The last decade of the eleventh century at the Abbey of St Augustine in Canterbury was a time not just of change, but of remembrance. Having demolished the last remaining part of the Anglo-Saxon church of SS Peter and Paul, Abbot Wido (1087–99) presided over the translations of the illustrious relics of St Augustine and his episcopal successors from the ruins of the old building into the presbytery of the new Anglo-Norman church between 6 and 13 September 1091.Footnote 1 To commemorate the occasion, and ensure the longevity of the saints’ cults, he drew upon the services of Goscelin of Saint-Bertin (d. in or after 1107). An itinerant hagiographer, Goscelin was likely to have been stationed at the abbey during the 1090s, where he may have taken charge of the library and liturgy in the capacity of a precentor.Footnote 2 Goscelin duly compiled a set of Lives, Miracles, Translation narratives and liturgical pieces about the Anglo-Saxon saints who bolstered the abbey’s reputation as an epicentre of spiritual power.Footnote 3 At the heart of the body of texts is the Historia translationis S. Augustini (henceforth, Transl. Augustini), completed between 1098 and 1100.Footnote 4 The first part of the text focuses on events that took place under Abbot Wido: the building work on the Romanesque church, the translation ceremonies of 1091, and the visions and miracles that followed. The second part goes back in time and records how the abbey’s physical form changed from the time of Abbot Wulfric to that of Wido’s predecessor, Abbot Scotland (1070–87).Footnote 5
Scotland’s contribution to the abbey’s renaissance was substantial. He demolished most of the rotten infrastructure of the old church of SS Peter and Paul,Footnote 6 from which he moved the bodies of King Æthelberht, the co-founder of the abbey, his queen, Bertha, and Bishop Luidhard and the relics of five Anglo-Saxon archbishops.Footnote 7 He then began work on the Romanesque building, completing a presbytery, a crypt dedicated to the Virgin Mary and two bays of the nave before his death.Footnote 8 The construction of the new abbey necessitated the demolition of the oratory of St Mary. This was the site at which, according to hagiographical tradition, the former archbishop of Canterbury, St Dunstan (d. 988), had seen and heard heavenly virgins perform a song in honour of Christ. As the author of a new spiritual history of the abbey, Goscelin therefore needed to preserve the reputation of the Anglo-Saxon oratory as a holy site while also legitimizing Scotland’s destruction of it. In this article, I argue that Goscelin drew upon and added to Dunstan’s vision and audition of the heavenly choir in order to show that Scotland’s building work was not so much an obliteration of the abbey’s holy past, but a renewal – even a fulfilment – of it. The crypt of St Mary, like the oratory that stood before it, was presented as a sacred space where celestial choirs gathered for musical performances that echoed liturgical devotions.
The roles of Scotland and Dunstan in the Transl. Augustini have been overlooked in previous scholarship, with the focus falling instead on the first part of the text, which concerns Wido and his translations of the Anglo-Saxon saints. Richard Sharpe has placed the text – and the cycle to which it belonged – in the context of the conflict between St Augustine’s Abbey and rival religious institutions with a connection to Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury from 1070 to 1089.Footnote 9 Sharpe considered the significance of the argument that raged in the late 1080s between the abbey and St Gregory’s Priory (founded by Lanfranc, perhaps in an attempt to weaken the abbey’s pastoral prominence in Canterbury) over who possessed the relics of St Mildreth, and touched on the rebellion at the abbey that took place after Lanfranc appointed Wido as Scotland’s successor.Footnote 10 Goscelin, he argued, was part of the new community created after the suppression of the rebellion and the installation of new monks from Christ Church cathedral priory, among other religious houses, in 1089; his job at the abbey was to present a vision of the abbey renewed and unified under Wido.Footnote 11 Richard Emms developed his contextualization of Goscelin’s Canterbury cycle along similar lines, arguing that ‘Goscelin used the past to support essential St Augustine’s interests at the time of writing, namely the possession of the relics of St Mildreth and the preeminent position of the abbot [Wido]’.Footnote 12 Goscelin certainly does depict the success of the abbey under Wido, but he also appeals to Anglo-Saxon monks who had been among of the brethren prior to 1089 by suggesting that the boom time of the 1090s arose partly as a result of the efforts put in by Scotland, an abbot beloved of the old community. Furthermore, his work implies that it was Scotland, not Wido, who preserved the legacy of the abbey’s spiritual connection to Dunstan, the city’s former archbishop and venerable saint.
I first of all explore how Dunstan’s first hagiographer presents his vision in the oratory of St Mary, suggesting that the account reveals a connection between the nature of the vision and the symbolic significance of the building. I then consider how two writers from Christ Church, Osbern (d. c. 1093) and Eadmer (d. c. 1126), construct competing narratives of heavenly choirs in their hagiographies of Dunstan in order to emphasize his connection to the cathedral priory. Finally, I argue that the brief but significant episodes in which Goscelin alludes to Dunstan’s vision of the virgins in St Mary’s oratory transfers the emphasis from Christ Church, where Dunstan’s relics were housed,Footnote 13 to the abbey, a dwelling place of heavenly spirits.
