The College has St Dunstan as its patron because it was originally founded in the fifteenth century in the parish of St Dunstan-in-the-East, in the City of London (above). St Dunstan was a monk, scholar, musician, and craftsman. He was also a statesman and he served as Archbishop of Canterbury for 28 years. In the tenth century, the foundations of medieval England were laid, which would endure until the Reformation and beyond. The names given to the houses in the College are each associated with important places and aspects of Dunstan’s career and legacy, which continue to inspire the Christian values and education being offered at the College today.
INTRODUCTION
It gives me great pleasure to introduce this reflection on the life and legacy of our patron saint, St Dunstan, whose enduring values continue to inspire our school community and lie at the heart of our House system.
Our Houses are more than just teams for sport or competition; they are communities within a community, giving students of different ages the opportunity to learn, work and play together. By learning more about the life of this remarkable individual, our students deepen their understanding of the values we seek to uphold: courage, compassion, confidence, curiosity and creativity. These are not abstract ideals but lived experiences, embodied in the stories of our patron and reflected in the ethos of our school.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to those whose thoughtful research and dedication have brought this history to life. Their work offers students, staff, parents and alumni alike the opportunity to reflect on the heritage that continues to shape our identity.
Jade McLellan - Head of Senior School
GLASTONBURY
The earliest biography of Dunstan tells of his birth around the year 909 and of his education at Glastonbury early in the tenth century. His parents were farmers at Baltonsborough, a village nearby, and in those days, Glastonbury was largely surrounded by marshes and water, being virtually an island. There was an ancient wooden church there which was incorporated into an early stone monastery where Dunstan was educated by Irish scholars who lived there. It was a holy place of pilgrimage and prayer. Dunstan’s own spiritual life was nurtured by a royal holy woman who lived in Glastonbury, and he designed works of art for some of the convents of nuns in Wessex.
In 943, Dunstan was appointed to be the Abbot of Glastonbury in order to establish regular monastic life there according to the Rule of St Benedict. 1 Benedict lived in the sixth century in Italy, and during the ninth and tenth centuries his Rule was widely adopted across Europe as the norm of Benedictine monastic life. The royal family and the local aristocracy endowed this renewed monastery of Glastonbury with extensive lands, while Dunstan built a cloister and other buildings, some of the remains of which have been found by archaeology.
Manuscripts remain from that time which were at Glastonbury, some of which Dunstan corrected and added to: the most famous of these shows him kneeling at the feet of Christ; it is now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.2 Dunstan was an educator and many monks went from Glastonbury later in the tenth century to create new monasteries and to serve as bishops and Archbishops of Canterbury.
He was also an artist and craftsman, making bells and other metal artefacts. He was remembered too for his musical gifts and there is plainchant music attributed to him.3
MENDIP
Dunstan was born in the southwestern part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and he may well have been related to that part of the royal family associated with King Athelstan, at whose court he grew up.4This was often based at Cheddar where the foundations of a large wooden hall have been found.
The Mendip hills were an important source of silver and lead at this time, which provided steady wealth for the royal family and the local aristocracy.5 Trade also flowed from Somerset across the Severn Sea to Wales, Ireland, and Brittanny. It was in the island of Athelney in the fens near Glastonbury that King Alfred the Great had held out during his resistance to the Viking invasion and prior to his decisive victory over them at the Battle of Edington in 878.6
Dunstan’s uncle had been Bishop of Wells but Dunstan was not always popular at court because of his intellectual and musical interests. He was viewed with suspicion by some of his schoolfriends, who on one occasion threw him into a muddy pond!
Later, during the reign of the next king, Edmund, there was a determined attempt to drive him away, perhaps because of his commitment to monastic life and the desire of some of the bishops to recreate regular monasteries in Wessex.
It is said that it was only when the king had a narrow escape while hunting above Cheddar Gorge that he had a change of heart and appointed Dunstan to be the reforming Abbot of Glastonbury. Otherwise, Dunstan might well have gone abroad to Germany and contributed to the revival of monastic life there.
