Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/229

 spend some years in the household of the king or of some great man. Æthelstan showed him favour, and his companions, and especially his young relations, at the court were jealous of him. He seems to have been a delicate lad, with highly strung nerves and of morbid constitution; he was much given to dreams, and in some of them he believed that he saw supernatural visions; he had suffered from a severe fever at Glastonbury, and had walked on the roof of the church in his sleep; he was fond of reading and other sedentary occupations that were distasteful to the young nobles, and was evidently unpopular among them. They accused him before the king of studying incantations and other heathen arts, and procured his banishment from the court. As he left they set upon him, bound his hands and feet, threw him into a marshy place, and pushed him well into the mud with their feet. After his expulsion from the court he stayed for a time with his kinsman Bishop Ælfheah at Winchester. Ælfheah tried to persuade him to become a monk, but he was unwilling to pledge himself to celibacy, though there is no reason to believe that he was in love with any young lady in particular (Vita B. 13;, Essays, 191). A severe illness led him to change his mind, and he made his profession to Ælfheah. He seems to have again dwelt at Glastonbury, though his profession as a monk, while it bound him to live unmarried, did not oblige him to adopt a mode of life such as that enjoined by the Benedictine rule. He studied the scriptures diligently, and was well skilled in the arts of transcription, painting, and music, playing much upon the harp, which was his constant companion. To this period is, perhaps, to be referred the beginning of his anchorite life; he built himself a cell 5 feet long by 2½ feet broad, which was still shown in the eleventh century (, 83); there he prayed, saw visions, which became the subjects of legends, and wrestled with temptation, and, as he believed, with the Tempter himself in bodily form; and there too he worked in metals, using his cell as his forge as well as his oratory and dwelling-place, and in this industry, for which the English were specially famed, he became very skilful, making organs, bells, and other articles of church furniture, some of which were long preserved (Gesta Pontiff. 407). Neither his anchorite life nor these pursuits of his must, however, be limited to this period. Craftsman's work was always dear to him, and he probably used his cell at Glastonbury at least for prayer, meditation, and labour, whenever he was there. At this time he was much with his kinswoman Æthelflæd, a widow of great wealth, who built herself a house at Glastonbury, and at a somewhat later date he attended her on her deathbed, and was made her heir.

When Eadmund [see ] succeeded his brother Æthelstan, he called Dunstan to his court and gave him a place among his chief lords and councillors. Jealous of the favour he enjoyed, some of the king's thegns brought accusations against him while the court was at Cheddar, not far from Glastonbury. The king believed them, and in great wrath deprived him of his offices and bade him leave his court and seek a new lord. Now it happened that there were there abiding with the king certain ‘venerable men, messengers from the Eastern kingdom;’ to them Dunstan went, and prayed them that they would not leave him, now that the king had turned from him, but would take him with them on their return. They were moved with compassion towards him, and promised that he should go back with them and enjoy prosperity in their kingdom (Vita B. 23). The story is told by the earliest of Dunstan's biographers, the anonymous priest ‘B.’ from the old Saxon land, who knew him personally. What he meant by the ‘Eastern kingdom,’ a term which he also uses on another occasion, it is impossible to say with certainty: it has been held to mean the part of England sometimes so styled (Oriens regnum), which in the ninth century took in Kent, Essex, Surrey, and Sussex, though the signification of the term was scarcely fixed (cf., Diplomatarium, 66, 78, , sub a. 856). The ‘Oriens regnum’ seems to have formed a distinct government for the eldest son of the king, though it is very doubtful whether the term ever marked a permanent political distinction. It may perhaps be taken to signify East Anglia, which was now governed by the senior ealdorman Æthelstan, called the ‘Half-king,’ and it is used with this meaning by the biographer of St. Oswald (Vita, Historians of York, i. 428). This interpretation gathers force from the friendship that afterwards existed between Dunstan and the ealdorman and his house, though in this case the story of the messengers must be taken as an afterthought. Dr. Stubbs, however, thinks it ‘almost necessary to refer it to the German kingdom, the native land of the writer,’ then under Otto I, and this evidently was the opinion of William of Malmesbury (Memorials of St. Dunstan, Introd. xvii. 269). Dunstan was not driven to go into exile. One day when the king was hunting a stag on the Mendip hills, and had outstripped all his followers, the hunted beast fell over Cheddar cliffs, and the dogs fell over with it. The king's horse