THE ORATORY OF ST MARY AND THE VIRGIN CHOIR IN ANGLO-SAXON HAGIOGRAPHY
The Vita S. Dunstani, written in the late 990s by an Anglo-Saxon author known only by the initial, ‘B.’, tells of Dunstan’s rise to positions of spiritual authority and his exceptional personal piety.Footnote 14 It charts his progression from abbot of Glastonbury to bishop of Worcester and London, and finally to archbishop of Canterbury, a position he fills from 960 until his death in 988. The Vita also contains a number of musical experiences: an unseen hand plays an antiphon on Dunstan’s harp,Footnote 15 and while in exile from England, Dunstan receives a dream-vision of his brethren at Glastonbury reciting ‘Quare detraxistis sermonibus veritatis?’.Footnote 16 In another dream, Dunstan sees a mystical marriage between his mother and the King of Heaven and is taught a novel version of the antiphon ‘O rex gentium’ by one member of the heavenly congregation.Footnote 17 Finally, during his time in Canterbury, Dunstan is blessed with a vision of a group of heavenly virgins performing a hymn.Footnote 18 This last episode is of especial interest, given Goscelin’s allusions to it in the Transl. Augustini. According to B.’s account, Dunstan was accustomed to perform psalmody at the holy sites of the city during the night.Footnote 19 On one occasion, Dunstan had refreshed himself with prayer in the church of SS Peter and Paul and was heading towards the oratory of St Mary to begin his psalmody anew.Footnote 20 It was then that ‘audierat insolitas sonoritatum uoces subtili modulamine … concrepantes’.Footnote 21 Upon looking through an opening, he saw the church filled with light: ‘et uirgineas turmas in choro gyranti hymnum hunc poetae Sedulii cursitando cantantes: “Cantemus, socii, Domino” et cetera. Itemque perpendit easdem post uersum et uersum uoce reciproca, quasi in circumitionis suae concentu, primum uersiculum euisdem ymniculi more humanarum uirginum repsallere, dicentes: “Cantemus, socii, Domino cantemus honorem: Dulcis amor Christi personet ore pio” et cetera.’Footnote 22 The vision is one of many heavenly rewards for Dunstan’s righteousness.Footnote 23 More specifically, it signifies his dedication to the Divine Office, as he witnessed the song straight after performing his own nocturnal praises.Footnote 24 Dunstan’s vigils are among the activities that exemplify his asceticism, as he needed to remain physically and spiritually alert during his recitations of the psalms, and they also demonstrate his commitment to the contemplative life during the years of his episcopal responsibilities at Canterbury. In B.’s text, the vita angelica – the monastic life of praise and prayer that emulates heavenly worship – is conveyed through Dunstan’s musical experiences.Footnote 25 B. states that Dunstan’s spirit learned ‘diuina sacrorum modulaminum cantica’ (‘divine hymns of sacred melody’) and ‘sacrorum carminum modulamina’ (‘melodies of sacred songs’) through dream-visions, implying that his musical compositions had a divine origin.Footnote 26 After the dream in which he is taught a new version of ‘O rex gentium’, Dunstan ensures that the song (‘modulati[o]’) is written down, learnt by a monk and taught to the monks and clerics.Footnote 27 Dunstan’s spiritual gifts therefore allow him to mediate between earthly and heavenly communities of singers, and enrich the liturgical repertoire of the community of which he was in charge. The vision at St Augustine’s Abbey is in keeping with B.’s portrayal of Dunstan as saint whose own musical and spiritual practices reflect celestial praise.
The vision is significant not only because it illustrates Dunstan’s virtue, but because it implies a connection between the song of the virgin choir and the location in which the heavenly spirits gather to worship Christ. The Sedulius hymn tells the story of humanity’s salvation through a series of epanaleptic couplets, each of which alludes to a biblical ‘type’ in the first line and its fulfilment in the second.Footnote 28 For instance, one couplet conveys how God washes away the sins of the world by referring first to the drowning of the Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea (Ex. 14: 26-8) and then by alluding to the sacrament of baptism.Footnote 29 Only the first couplet (‘Cantemus, socii, Domino; cantemus honorem. / Dulcis amor Christi personet ore pio’), which is repeated as a refrain after each verse in Dunstan’s vision, does not appear to fit this pattern initially. However, closer analysis of the first line reveals that it is in fact typological in nature. As Christopher Page has shown, the line beginning ‘Cantemus socii’ echoes the victory song of Miriam in Ex. 15: 20–1: ‘ “cantemus Domino gloriose enim magnificatus est equum et ascensorem eius deiecit in mare” ’.Footnote 30 In late antiquity, Miriam was interpreted as a type of the Virgin Mary; the fourth-century Church Fathers drew parallels between Miriam and her followers on one hand and the Virgin Mary and her band of heavenly virgins on the other.Footnote 31 This understanding of Mary as the leader of a choir of virgins was informed by Apoc. 14: 3, in which a choir of 144,000 virgins, the redeemed of the earth, are said to be the only ones who can learn the ‘nouum canticum’ (‘new song’) of praise to God. Although the virgins of Apoc. 14 are male (‘hii sunt qui cum mulieribus non sunt coinquinati’),Footnote 32 by the late Anglo-Saxon period, the heavenly choir of virgins had been re-gendered as female, thanks in part to Bede’s portrait of Abbess Æthelthryth as a singer of the new song in the Historia ecclesiastica. Footnote 33 Although Mary herself is not present in B.’s version of Dunstan’s vision, the song of the heavenly choir of virgins is associated with the Virgin and takes place in the oratory dedicated to her.
Parallels may be drawn between the vision at St Mary’s oratory and otherworldly experiences at other churches dedicated to the Virgin during the Anglo-Saxon period. In an earlier part of the Vita S. Dunstani, B. mentions the existence of the monastery dedicated to St Mary at Glastonbury.Footnote 34 He notes that it was not built in living memory, but that it was revealed to be consecrated to God and Mary, ‘multis miraculorum gestis multisque misteriorum uirtutibus’Footnote 35 – a tantalizing suggestion that the miracles there revealed something of the identity and nature of the figures to whom it was dedicated. In another late-tenth-century text, Byrhtferth of Ramsey’s Vita S. Ecgwini, the Virgin Mary indicates where she would like an abbey to be built in her honour by appearing on that spot flanked by two other heavenly virgins; in the first of two visions, the virgins sing psalms.Footnote 36 Furthermore, the ninth-century De abbatibus by Æthelwulf chronicles the history of an unknown Northumbrian monastery which, like St Augustine’s Abbey, was made up of one church dedicated to an apostle, St Peter, and another dedicated to St Mary.Footnote 37 Æthelwulf describes this second building as the house which the high mother inhabits (‘incolitans’), suggesting that the church was her earthly abode.Footnote 38 He goes on to make an intriguing statement that ‘omnes ast sancti medii pauimenta sacelli / seruantes colitant per tempora cuncta maniplis / innumeris’.Footnote 39 These saints may be interpreted merely as depictions of holy figures, with both H. M. Taylor and Alan Thacker raising the possibility that the passage refers to wall paintings on the west side of the building.Footnote 40 However, the poet goes on to state that the saints ‘ningent uocitati ad uota piorum’, which lends support to the interpretation that this passage is describing a supernatural phenomenon.Footnote 41 The image of supernal spirits descending to join worshippers has a parallel in an earlier part of De abbatibus, in which the author explains that God sends heavenly birds down to places of worship to collect the prayers of the faithful.Footnote 42 The church of St Mary may therefore be viewed as one of the holy sites at which God’s messengers mingled with human worshippers. These examples demonstrate a belief that Mary’s presence could be felt at certain places dedicated to her.
