The British Academy

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Excerpt from The British Academy: Supplemental Papers When Osbern, the precentor of Canterbury in the early days after the Conquest, re-wrote the Life of St Dunstan, he described that saints passage from the abbey of Glastonbury to the bishopric of Worcester as involving no change of allegiance - 'from the Virgin' he passed 'to the Virgin, from the Mother of the Lord to the Mother of the Lord': or, as we might put it more plainly, from St Mary of Glastonbury to St Mary of Worcester. The high-flown style in which Osbern wrote, and the historical errors which disfigured his Work, soon called forth another Life of St Dunstan, written by a successor of Osbern in the precentorship, the historian Eadmer, the friend and biographer of St Anselm. Eadmer, in his preface, gives as an example of his predecessor's inexactness the fact that he had said that the cathedral church of Worcester was dedicated to the honour of the Blessed Mary the Mother of God, whereas when Dunstan was bishop its dedication was to St Peter the Prince of the Apostles. It was not long before a third Life of St Dunstan came from the pen of William of Malmesbury. He passes over the work of his contemporary Eadmer in silence, but he loses no opportunity of denouncing the ignorance of Osbern. As he was writing for the monks of Glastonbury, who were particularly eager at that time to assert their share in the glories of Dunstan, his depreciation of the Canterbury Chanter, as he calls him, would not come amiss. In his interpretation of the vision in which Dunstan beheld St Peter handing him a sword, he says: 'Blessed Peter handed him his sword, because he grudged him not his own seat at Worcester. For the bishop's throne at Worcester had not yet passed to the name of the Blessed Mother of God.' After exposing the mistake which Osbern had made on this point, he adds: 'I learn from this that his historical investigations have not gone very far, since he does not know the churches of his own country.' In a later passage he gives an explanation of the change of dedication at Worcester. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.