Dunstan's persecation of the married clergy. Miraculous images speaking to reprove the guilt of matrimony

holy Sepulchre. St. Joseph's chapel, which is the prominent object in the engraving, is still pretty entire, excepting the roof and floor, and must be admired for the richness of the finishing, as well as for the great elegance of the design. The communication with the church was by a spacious portal. There are doors also to the North and South; one is ornamented with flower-work, the other with very elaborate flourishes and figures. The arches of the windows are semi-circular, and adorned with the lozenge, zigzag, and embattled mouldings; underneath appears a series of compartments of interlaced semi-circular arches, springing from slender shafts, and also ornamented with zigzag mouldings, and in their spandrils are roses, crescents, and stars. Altogether this is one of the most remarkable remains of antiquity in the world. (See Engraving.)

§ 53. In 960, the former abbot of Glastonbury was made archbishop of Canterbury, and assured of the favor of king Edgar, prepared to execute the grand design which he had long meditatedof compelling the secular canons to put away their wives, and become monks; or of driving them out, and introducing Benedictine monks in their room. With this view he procured the promotion of his intimate friend, Oswald, to the See of Worcester, and of Ethelwald to that of Winchester; two prelates who were themselves monks, and animated with the most ardent zeal for the advancement of their order. This trio of bishops, the three great champions of the monks, and enemies of the married clergy, now proceeded by every possible method of fraud or force, to drive the married clergy out of all the monasteries, or compel them to put away their wives and children. Rather than consent to the latter, by far the greatest number chose to become beggars and vagabonds, for which the monkish historians give them the most opprobrious names. To countenance these cruel, tyrannical proceedings, Dunstan and his associates held up the married clergy as monsters of wickedness for cohabiting with their wives, magnified celibacy as the only state becoming the sanctity of the sacerdotal office, and propagated a thousand lies of miracles and visions to its honor. Among other popish contrivances, hollow crosses or images were constructed sufficiently large to conceal a monk, which, when appealed to by Dunstan, miraculously spoke in a human voice, and declared in the hearing of the gaping and astonished multitudes, the horrible guilt of those who claimed to be priests, and yet chose also to be husbands and fathers.

§ 54.—In the year 969, a commission was granted by king Edgar, who appears to have been an obedient tool of Dunstan, to the three prelates, to expel the married canons out of all the cathedrals and larger monasteries, promising to assist them in the execution of it with all his power. On this occasion he made a flaming speech, in which he painted the manners of the married clergy in the most odious colors, calling upon them to exert all their power in conjunction with him, to exterminate those abominable wretches who kept

The Remains of Glastonbury Abbey-the Scene of a great part of St. Dunstan's Life and Miracles.

Strange penance for a libertine king.

Death of St. Dunstan

wives. In the conclusion of his speech he thus addressed Dunstan: "I know, O holy father Dunstan ! that you have not encouraged those criminal practices of the clergy. You have reasoned, entreated, threatened. From words it is now time to come to blows. All the power of the crown is at your command. Your brethren, the venerable Ethelwald, and the most reverend Oswald, will assist you. To you three I commit the execution of this important work. Strike boldly; drive those irregular livers out of the church of Christ, and introduce others who will live according to rule." And yet this furious champion for chastity had, some time before the delivery of this harangue, ravished a nun, a young lady of noble birth, and great beauty, at which his holy father confessor was so much offended, that he enjoined him, by way of penance, not to wear his crown for seven years; to build a nunnery, and to persecute the married clergy with all his might—a strange way of making atonement for his own libertinism, by depriving others of their natural rights and liberties.

§ 55. At length this famous Saint Dunstan died in the year 988, and England was relieved of one of the most cunning and successful impostors, and obedient tools of Rome, the world ever saw. When it is mentioned that Dunstan pretended to many other miracles, about equal in probability and absurdity to that already mentioned, of pulling the devil's nose with his red hot tongs, this judgment will not be regarded as unduly severe. As, however, Dunstan was mainly instrumental in restoring and promoting the monastic institutions, the grateful monks, who were almost the only historians of those dark ages, have loaded him with the most extravagant praises, and represented him as the greatest miracle-monger and highest favorite of heaven, that ever lived. To say nothing of his many conflicts with the devil, in which we are told he often belabored that enemy of mankind most severely, the following short story, which is related with great exultation by his biographer, will give some idea of the astonishing impiety and impudence of those monks, and of the no less astonishing blindness and credulity of those unhappy times. "The most admirable, the most inestimable father Dunstan," says his biographer, "whose perfections exceeded all human imagination, was admitted to behold the mother of God, and his own mother, in eternal glory; for before his death he was carried up into heaven, to be present at the nuptials of his own mother with the Eternal King, which were celebrated by the angels with the most sweet and joyous songs. When the angels reproached him for his silence on this great occasion, so honorable to his mother, he excused himself on account of his being unacquainted with those sweet and heavenly strains; but being a little instructed by the angels, he broke out into this melodious song; O King and Ruler of nations, &c.'" The original author of this impious fiction was Dunstan himself, who, upon his pretended return from this celestial visit, summoned a monk to commit the heavenly song to writing from Dunstan's lips, and the morning after, all the monks

Conquest of England, by William of Normandy-A. D. 1066.

were commanded to learn and to sing it, while Dunstan loudly declared the truth of the vision.

In the year 1066, an event occurred, which constitutes an important epoch, both in the civil and ecclesiastical history of England. That event was the conquest by William of Normandy. The consequences upon Popery in England, of this memorable revolution, as they belong chiefly to the succeeding period, must be reserved for a future chapter.