It is also possible that the musical nature of the vision relates to the function of the oratory. The oratory of St Mary was used as a burial place from the time of King Eadbald’s death,Footnote 43 but during the pontificate of Dunstan it may have also served a liturgical use. Helen Gittos has noted a correspondence between the rise in the number of second churches dedicated to Mary at church group sites in the late seventh and early eighth centuries and Pope Sergius’s introduction of the Candlemas procession on a number of Marian feast days, including Candlemas itself.Footnote 44 One of the earliest surviving manuscripts containing an ordo for this procession is the Dunstan Pontifical (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 943), thought to have been made for Dunstan’s personal use.Footnote 45 The ordo specifies that the candles, having been lit and blessed, should be taken ‘ad stationem sanctae mariae’, where more lights were illuminated, antiphons and prayers were recited and Mass was conducted.Footnote 46 Gittos interpreted ‘the station of St Mary’ as a reference to the final destination of the cathedral procession, and names the oratory of St Mary as a ‘possible candidate’ for the site of this station in Canterbury.Footnote 47 The Marian altar in Christ Church cathedral would have been more practical, as the abbey’s location outside the city walls would have made for an overly long journey, especially with lighted candles. Yet Dunstan’s vision of heavenly praise inside a church bathed in light is suggestive of liturgical celebration of the Mother of God and may have been shaped by a ceremony that took place there.
The Marian message of the vision is also fitting, as Dunstan’s devotion to the Virgin Mary, and to virginity more generally, is expressed at various points in B.’s text. Early in the Vita, Dunstan considers taking a wife, but a sudden illness brings him to the realization that he should dedicate his life to God. B. here compares Dunstan to the apostle and evangelist, John, whom Christ ‘a thalamis nuptiarum reuocauit’ (‘called back from the marriage chamber’).Footnote 48 Furthermore, B. explains that Dunstan’s dream-vision of his mother’s marriage to a king may symbolize the union between the church in his diocese and Christ; Dunstan takes charge of the church, mother to members of his diocese, and consoles her ‘pura uirginitatis integritate’ (‘with the purity of his virginity’) just as John, Christ’s chaste disciple, took the Virgin Mary into his protection.Footnote 49 Evidence for Dunstan’s devotion to the Virgin can also be found outside the Life. Mary Clayton has pointed to a poem, purportedly by Dunstan, found in two manuscripts (Cambridge, Trinity College B. 14. 3 and Cambridge, Trinity College O. 1. 18), which makes the earliest reference in England to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.Footnote 50 One possible reading of Dunstan’s vision, therefore, is as a Marian revelation which rewards Dunstan for his service to the Virgin, mother of Christ, and to the church of Canterbury, a spiritual mother.
The setting of the vision thus illuminates the meaning of the heavenly song, contributes to B.’s portrayal of Dunstan’s purity and dedication to the contemplative life, and affirms the holiness of the oratory. It is the only reference B. makes to an event that took place in Canterbury during Dunstan’s years as archbishop,Footnote 51 which suggests that, however little B. knew about this time, he deemed the story significant. So crucial is the setting of the vision that even when other details were changed in a subsequent hagiographical work, the holy site of the oratory of St Mary remained a stable element.Footnote 52 Byrhtferth’s Vita S. Oswaldi, written between 997 and 1002, probably shortly after B.’s version of Dunstan’s Life, mentions that Dunstan had two separate visions at the oratory, one of the heavenly virgins, and one of ‘dulcissimum ymnum dulcibilis iubilationis’ (‘an exquisite hymn of harmonious jubilation’) sung not by virgins, but by those who had been buried in the church: Eadbald and his successors.Footnote 53 The oratory’s reputation as a site at which spiritual experiences of a musical nature could occur was thus firmly established by the time the eleventh-century hagiographers came to re-write Dunstan’s history.
RESONANCES OF THE VIRGIN CHOIR IN THE WORK OF ADELARD, OSBERN AND EADMER
Since Dunstan was a saint of local interest, his cult was fostered at the abbey as well as the cathedral, as liturgical evidence from the 1090s and early 1100s has shown.Footnote 54 Yet the abbey had a special claim to Dunstan – it is significant that his vision took place at the oratory of St Mary rather than in Christ Church, where he would have held his episcopal seat.Footnote 55 The hagiographers developing his cult at Christ Church in the eleventh century responded to and appropriated B.’s vision in order to place the emphasis on their own religious house as a place where heaven and earth came together in harmony.
