Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/96

THE SAXON CATHEDRAL AT CANTERBURY that of Archbishop Plegmund and twelve others were placed in the choir at Christ Church, where they remained till the issue of the Injunctions of King Edward VI in his first year, when all the images were cast out of the church. In the Treasurer's accounts for the year (1548–1549) there is this entry:

"for extirpating the images in the Church this year....13s. 4d.

Osbern, in his Life of St. Dunstan, tells us of the tomb which was placed over the remains of the saint, and the story of the dove:

"Now on the day of the coming of Dunstan, the successor of Odo, to Canterbury, he was celebrating Mass at the Altar of the Saviour, when suddenly the House was covered with a cloud, and that Dove which erst was seen of John in Jordan, again appeared and hovered over him, and when the sacrifice was completed, it settled on the tomb of the Blessed Odo which was constructed in the fashion of a pyramid to the south of the Altar."

Edmer, in his Life of Odo, tells the same story and with regard to the particular altar at which Dunstan was celebrating, says:

"at the Altar of Our Lord and Saviour at Canterbury";

there can be little doubt therefore that the altar referred to was the one set in the chord of the apse, and not the Great Altar built of rough stones and cement which was fixed at the extreme east end of the apse against the wall. The tomb itself was raised in the form of a pyramid, and there was the miraculous appearance of a dove which settled on the tomb, an event which it was quite possible would lead in those days to the erection of the figure of a dove on the tomb itself to commemorate the miracle.

Edmer states that the bodies of the pontiffs, Cuthbert, Bregwin, and their successors (presumably those who were buried in the Church of St. John), rested undisturbed in their coffins after the fire of 1067 for three years, until Lanfranc Abbot of Caen was made Archbishop of Canterbury; when after rebuilding the Church, he brought the Saxon Archbishops into his newly founded Cathedral and placed them each in a separate wooden coffin, putting them upon a vault in the north part of the church where daily the mystery of the Sacrifice of 58