Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/88

THE SAXON CATHEDRAL AT CANTERBURY upon the Book of the Gospels, laid upon the Altar; and it was ratified by the same book being immediately kissed. This practice has indeed come down to our own times; it is still used at coronations.

The Coronation Oath of King Ethelred II at Kingston in 978, at which Archbishop Dunstan officiated, is similar to the one above.

Dr. Armitage Robinson, in his Ford Lectures for 1922 on The Times of St. Dunstan, draws attention to another MS. stated by Wanley to have got into the British Museum Library from Christ Church, Canterbury, and supposed to have been presented to that Church by King Athelstan. It is a Gospel Book of the eighth century, now amongst the Royal MSS. as I B vii. The learned Dean thinks it belonged rather to St. Austin's Abbey, as it contains the entry of a manumission made immediately after Athelstan became King, and he points out that on the very day of his coronation Athelstan gave a Charter to the monks of St. Austin's restoring to the Abbey lands in the Isle of Thanet, which had been taken from them. It is possible that it was this book and not the above which had been used as the Book of the Gospels on which the King took the oath, and which was to be kept in future for that purpose. Possibly Archbishop Athelm borrowed the book from St. Austin's for the purpose of the Coronation, and the King gave the Charter to the monks in return for the loan of it.

Edred was the youngest son of Edward the Elder and Ediva. He succeeded to the throne on the murder of his brother Edmund in A.D. 946, and was crowned by Archbishop Odo at Kingston in Surrey. He was a young man when he succeeded his brother and the kingdom was administered by his mother, the saint-like Ediva, and her friend Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury. Edred had had to take up arms against the Northumbrians on account of their revolt, and it was then that Ripon was burnt and destroyed; peace, however, came to the country about 954, and the Danes became obedient to the Saxon king. Edred was, like his mother, a benefactor to the Church ruled by Odo. In A.D. 949 he executed the famous Canterbury Charter, by which he gave the ville and monastery of Reculver, and twenty-five carrucates of land to Christ Church. This charter is also remarkable as being drawn up and written by Dunstan: "unworthy Abbot" he calls 54