Adelard of Ghent’s Lectiones for the feast of Dunstan’s Deposition (1006 × 1012) was commissioned by Archbishop Ælfheah for use in the Night Office at Christ Church.Footnote 56 Michael Lapidge and Michael Winterbottom have already noted that Adelard’s additions to the story of Dunstan’s life contain more Canterbury-centric material than B.’s earlier hagiography, and suggest that it was commissioned shortly after B.’s Life to place the focus on the city.Footnote 57 I would like to add that Adelard shifts the focus of the hagiography to Christ Church. It is the only version of Dunstan’s Vita written for the cathedral in the eleventh century not to contain the vision of the virgins in St Augustine’s Abbey. This omission is likely to have been a deliberate choice, as Adelard, using B.’s Vita S. Dunstani as his main source for the Lectiones, included all of Dunstan’s musical miracles apart from the vision in St Mary’s oratory.Footnote 58 Not only does Adelard downplay Dunstan’s associations with St Augustine’s Abbey, its rival religious house, he also includes a vision – not found in B. – of a heavenly choir at Christ Church.
In the tenth lection, he records how Ælfgar, one of the clergymen of Christ Church, had a dream-vision in which Dunstan was invited to join the company of the cherubim and seraphim in heaven, where they would praise the ‘highest bishop’ with the thrice-holy.Footnote 59 The episcopal language used to describe Christ plays on the idea of the cathedral as a centre of heavenly power. Dunstan deferred his entry into the angelic chorus, explaining that he had to conduct the liturgical celebrations for the feast of the Ascension. On the day of the feast, Dunstan’s preaching was said to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he appeared as an angel to his congregation.Footnote 60 Rather than joining the ranks of angels immediately, Dunstan bought heavenly joy into the community of Christ Church through his pastoral duties. The liturgical context in which the Lectiones was read would have reinforced the idea that the cathedral, not the abbey, is the place where heaven and earth meet in liturgical celebration. In the twelfth and final reading, Adelard recounts how Dunstan joined the ranks of saints as celebrated in the litany.Footnote 61 He was received as a patriarch into the bosom of Abraham, for the Fathers acknowledged that he had exceeded them in place and merit. Prophets counted him among their company because he had predicted the Viking invasions. Apostles, having visited him on earth in a dream-vision, did not turn him away from their company in heaven. He had the willingness to become a martyr, even if not the opportunity, and was therefore welcomed both as a martyr and a confessor. Virgins also welcomed him on account of his lifelong chastity. The reading would have ended with the Te Deum, which records the praises rendered to God by angels, apostles, prophets and martyrs, all of whom recognize Dunstan as belonging to their companies. The chant captured in musical form the belief that Dunstan was a member of every heavenly choir, a saint who could intercede among all spirits of the litany, and a powerful patron of the cathedral community.Footnote 62
The next surviving hagiography of Dunstan was written at Christ Church in the late eleventh century by Osbern, the subprior and precentor in the cathedral community.Footnote 63 Osbern brought the hagiography of Dunstan up to date, appending to the Vita a collection of miracles, some of which he claimed to have witnessed. His version of the Vita contains several novel features, but he also relies on source material that derived from B. and Adelard’s Anglo-Latin Lives.Footnote 64 He includes St Dunstan’s vision at the oratory of St Mary in an expanded form, supplying the first four couplets of Sedulius’s hymn, seemingly from memory.Footnote 65 A major way in which Osbern’s version differs from B.’s is that, in addition to witnessing the song of the virgin choir, Dunstan saw the ‘matrem Domini Salvatoris, reginam mundi, dominam angelorum’, the Virgin Mary herself.Footnote 66 The experience Osbern describes was intensely sensory: on account of the purity and sanctity of his body, Dunstan saw the beauty of the queen of heaven and heard the ‘mellifluas … voces’ (‘sweet-flowing voices’) of the group of virgins. Although the vision was received via the senses, it transcended the body, and was seen ‘acutissima vi corporalium oculorum in spiritualem potentiam translatorum’.Footnote 67 Even more so than B., Osbern thus emphasizes the hymn’s Marian associations and its connection with Dunstan’s bodily purity. Yet Osbern’s focus is so much on these elements that the setting of the vision loses the significance it had in B.’s Vita. Only in the last line of the chapter are we told that this vision took place at the ‘templum’ of the virgin at St Augustine’s Abbey. By diminishing the importance of the setting and heightening Dunstan’s experiences as a holy witness, Osbern shifts the focus away from Christ Church’s rival institution and inspires veneration for the former archbishop.
Like Adelard, Osbern inserts a new musical dream-vision into his hagiographical narrative in order to emphasize the significance of Dunstan’s role in shaping the spiritual community at Christ Church.Footnote 68 In the Miracula, Osbern records that he was once troubled by men who took out a lawsuit against him, and pleaded for divine help at the site of Dunstan’s tomb in the cathedral.Footnote 69 Soon after, he retired to bed and dreamt that he was rapt into heaven, where he met Dunstan’s clergymen. They informed Osbern that Dunstan had celebrated Mass with them, but they had not yet finished singing the antiphons of the communion, as Dunstan had instructed them to wait for someone who had laid down to rest. Upon realizing that Osbern was that very man, the clerics set about finishing the Mass. They began to sing an antiphon (‘Dico autem vobis amicis meis’) in very sweet and melodious voices, and invited Osbern to accompany them on an instrument.Footnote 70 The sound of their singing roused Osbern from sleep, and he rushed to Dunstan’s tomb to finish his plea. With Dunstan’s patronage, Osbern won the suit.Footnote 71
One idea that Osbern’s dream-vision illustrates is that Dunstan’s relics functioned as the locus of his earthly power – Osbern must be present at the tomb before his prayer can be answered.Footnote 72 Another miracle in the collection makes a similar point: a crippled man who had found no relief at Dunstan’s tomb met the archbishop on the way back home; Dunstan explained that, having been detained on business elsewhere, he had been unable to visit his relics or reveal his presence to the brethren.Footnote 73 The crippled man was cured only when both he and Dunstan returned to the tomb. Through these miracles, Osbern demonstrates the potency of the relic collection at Christ Church. Osbern’s vision of the heavenly Mass also boosts the community’s spiritual reputation by suggesting that the celestial and earthly choirs at the cathedral shared liturgical rituals and that he, as the precentor, was at the centre of musical life at Christ Church.Footnote 74
The cathedral’s next precentor, Eadmer, also produced a Vita and Miracula of Dunstan as a remedy to Osbern’s overblown style and the factual errors contained within his version of the saint’s Life.Footnote 75 In the Preface, he fashions himself as a thorough and reliable scholar who drew on living authorities from all over England, older texts and his own testimony in constructing his narrative.Footnote 76 In aiming to provide a comprehensive record of Dunstan’s visionary experiences, he gives an account of the choir of virgins and also recounts the version of the story found in Byrhtferth’s Vita S. Oswaldi. He departs from Byrhtferth’s text, however, by failing to identify the souls singing within the oratory as those who were buried there. He describes them only as ‘quendam cuneum candidatarum personarum’ (‘a certain group of people clad in white garments’), hence not identifying them explicitly as those buried in the oratory, and thus downplaying the importance of the abbey’s relic collection.Footnote 77 His account of Dunstan’s vision of the virgins differs from that found in B., Byrhtferth and Osbern. He states that Dunstan was intercepted on his way to the oratory by Mary herself and her choir of heavenly virgins – the presence of Mary among her choir suggests that Eadmer drew on Osbern’s account of the miracle.Footnote 78 Dunstan joined them as they processed into the chapel, and he heard them perform the hymn of Sedulius in a responsorial style – two virgins acted as cantors, chanting the verses, and the rest of the choir repeated after them. His version of the vision may have mirrored the liturgical processions taking place at the abbey in his own time.Footnote 79 It is likely that, like Osbern, he updated the musical miracles associated with Dunstan to reflect his own liturgical practice.
