to the Old Minster in Winchester without knowing who it was they were
stepping on. But the Lord did not wish this light to remain hidden under a
bushel; and in 971 his relics were translated into the cathedral to the
accompaniment of a greater outpouring of miracles than had ever been seen in
Orthodox England.
About twenty
years later, this event was recorded by Abbot Aelfric:- “For three years before
the saint was translated into the church from the stone coffin which now stands
inside the new building, he appeared in a vision to a certain faithful
blacksmith, wonderfully arrayed, and said: ‘Do you know the priest Aedsige, who
with other priests was driven out of the old monastery by Bishop Aethelwold for
their misconduct?’ The smith then answered the venerable Swithun as follows: ‘I
knew him long ago, sir, but he left this place, and I do not know for certain
where he is living now.’ Then the holy man said again to the old smith: ‘He is
now living in Winchcombe. This is the truth. And now I adjure you in the name
of Christ: go quickly and give this message, that Swithun the bishop has
commanded him to go to Bishop Aethelwold and say that he must himself open my
grave and bring my bones inside the church; for he has been counted worthy that
in his time I should be made known to men.’ Then the smith said to him: ‘O sir,
Aedsige will not believe my words.’ Then the bishop said again: ‘Let him go to
my grave and pull a ring out of the coffin; and if the ring yields at the first
tug then he will know for certain that I have sent you to him. If the ring will
not come away easily, then he will by no means accept what I say. And after
that tell him that he must amend his ways in accordance with the will of the
Lord, and hasten single-mindedly to eternal life. And tell everyone that as
soon as they open my grave they will find such a valuable hoard that their
precious gold will be as nothing in comparison.’ Then holy Swithun vanished
from the smith’s sight.
“However, he did
not dare to tell anyone about this vision, fearing to be regarded as an
untruthful messenger. So the holy man spoke to him again, and yet a third time,
and severely reproved him for not acting in obedience to his commands. Then at
last the smith went to his burial-place, and, albeit fearfully, took hold of
the ring, crying out to God: ‘O Lord God, the Creator of all things, grant me,
a sinner, to pull this ring out of the lid, if he who spoke to me three times
in a dream is really lying here inside.’ Then he pulled the iron out of the stone
as easily as if it had stood in sand, and wondered greatly at what had
happened. Then he put it back in the hole and pressed it in with his foot.
Again it stuck so firmly that no one was able to pull it out. The smith went
away awestruck, and in the market-place he met a serf of Aedsige’s, to whom he
related exactly what Swithun had commanded him to report it to his master.
“The serf
consented, but at first did not dare to tell his master, until he felt that no
good would come from concealing the saint’s command. Then he told him in order
what Swithun had commanded. Now at that time Aedsige avoided Bishop Aethelwold
and all the monks who were in the minster because of his ejection by then. So
he did not obey the saint’s command, although the saint was a blood-relative of
his. Within two years, however, he retreated to that same monastery, and by the
grace of God became a monk, continuing there until he departed this life.
Blessed is Almighty God, Who humbles the proud while exalting the humble to high
estate, and corrects the sinful while always preserving the good who hope in
Him.
“Again, there was
a certain poor peasant, awfully hunch-backed and bent over in consequence, to
whom it was revealed in a dream that he would obtain bodily health and recovery
from his crippled state at Swithun’s sepulchre. And so he arose joyfully in the
morning, crept on two crutches to Winchester and sought the saint as he had
been instructed, praying for his health on bended knee. Then he was healed by
the holy bishop, so that no trace of the hump which had oppressed him could be
seen. At that time the monks did not know about St. Swithun, thinking that some
other saint had healed the man. But the peasant said that it was Swithun who
had healed him, for he knew best about the matter.
“A certain man
was afflicted with a very distressing disease, so that he could hardly open his
eyes or utter a word, but lay in torment thus, despairing of his life. Then all
his friends wanted to carry him to the New Minster, to [the relics of] St.
Judoc, so that he could recover his health there. But someone told them that it
would be better to take the sick man to the Old Minster, to Swithun’s grave.
This they did, and that night they kept vigil at the grave with him, praying to
Almighty God to grant the sick man health through St. Swithun. The sick man
also watched until daybreak. Then he fell asleep, and it seemed to all of them
as if the tomb was rocking, while to him it seemed as if someone was dragging
one of his shoes off his feet. Suddenly he awoke, healed by the holy Swithun.
They looked carefully for the shoe, but no one could find it. So they returned
home with the man who had been healed.
“Through the
power of God eight sick men were miraculously healed at the holy tomb before
the body was removed from it.
“After
these signs, King Edgar desired the holy man’s exhumation, and told the
venerable Aethelwold to translate it with great pomp. Then Bishop Aethelwold,
accompanied by abbots and monks, took up the saint and bore him into the church
of St. Peter. There he remains in honour, working miracles. Then within three
days four sick men were healed by the holy man; and there were few days within
the next five months in which at least three sick people were not healed –
sometimes five or six, or seven or eight, ten or twelve, sixteen or eighteen.
