The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Archiepiscopal SeeWithers, Hartley
History
The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Archiepiscopal See
Withers, Hartley
Canterbury Cathedral
prior and the trusty monks who had assisted him before the Archbishop, and
it was only by the intervention of the latter, and other men of authority,
and "after due apology and repentance," that harmony was restored in the
convent.
[Illustration: THE CHOIR BEFORE RESTORATION.]
The bones of St. Dunstan were long a cause of contention between the
churches of Canterbury and Glastonbury. The monks of Glastonbury
considered that they had a prior claim on the relics of the sainted
archbishop, and stoutly contended that his body had been conveyed to their
own sanctuary after the sack of Canterbury by the Danes; and they used to
exhibit a coffin as containing Dunstan's remains. But early in the
fourteenth century they went so far as to set up a gorgeous shrine in
which they placed, with much pomp and circumstance, the supposed relics.
Archbishop Warham, who then ruled at Canterbury, accordingly replied by
causing the shrine in our cathedral to be opened, and was able to declare
triumphantly that he had found therein the remains of a human body, in the
costume of an archbishop, with a plate of lead on his breast, inscribed
with the words "SANCTUS DUNSTANUS." In the course of the subsequent
correspondence which passed between the two monasteries, the Abbot of
Glastonbury, after trying to argue that perhaps part only of the saint's
relics had been conveyed to his church, at last frankly confesses "the
people had believed in the genuineness of their saint for so long, that he
is afraid to tell them the truth." This shrine of St. Dunstan stood on the
south of the high altar, and was erected after the manner of a tomb:
though the shrine itself perished at the time of the Reformation, there
still remains, on the south wall of the choir, between the monuments of
Archbishops Stratford and Sudbury, some very fine open diaper-work, in
what is known as the Decorated style, which once formed part of the
ornamentation of St. Dunstan's altar. The shrine of St. Elfege, or
Alphege, who was archbishop at the time of the sacking of Canterbury by
the Danes, and was murdered by them, has been altogether destroyed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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