Eadmer’s collection of Dunstan’s miracles omits Osbern’s rather personal account of Dunstan’s beneficence. He does, however, add a compelling story of Dunstan’s membership of the Christ Church community, purported to have taken place during the lifetime of Scotland. Eadmer records that Scotland was sitting outside at the hour of Vespers on the Feast of St Dunstan.Footnote 80 When the monks of the cathedral rang the bells to signal the beginning of the vigil, Scotland saw a beam of light shine down from heaven and pierce the roof of the cathedral and exclaimed, ‘[u]ere pius pater Dunstanus iam ad suam festiuitatem uadit, interesse uolens obsequio quod sui filii hac in nocte Deo et sibi exhibituri sunt’.Footnote 81 The brothers of Christ Church indeed ‘sanctam praesentiam eius sibi adesse persenserunt’.Footnote 82 The miracle reinforces Osbern’s conviction that Dunstan graced his relics with his presence and underlines the importance of the liturgical commemoration of the saint. The supposed testimony of Abbot Scotland is a particularly powerful tool. By claiming that Scotland was a witness to Dunstan’s presence at Christ Church, Eadmer implies that even the abbot of the rival house recognized the potency of the relics.
In the hagiographies produced by Osbern and Eadmer, Dunstan’s vision of the choir of virgins demonstrated his dedication to the Office, contributing to their portrait of Dunstan as a saint who uses his musical gifts in the service of God.Footnote 83 However, the vision as found in B.’s text was also a testament to the holiness of the Abbey of St Augustine. In their efforts to take the emphasis away from the abbey, the writers constructed competing narratives of heavenly choirs to show how the physical presence of Dunstan’s relics acted as a site of connection between heaven and earth. It is little wonder, then, that Goscelin, who worked with one or both of these sources when compiling his own history of the Abbey of St Augustine, reappropriated Dunstan and his visions to emphasize the sanctity of the oratory and the building that was placed in its stead by Abbot Scotland.Footnote 84
A NEW SETTING FOR AN OLD SONG: GOSCELIN’S HISTORIA TRANSLATIONIS S. AUGUSTINI
Goscelin’s narrative of demolition, restoration and succession is a spiritual, as well as architectural, history of the abbey, in which the oratory of St Mary is given a special place. The significance of the building is apparent from the second chapter of Book I of the Transl. Augustini, which begins by establishing the setting for the 1091 translations. Goscelin notes that the Anglo-Norman presbytery into which the saints were translated ‘totum illud cum amplis porticibus amplectitur spatium, quod sanctae Dei genitricis ab Oriente contiguum possederat oratorium, suo caelestiumque virtutum jugi solennio ac signis illustrissimum’, a subtle but distinct allusion to Dunstan’s vision and the miraculous events that took place during the abbacy of Scotland.Footnote 85 Goscelin explains that Scotland started the building work on this expansive presbytery by pulling down the remaining nave of SS Peter and Paul, but dared not advance further when he reached the north porticus containing the relics of St Augustine and his successors for fear of incurring divine wrath.Footnote 86 At this point, Goscelin contrasts Scotland with the Anglo-Saxon abbot, Wulfric: ‘Quid faciat ergo auctor aedificii devotus Abbas Scollandus? dum nec illa sancta penetralia, tanta aevo intacta, movere praesumit; nec opus coeptum, nisi ablatis obstaculis, procedere possit: maxime cum praedecessor suus praescriptam Dei genitricis basilicam fractam morte luerit?’Footnote 87
Here, Goscelin only touches upon the story of Wulfric’s ill-fated rotunda, but the account is given in full in the second book of the Transl. Augustini. In 1049, Abbot Wulfric (1047–1059 × 1061) told Pope Leo IX of his plans for the restoration of the monastery at the Council of Rheims, and commenced building work having obtained his blessing.Footnote 88 Archaeological excavations have uncovered the foundations of a large tower to the south-west of the church of SS Peter and Paul and a chapel, both of which have been dated to the time of Wulfric’s abbacy.Footnote 89 But the structure which is of greatest relevance to this article is the rotunda. This building, which was octagonal in shape on the outside and circular internally, connected the church of SS Peter and Paul to the oratory of St Mary.Footnote 90 In order to link these buildings together, Wulfric had to demolish the eastern end (the front) of SS Peter and Paul, which necessitated translating St Mildreth’s relics into the north porticus where St Augustine and his episcopal successors lay.Footnote 91 He also demolished the western wall of the oratory of St Mary, and cleared the graveyard in between the two churches.Footnote 92