Within ten days two hundred men had been healed, and so many within twelve
months that no one could count them. The cemetery was filled with cripples, so
that the people could hardly get into the minster. And within a few days they
were all so miraculously healed that one could not find a sick man in the whole
of that vast crowd.
“At that time
there lived in the Isle of Wight three women, two of whom had been blind for
nine years, and the third had never seen the light of the sun. With some
difficulty they obtained a dumb guide and came to the saint, and watched there
for one night, and were healed, both the blind woman and the dumb guide. Then
the boy told the sacristan, saying that he had never been able to speak before,
and asking for the appointed hymn of praise to be sung.
“At about the
same time a certain bondwoman was caught and sentenced to be flogged for some
very minor fault. She was put in custody until the morning, when she was to be
severely beaten. All night she lay awake, weeping and calling on the holy
Swithun to help her, the wretched one, praying that through the power of God he
would deliver her from the cruel stripes. When dawn broke, and they began to
sing the Praises, the fetters on her feet suddenly fell off, and she ran, with
hands still bound, to the church and the blessed saint, in accordance with his
will. Then her lord came after her and freed her, loosing her bonds, for the sake
of St. Swithun.
“A certain
nobleman had lain crippled by paralysis for many years, being unable to move
from his bed. Then he said that he wanted to travel to Winchester, if only in
his horse-litter, and pray for his healing. While he was saying this to his
servants and friends, he was cured. Nevertheless, he made his way to the saint
on foot, travelling in front of the company for the whole journey, and
earnestly thanked the saint for his recovery.”
On one day,
twenty-five men suffering from various diseases came to the saint, imploring
him to help them. Some were blind, some lame, some deaf and some dumb. They
were all healed at the same time through the saint’s intercession.
There was a
certain very rich nobleman who went suddenly blind. He travelled to Rome to
pray to the holy Apostles for a cure. For four years he stayed in Rome, but was
not healed. Then he heard of St. Swithun, and of the miracles he had wrought
since he had left England. Travelling back in haste, he came to the saint and
was healed there, returning home with perfect sight.
“Another man,”
continues Abbot Aelfric, “had been blind for seven whole years. He had a guide
who led him everywhere. One day he went out, but the guide became angry and
left him. At a loss how to return home, the blind man cried out to god and St.
Swithun in great anguish. He was immediately healed and returned home joyfully
without a guide, for which his relatives thanked God fervently.
“Then the
venerable and blessed Aethelwold, who was the bishop of Winchester at that
time, commanded all the monks who were living in the monastery to go in
procession to the church and praise the saint with hymns, and in this way to
magnify God because of the great saint every time a sick man was healed. This
they did immediately, and sang the Te Deum so often – sometimes three,
sometimes four times in a night – that they came to hate getting up to do this,
as they wanted to go on sleeping. At length they gave up the chanting
altogether, for the bishop was busy with the king and had no means of knowing
that they were not chanting the Te Deum continually. Then St. Swithun
himself came, wonderfully adorned, to a certain good man, and said: ‘Go now to
the Old Minster and tell the monks that God very much dislikes their murmuring
and sloth, for they see God’s wonders among them every day but will not praise
Christ with chanting as the bishop told the brethren to do. And tell them that
if they do not sing the hymn, immediately the miracles will cease. However, if
they sing the Te Deum every time a miracle is performed and a sick man
is healed, then so many miracles will be wrought among them that no one will be
able to remember so many miracles having been wrought in his lifetime by
anyone. Then the man awoke from that joyous sleep, lamenting that he could no
longer see the bright light which he had seen around St. Swithun. He arose,
however, and went quickly to Bishop Aethelwold, and told him all that had
happened. Aethelwold then immediately sent from the king’s court to the monks,
and told them to sing the Te Deum as he had commanded, with the warning
that anyone who neglected this would heavily atone for it by seven days’
continuous fasting. From that time they always observed this custom, as we
ourselves have very often seen; for we have not infrequently sung this hymn
with them…”
St. Swithun’s
translation linked the beginning of the All-English Autocracy, under his pupil
King Alfred, with its zenith under King Edgar. And the contrast between the humility
of his death and burial with the glory of his translation mirrored the progress
of the Autocracy from humility to glory.
The third major
figure in the monastic revival was St. Oswald, Bishop of Worcester and
Archbishop of York. The son of Danish convert parents, and the nephew of St.
Oda of Canterbury, he spent a certain time spent in a monastery in Winchester
before going for five or six years to the Benedictine monastery of
Fleury-on-Loire. There he acquired a thorough knowledge of Benedictine
monasticism and the writings of the Holy Fathers, distinguishing himself by his
humility, obedience and the austerity of his life.
In 958, when St.