GHENT
As Abbot of Glastonbury, Dunstan was an important person at the court of the next king, Eadred. It was during his reign that one of Dunstan’s fellow monks and friends, Ethelwold, was appointed to create a Benedictine monastery in Abingdon. When Eadred died, his successor, Edwy, was only a teenager, who quickly fell under the influence of his girlfriend’s mother. It is said that Dunstan had to drag the young king back to his coronation feast from their bedroom! Those who opposed Dunstan secured his exile, this time across the sea to Ghent in Flanders. The ruler of Flanders was related to the English royal family, however, and the monastery of St Peter in Ghent was undergoing reform by adopting a stricter Benedictine way of life. This gave Dunstan the opportunity for wider experience of monastic life, and his friendship with the monks of Ghent remained strong throughout his life. Adelard, the second biographer of Dunstan, actually came from this monastery; and it was probably due to Dunstan’s influence that the monastery of Ghent received lands in Lewisham according to a charter issued by the next king, Edgar, in 964.7
It was during Edgar’s reign that Dunstan became Archbishop of Canterbury and was able to supervise the founding of many monasteries across England, for example at Peterborough and Ely. This development was led by Ethelwold, Abbot of Abingdon, who became Bishop of Winchester.8
There are detailed accounts of how monks were imposed upon the cathedral there, despite strong opposition, and also placed in the royal monastery called the New Minster. A brilliantly illustrated charter remains to mark this event.9 Sometime after 970, a council was held at Winchester where an agreement was drawn up to regulate all the new monasteries according to the Rule of St Benedict, 10 and also as places of prayer for the royal family. This document is called the Regularis Concordia and it is illustrated by a picture of Dunstan and Ethelwold sitting either side of the king with a praying monk at their feet holding the document as a scroll. 11
Monks came from Ghent and other monasteries on the Continent such as Fleury in France to contribute to the formation of this important national policy. Later in the tenth century, monks went from England to Scandinavia as missionaries.
WORCESTER
Dunstan as Abbot of Glastonbury was very reluctant to become a bishop, despite royal pressure, but it was unavoidable when the kingdom was divided between the two teenage sons of King Edmund, Edwy and Edgar. The supporters of Edgar recalled Dunstan to take charge of the bishoprics of Worcester and also of London until such time as he could become the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Worcester was one of the few church centres that had not been pillaged by the Vikings during the ninth century. It remained an important centre of learning, whose bishops gave important support to King Alfred the Great and his successors as they tried to restore education in England. Dunstan’s own time as bishop of Worcester was quite brief, but his successor and younger friend, Oswald, played a very important role in establishing monasteries in the West Midlands, at Pershore, Evesham, and also in Worcester cathedral itself. In due time, Oswald became archbishop of York, using Worcester as his base while he restored church life north of the river Humber that had been destroyed by the Vikings.
Oswald also founded an important monastery in East Anglia called Ramsey 12 , which became the home of an important scholar and scientist called Byrhtferth. His writings give a glimpse of how mathematics and science were approached at that time.13 The principal concern was to be able to calculate time and seasons accurately and in a consistent way across Europe where there was no real time communication.14
The resources available for these subjects were very limited by modern standards.15 Much of the learning of the earlier Greek and Roman period was unknown or had been destroyed. But Dunstan, Ethelwold and Oswald were all strongly committed to education and their efforts are reflected in manuscripts associated with them, or written in Latin and English by those whom they taught such as Aelfric at Winchester.16 It was at this time that many important early English poems were written down and preserved like the Beowulf. 17 Dunstan himself was a poet.
STEPNEY
The church of St Dunstan’s in Stepney was almost certainly founded during the brief time that Dunstan was bishop of London. Most churches at that time were built of wood and this is why none have survived. In the century after his death, two further parishes and their churches in London were named after his memory: St Dunstan in the East and St Dunstan in the West. Now there are numerous churches and other schools dedicated to his memory across the world in the Anglican and Catholic Churches. Dunstan’s time as bishop of London, however, was a stepping-stone to becoming Archbishop of Canterbury in 960.
London was the most important port in England, and Alfred the Great secured it in 886 in order to be able to dominate trade in and out of Kent, Essex, and the Midlands, as well as from Wessex itself. Its economic importance grew steadily throughout the tenth century and links with the Continent were strong. The church of London was also responsible for re-establishing church life in East Anglia and thereby extending the political influence of the kings of Wessex over the area settled by the Vikings called the Danelaw.18 This stretched to the north and east of the old Roman Watling Street, and by the middle of the tenth century the kings of Wessex had become kings of all England.
During Dunstan’s time as archbishop, laws were drawn up by King Edgar to safeguard the laws and customs of the Danish population under his rule alongside normal English law, and careful provision was also made for the British population living in the west of the country in Cornwall and along the borders of Wales. It is very interesting that in the tenth century there was a Danish archbishop of Canterbury called Oda under whom Dunstan became abbot of Glastonbury, and for a time Dunstan’s colleague as archbishop of York was a Dane called Oskytel. England was already becoming a united church and kingdom made up of three distinct peoples.
CANTERBURY
The Archbishop of Canterbury remains to this day the most senior figure in precedence in England after members of the royal family, and this reflects the key role that various archbishops have played in the life of England since the time when St Augustine came from Rome to Kent in 597. In Dunstan’s day, the Archbishop of Canterbury was widely regarded as virtually the ‘pope’ of northern Europe, and he was certainly the Pope’s representative in England itself. In this position, and with the support of bishops like Ethelwold and Oswald and many of the leading aristocracy as well as of the king, Dunstan was able to institute wide-ranging reforms in the life of the Church that also had an impact on law-making and stable currency.