According to Goscelin, his work was an affront to the Virgin Mary. Wulfric’s sin was not architectural ambition, but his presumption that he could interfere with a sanctified place without divine dispensation. The oratory belonged to Mary – it was her ‘templ[um]’ (temple) ‘sacrarium’ (shrine) and ‘vestiarium’ (chamber). It is described as the ‘multorum Sanctorum sinus … et gremium’, a phrase which is suggestive of the oratory’s function as the storehouse of relics as well as its dedication to the Mother of God.Footnote 93 Looking ahead to the next two chapters of Book II, Goscelin explains, ‘[h]ic, ut in consequentibus patebit, audiebatur concentus Angelorum, hic organa Virginum, hic assiduabatur virtus miraculorum’.Footnote 94 Wulfric’s destruction of the oratory’s western wall to make room for his rotunda demanded divine retribution. Mary appeared in a vision to an elderly woman, through whom she warned Wulfric of his impending death. His reluctance to believe an old wife’s tale, and, consequently, his failure to make amends, led to his demise after a three-week illness.Footnote 95
It is notable that Wulfric’s necessary destruction of the eastern wall of SS Peter and Paul to make room for the rotunda does not so much as merit a comment, still less a vision from the vengeful apostles. Richard Emms, writing of how Goscelin attributes Wulfric’s illness and death to Mary’s displeasure, inferred that ‘[t]he dedication of [the oratory] appears to have made it even more sacred than the original church of SS Peter and Paul’.Footnote 96 This may be due in part to Mary’s high status as the Queen of heaven, and in part to the oratory’s existing reputation as a site of miraculous experiences. Indeed, no sightings of heavenly presences were believed to have occurred within the neighbouring church of SS Peter and Paul. And since Dunstan’s experiences of heavenly choirs were the only miracles thought to have taken place on the site of the oratory – at least in the written tradition of the abbey – they shaped Goscelin’s accounts of miracles at the time of Abbot Scotland.
Scotland took charge of the abbey in 1070. Goscelin records that the half-finished rotunda, being unfit for use by the monks and hindering further building work, greatly displeased him.Footnote 97 His fear of the judgement of the Virgin Mary, despite his worry about the bad state of the old building, made him hesitate before setting about his own construction projects: ‘terrebat vero Dei genitricis in Abbatem superiorem, de praerupta ecclesia sua, judicium; terrebat de veteri monasterio, longa carie consumpto, ruinae periculum’.Footnote 98 After discussing his proposed building work with Pope Alexander II in 1072 and gaining his support, Scotland overturned the rotunda.Footnote 99 Yet he paused for thought before destroying the oratory, the spot where Dunstan had enjoyed the company of heavenly spirits.
Verum residua pars Virginalis oratorii summae Mariae, [quae] ejus impetum morabatur, nostrae quoque orationis cursum hic modo remoratur. Occurrunt hujus sacrarii superna praeconia, & in ejus gremio adjacentium Sanctorum miracula. Hic ipsa praecelsa Parens Altissimi saepius visa, & cum dulcimodo Virginum choro ineffabili suavitate caelestis harmoniae noscitur audita. Huic candidissimo contubernio Angelum Domini exercituum, & post Augustinum suosque consortes nitidissimum decus Angelorum, familiarius & frequentius interfuisse Beatissimum constat Dunstanum; & ut cervum sitientem ad fontes aquarum [Ps. XLI.2], ita illum supernae modulationis dulcedine captum, inexplebiliter assiduasse hunc Sanctorum paradisum.Footnote 100
This break in the flow of the narrative has a polemical purpose. Goscelin makes several references to the frequency of these visions and auditions, stating that Mary was seen there ‘saepius’ (‘often’), that Dunstan stood amidst the heavenly throng ‘familiarius et frequentius’ (‘intimately and frequently’) and that he sought their company ‘inexplebiliter’ (‘persistently’ or ‘steadfastly’). These words suggest that he was eager to emphasize Dunstan’s connection to the Abbey of St Augustine. This was a particularly important point to make in the heightened atmosphere of late-eleventh-century Canterbury, when the abbey was demonstrating its primacy over Christ Church and St Gregory’s Priory through its collection of saints. The reference to Dunstan implies that although Christ Church possessed his relics, St Augustine’s accommodated the heavenly Queen who inspired his devotions. Goscelin’s reference to multiple visions and auditions could also point to Eadmer’s Vita S. Dunstani as his source, as Eadmer is the only one of Dunstan’s post-Conquest hagiographers to record how Dunstan heard the song of spirits in the oratory on two separate occasions.Footnote 101 While Byrhtferth also makes reference to two auditions of heavenly choirs in the oratory, only Eadmer and Osbern claim that Mary herself was seen among the heavenly virgins, so Goscelin’s statement that ‘ipsa praecelsa Parens Altissimi saepius visa’ (‘that lofty Parent of the Most High was often seen’) seems to derive from one or both of these post-Conquest texts. Whether Goscelin drew on Osbern, Eadmer, or a combination of both, it is striking that he reappropriated an interpretation of the vision from Christ Church in order to enhance the oratory’s reputation as a ‘Sanctorum paradisum’ (‘paradise of saints’).