Oda was dying, he called his nephew, who was now a priest, to his bedside. But
when Oswald arrived at Dover from France, he heard that the saint had already
reposed. He decided not to return to Fleury, but to go north to York, where
another relative of his, Oscetel, was archbishop. Oscetel introduced him to St.
Dunstan, and he, much impressed, introduced him to the king. And so, supported
by both king and primate, he was elected to the bishopric of Worcester in 961.
There he soon became the object of great love and veneration by the citizens.
Eleanor Duckett
writes: “The Cathedral at Worcester was dedicated to Saint Peter. Since it was
very small, it soon could not hold the people who came flocking to hear this
new pastor preach. Outside it, on a side, level tract of ground, stood a little
stone shrine, with a cross of top, marking the burial-place of Wifred and his
wife Alta, benefactors of Saint Peter’s. To this open space Oswald moved his
congregation and taught as best he could, standing beside the old tomb. Soon
the crowds compelled the building of a new and larger church; and when at last
this was ready, the bishop consecrated it in honour of Mary, Mother of God.
Then the little Saint Peter’s, which before Oswald’s coming had seen secular
clergy in its choir, offered its services in union with this more splendid
cathedral.”
Meanwhile, in
962, Oswald had founded his first monastery, at Westbury-on-Trim, establishing
in it, and later in Worcester, the regular Benedictine discipline. This was the
first of several monasteries that he founded or re-founded in the Severn
valley. At Westbury, as well as at the restored monastery of Winchcombe, he
placed his disciple Germanus as abbot. And at Pershore he installed an abbot
named Fordbricht, who had been trained under St. Dunstan at Glastonbury and St.
Aethelwold at Abingdon. Pershore was enriched by some relics of St. Edburga,
and was henceforth dedicated to SS. Mary, Peter and Paul, and Edburga.
But Oswald’s most
famous foundation was outside his diocese, deep in the fen-country of
Huntingdonshire – Ramsey. Here, in 971, he introduced monks from Westbury and
the famous scholar Abo of Fleury (who wrote the Vita Edmundi), and
translated the relics of St. Felix of Dunwich and the holy Martyr-Princes
Ethelbert and Ethelbricht of Kent. The land was donated by the pious alderman
of East Anglia, Aethelwine.
Once both Oswald
and Aethelwine came to a feast at Ramsey monastery. “There is an ancient
tradition,” writes Oswald’s biographer, an anonymous monk of Ramsey, “that the
whole of the main body of the congregation processed barefoot to the church of
the Blessed Ever-Virgin Birth-Giver of God Mary, which custom was followed by
the chief man [Aethelwine] as he walked with us with joyful heart together with
his soldiers, the monks and the boys. But next to the church to which we had to
go was a bridge, which we crossed on the way out. So on the way back we wanted
to go quickly home by sailing across in a boat together with the precious
relics. When the Liturgy was over, the prelate blessed the people; and we
hastened to return home. But the boat was overloaded. When we were in the
middle of the deep lake, and were about to sink, and the prelate was standing
on the bank surrounded by his own people, he heard the sound of voices: ‘Saint
Benedict, help us!’ On hearing this, he asked the reason, and on ascertaining
it he raised his holy right hand and said, trusting in the Lord: ‘May the
blessing of Christ come upon us from above.’ His clear voice came to the ears
of the most merciful Redeemer more speedily than you could have finished the verse;
and all were brought safely to land.”
In 972, the saint
was made archbishop of York while retaining the bishopric of Worcester until
his death – a unique situation that testified to the honour in which he was
held. This appointment gave him a vast sphere of influence, but also great
responsibilities and difficulties in a province where, as we have seen,
Christianity was still struggling for predominance over paganism. Since St.
Oswald was of Danish parentage, and, moreover, related to Oscetel, he was well
equipped to continue the English Autocracy’s tradition of racial reconciliation
and missionary activity. However, the fact that he did not found a single
monastery in his northern diocese shows the difficulty of the task he faced;
and during the anti-monastic reaction during the reign of Edward the Martyr
this diocese suffered as much as any. Thus in a memorandum on the estates of
York, he states: “I, Archbishop Oswald, declare that all these lands which
Archbishop Oscetel obtained in Northumbria, and which my lord granted me for
St. Peter’s when he was at Nottingham, together with these other lands which
are entered here besides, I had them all until [?] ascended. Then St. Peter was
robbed of them. May God avenge it as He will.”
St. Dunstan died
on May 19, 988, St. Aethelwold – on August 1, 984, and St. Oswald – on February
28, 992. The three great monastic founders and reformers, who occupied the
three most important episcopal sees in the country, not only strengthened the
spiritual life of the English nation immeasurably, but also strengthened the
Autocracy that held the kingdom together. But the murder of King Edgar’s son
Edward in 979 was to signal the beginning of the end both of the English
Orthodox Church and of the English Autocracy…