He enabled the founding of many monasteries and negotiated suitable endowments of lands and wealth for them. They were not large in terms of buildings or numbers of people: but they needed to be safeguarded against being undermined by later generations of landowners, some of whom clearly resented their existence.
Dunstan’s abiding memorial remains the English Coronation Order that was used for the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III in 2023.19 He did not invent the coronation rite as such, but he welded together existing prayers and customs into the fully developed order that survives today. He insisted that the ruler had first to promise to obey the law, to maintain justice for all his subjects, and to uphold the freedom of the Church before he could be crowned and anointed as King ‘by the Grace of God.’ The letters ‘D G’ on our coins today express this: they stand for the Latin phrase Dei Gratia 20 For Dunstan and his contemporaries, the king was accountable to God as well as to his people, and this principle of accountability has underpinned the constitution of England ever since that time, notably at the time of the Magna Carta in 1215, and of the Glorious Revolution in 1688. It also underpins those constitutions that have sprung from England – in America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and elsewhere. Accountable rule under law remains a vital and most important principle today. For Dunstan, the king was called and anointed to be the shepherd and servant of God’s people.
THE MEMORY OF ST DUNSTAN
St Dunstan was greatly loved and revered by many in his own lifetime and he lived to a great age by the standards of his day.21 His burial place in Canterbury Cathedral soon became a shrine where people were often healed, and the date of his death on 19 May in 988 became a national festival, and it remains commemorated in the calendars of the Anglican and Catholic churches today.
When the Normans took over the country in 1066 there was a real danger that the memory of Dunstan would be obscured or even suppressed, especially as the Anglo-Saxon cathedral at Canterbury was largely destroyed in a fire. But the second Norman archbishop of Canterbury, St Anselm, ensured that this did not happen, as he regarded Dunstan as a saint.
It was the murder of Thomas à Becket during the reign of Henry II that led to his tomb, rather than Dunstan’s, becoming the principal focus of pilgrimage and veneration at Canterbury Cathedral until Henry VIII destroyed it and suppressed all public commemoration of Becket during the Reformation. Monastic life in England was also destroyed by Henry VIII at that time in the sixteenth century and the great monasteries founded in the age of Dunstan fell into ruins after five hundred years of existence.
It was only towards the end of the nineteenth century that Bishop William Stubbs of Oxford published the Latin texts relating to Dunstan in The Memorials of St Dunstan in the Rolls series. This has been the foundation for a revival of Dunstan’s memory and an accurate appreciation of his legacy by modern historians in time for his millennium in 1988. The College is therefore heir to a rich and unique tradition, and it is fortunate to be under the patronage of so important and exemplary a founder of English church, education, culture, and society.
Douglas Dales left the College in 1970 to read history and then theology at Christ Church, Oxford.
He was for many years Chaplain of Marlborough College and is the author of ‘Dunstan – Saint and Statesman’ that is published by James Clarke & Co., Cambridge.
The references throughout the booklet are to relevant illustrations in the catalogue: ‘Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms – art, word, war’ published in 2018 by the British Library:
121: The earliest remaining version of the Rule of St Benedict from England in the seventh century.
2111 – Dunstan’s self-portrait in ‘The Class-book’ of St Dunstan from Glastonbury.
3124 – An example of late tenth century music from Canterbury; also 125 – The Sherborne Pontifical associated with Dunstan’s time in Canterbury or shortly afterwards.
472 – The Athelstan or Coronation gospels – an example of Continental artistic appeal.
565 – The Fuller Broach – a fine example of Anglo-Saxon metal work in silver.
663 – The Alfred Jewel, found at Athelney and now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
769 – An example of a royal charter from the reign of King Athelstan.
8Fig.43 on p.280 – The grandeur of St Ethelwold’s Benedictional from Winchester.
9112 – The New Minster Charter
10115 – Opening to the ‘Rule of St Benedict’ from St Augustine’s Canterbury in the tenth century. 11113 – The original opening to the ‘Regularis Concordia.’
12128 – The Ramsey Psalter with its moving opening Crucifixion scene.
13106 - A diagram portraying the composition of the cosmos from Byrhtferth’s ‘Handbook.’
14105 – A portable sundial found at Canterbury Cathedral.
15107 – A medical book dealing with beneficial herbs.
1695 – A page from Aelfric’s grammar explaining Latin terms in English; & 93 – the illustrated Old English Hexateuch – the opening books of the Bible.
1786 - The only remaining and damaged manuscript of ‘Beowulf.’
1884 – The Aedwen Brooch from East Anglia from the early eleventh century.
19118 – The Anglo-Saxon Coronation Order in Latin.
20119 – The Promise of the King in Old English.
21130 – The continuing Benedictine tradition at Canterbury – the Eadwy Psalter.