Goscelin’s praise of Dunstan as second only to Augustine and his companions allows him to group the saint with the abbey’s illustrious alumni. He employs this strategy later in Book II when considering the significance of the north porticus of SS Peter and Paul, where Augustine’s successors were buried with him. Goscelin states: ‘[h]uc etiam suus post plurima lustra coheres sacratissimus Dunstanus, ut cervus ad fontes aquarum [Ps. 41: 2], crebris noctibus veniebat, & assuetas sibi visiones & hymnos supernorum civium frequentabat’.Footnote 102 Once again, he suggests that Dunstan belongs, spiritually, to St Augustine’s Abbey. The saint is praised as a ‘coheres’ (‘coheir’) of the first archbishop of Canterbury, suggesting that his episcopal role is of significance to the writer. But Goscelin’s primary focus is on Dunstan as a monastic worshipper. Allusions to Psalm 41: 2 are made in both extracts which mention Dunstan and his visions directly in order to convey the saint’s insatiable desire for heavenly experiences. As a thirsting deer, Dunstan embodies the ideal of monastic worship – to praise God continually and thus emulate the never-ending praise of heavenly beings.Footnote 103 The use of the adjective ‘creb[er]’ and the verb ‘frequentabat’, along with the reference to Dunstan’s ‘assuetas visiones’ (‘customary visions’), once again suggests that Dunstan sought spiritual fulfilment at the abbey on numerous occasions.
Yet during his time as the abbot of St Augustine’s, Scotland demolished in its entirety the very building which gave the abbey its reputation as a dwelling-place of the divine. On the site formally occupied by the oratory, he built the presbytery and a crypt dedicated to the Mother of God. Goscelin presents these changes in a favourable light by adapting the stories he found in Dunstan’s hagiography. The miraculous visions and auditions, which revealed the holiness of the abbey in Dunstan’s time, resumed during Scotland’s abbacy, demonstrating that his plans for the restoration of the abbey met with divine favour.
The first miracle of this nature, which took place while the oratory was yet standing, showcases Goscelin’s musical expertise.Footnote 104 Immediately following his first reference to Dunstan and the vision of the virgins, Goscelin describes how Scotland had a similar experience: ‘quadam nocte ante nocturnas vigilias expurgefactus a somno, uti accubabat in vicina ipsi ecclesiae cella, chorus mire dulcisonus alternatim auditur psallentium, tamquam virorum et puerorum, gratissimam consonantiam diapason reddentium; dum modo cunctis modulis concinerent, modo distinctis organis parvuli viris responderent’.Footnote 105 Scotland heard ‘a sweet-sounding choir, as though composed of men and boys … singing psalms’ coming from the nearby oratory. The performance by the heavenly choir reflected contemporary music practice. The group, ‘alternatim … psallentium’, was divided into two, mirroring the arrangement of monastic choirs. Sometimes the boys sang ‘cunctis modulis’ (‘through all the intervals’) of the scale, that is, at ‘diapason’ (‘an octave’) above the men; sometimes, they sang ‘modulis … distinctis’ (‘at different intervals’), in organum. Footnote 106
This second type of polyphony is discussed in the ninth-century musical treatise, the Musica enchiriadis. Footnote 107 It is described as a two-voice harmony whereby the organal voice follows the principal voice, note for note, at the interval of a fourth or fifth below it.Footnote 108 The practice was common on the Continent, and theoretical texts such as the Musica enchiriadis were available at Winchester and Canterbury.Footnote 109 Indeed, organal performances at Winchester came to be written down and codified in the Troper.Footnote 110 The rubrics that appear alongside the organa in the Troper emphasize the sweet and sublime quality of the sound; one such rubric reads, ‘Melodia sublimis et dulcis’.Footnote 111 It appears that Goscelin was familiar with this style of polyphony and, deeming it to be supremely beautiful, described the melody of the heavenly citizens in similar terms. His depiction may well have been influenced by a passage in Osbern’s Vita where Dunstan hears a heavenly Kyrie sung in organum during one of his visions.Footnote 112
Goscelin’s technical description of the performance may even give us a hint of the kind of music that was performed at the abbey during his time as its precentor. David Hiley has suggested that ‘[t]hose dedicated to a religious life naturally strove to reproduce … celestial harmony in their worship, and this in turn is reflected in the hagiographers’ descriptions of earthly events’.Footnote 113 But the relationship also worked the other way around, with hagiographer-precentors depicting heavenly music in light of earthly practices. Osbern’s account of the heavenly rendition of the antiphon ‘Dico autem vobis amicis meis’ in his Miracula of Dunstan was surely informed by liturgical activity at Christ Church, and Eadmer’s description of the virgin train singing while processing into the oratory of St Mary no doubt drew inspiration from the liturgical processions in which he participated on festival days. In Goscelin’s vision, Scotland was mesmerized by the ‘insueta melodia’ (‘unusual melody’) but, as he was not paying full attention to the celestial songs, he supposed that the sound came from brethren processing through the abbey after completing Matins. This detail gives us a somewhat mixed picture, suggesting both that the music was unfamiliar to Scotland and that it was similar enough to monastic practice for him to rationalize his hearing of it. Although we should be wary of over-interpreting Scotland’s response, which is highly conventional in hagiographical narratives, the passage implies that organal singing was at once beautiful and strange. The otherworldly quality of the music and Scotland’s bafflement captures something of the sound of the virgins in B., whose voices are ‘insolitas’ (‘unfamiliar’)Footnote 114
Goscelin frames Scotland’s audition of this strange, new music with reference to Dunstan’s visions. The segment ends with the abbot’s revelation that the holy reputation of the oratory was truly deserved: ‘intellexit incunctanter cum omnibus audientibus, vere in illo loco olympica convenisse agmina, saepiusque ante narrata miracula verissima sibi claruisse experientia, & vere supernos cives haec incolere habitacula’.Footnote 115 Although Scotland’s audition is distinctive, Goscelin relates it to other wonders ‘ante narrata’ and suggests that the abbot’s experience gives him an insight into these marvels of the past. Indeed, his experience bears a resemblance to Dunstan’s vision of the virgins and to his audition of the souls singing in the oratory, both of which are recorded in Eadmer’s version of the Life of Dunstan and may also have been passed on by the monks through oral tradition in the monastery. Rather than inviting a direct comparison between the previous archbishop and Scotland, however, the latter-day miracle functions as a sign of heavenly approval of the abbot, and suggests that the wonders of Dunstan’s era resumed during his time as the Father of the monastery.
