ABSTRACT
In his biographical sketch of St Dunstan, Nicholas Brooks acutely describes the saint as a ‘holy man of distinction’ and comments on the disruptive nature of Dunstan’s presence at the court of King Edmund. This epithet reminds the reader of the uncompromising nature of Dunstan’s spirituality and the power in earthly affairs he was to derive from his relationship with the divine.1 The influence of Dunstan, like that of his later contemporaries, Æthelwold and Oswald, is now recognised as a major factor in the policies of the late tenth-century Anglo-Saxon kings.2 For example, it appears that Dunstan was a crucial supporter of the young king, Edward, in the succession dispute on the death of King Edgar, while Æthelwold favoured the claims of Æthelred, son of the consecrated queen.3 In these and other matters, the political authority of these men was rooted in their episcopal office, with its responsibility for royal counsel and its ministry of consecration. According to a story recorded in the late eleventh century, Dunstan withstood courtly discontent at the designation of Edward as king: ‘But when, at the time of [Edward’s] consecration, some of the leading men of the nation had wished to oppose [it], St Dunstan persevered singlemindedly in his election, and, taking hold of the banner of the holy cross which was customarily carried before him, he fixed it upright in the middle, and with the remaining pious bishops consecrated him king’.4