Goscelin may have presented Scotland in this way to take the focus away from his successor, Wido, whose appointment caused a great deal of turbulence in the abbey. While Goscelin makes no mention of the rebellion of 1087 and 1088, as Richard Emms has highlighted, he nevertheless paints Wido in a rather unflattering light.Footnote 116 In his haste to finish the nave begun by Scotland, Wido demolished the north porticus containing the relics of Augustine and his successors without even removing the precious hoard first: ‘illud Beatorum cubiculum, morae impatiens qua Sancti eruerentur, forti ariete subvertit: totque superni Regni Principes, longiturna pace soporatos, festinata modo virtute negligentiam excusante, obruit’.Footnote 117 Goscelin’s language seethes with connotations of invasion and even sexual violence. Wido is a world away from Scotland, who is careful not to cause unnecessary damage and offend the saints. Indeed, Wido is closer in nature to Wulfric; both, though motivated by virtue, act rashly. If the Transl. Augustini needed a hero of the times, Scotland – the abbey’s first Anglo-Norman head, who was in charge before the turbulence at the end of the 1080s – was the obvious choice. Furthermore, as the architect of the Romanesque abbey, Scotland’s contribution to the successes of the 1090s was substantial. It was his presbytery into which Augustine and his companions were translated, after all.
Goscelin takes pains to show that Scotland’s destruction of the sacred space of the oratory and construction of the crypt of St Mary beneath the presbytery did not dislodge the heavenly crowds, but provided a fitting setting in which heavenly virgins could praise the Mother of God. In the third chapter of Book II, Goscelin records a number of miracles performed by the Virgin in the new space: ‘Nec solum talibus curationum signis, verum etiam revelationibus manifestis, & supernorum civium concentibus dulcisonis, cum odore inaestimabilis suavitatis, frequenter ipsa mundi Regina dignatur ostendere, se non minus huic cryptae, quam priori ejusdem loci oratorio praesidere’.Footnote 118 The Virgin’s presence is made manifest through bodily sensations. Her miracles of curing the blind and re-lighting candles reveal her holiness though the sense of sight;Footnote 119 she affects the sense of touch by relieving her supplicants of physical agony;Footnote 120 and the extraordinarily sweet scent indicates the presence of the divine.Footnote 121 The songs of the heavenly citizens are also ‘dulcison[i]’, pleasing to the ear.Footnote 122 Goscelin’s appeal to the different senses in this passage suggests that holiness can be experienced through various bodily conduits to the soul, and presents the new crypt as a paradisiacal place where sensations of pleasure are heightened.
The two accounts of celestial concerts that follow owe a clear debt to the hagiography of Dunstan. The first briefly tells of how the custodian of the crypt saw Mary being praised ‘cum candidissimo ac splendidissimo Virginum innumerabilium choro’ while the odour of heavenly fragrances filled the air.Footnote 123 Detail about this celestial performance is lacking, though the small amount that we are told – that the virgins ‘inexplebiliter circumfusae praecellentissimam ac benignissimam Principem dulcimodam modulabant aethereorum carminum laudem’Footnote 124 – brings to mind the circular dance of the virgins in B.’s text.Footnote 125 As previously noted, Eadmer’s version depicts a linear procession of virgins, headed by Mary, rather than a round dance. However, the circular arrangement of virgins around the holy mother may have been suggested by Osbern’s description of Mary, ‘non vestali choro circumdatam, sed virginali corona circumfusam’.Footnote 126
In the second case, a venerable brother named Gregory was recuperating in the infirmary located next to the crypt, when he was woken from sleep by the very clear sound of ‘mira supernae harmoniae modulatio’ coming from within.Footnote 127 He discerned the Office of the virgin and presumed that the brethren had gathered to celebrate Mass after Matins, ‘nisi quod stupidum reddebat inaudita prius suavitas cantilenae’.Footnote 128 He hurried to take part in Mass, but found the crypt locked and barred, and the brethren asleep. Gregory then realized ‘quod mortalibus dormientibus caelestem audierit concentum’.Footnote 129 The audition strongly recalls the one experienced by Abbot Scotland, emphasizing that although the material and structure of the building had changed from an oratory to a crypt, it remained the same in essence. That Scotland and Gregory mistook heavenly music for its earthly counterpart implies that the Office of the brethren harmonized with the praise of heavenly citizens – indeed, Goscelin remarks that the choir of heaven ‘may re-echo’ (‘resultet’) the music of the monastic Office of the virgin in their praise of her.Footnote 130 Elsewhere in the hagiographical cycle composed for the abbey, Goscelin makes the concurrent praise of heavenly and earthly choirs more explicit in order to show how the holiness of the abbey and the sublimity of its liturgy bring it into closer contact with heaven than its rival institutions.
One vision that Goscelin lifted from his earlier work, the Libellus contra inanes S. virginis Mildrethae usurpatores, and incorporated into the Translatio S. Mildrethe, functions as propaganda in the row between St Augustine’s Abbey and St Gregory’s Priory over which community possessed the relics of St Mildreth of Thanet.Footnote 131 The story centres around Livinus, who, despite being an honourable Benedictine monk at St Augustine’s Abbey, believed that Mildreth’s relics rested at St Gregory’s Priory.Footnote 132 The truth was revealed to him in a vision of Mildreth ascending the nave of the abbey as the bride of Christ, surrounded by throngs of hymning angels, and taking her place in her tomb in the new presbytery as if she were going to her bedchamber.Footnote 133 At the same time, the choir of St Augustine’s was performing the twelfth responsory of the morning Mass in honour of Mildreth. The text of the twelfth responsory (‘O diem illum festiuum’), which may have been composed by Goscelin himself, celebrates Mildreth’s return from heaven to earth.Footnote 134 The content and the timing of the responsory thus harmonized with Livinus’ vision. Goscelin urges each soul that is made happy by that conuenientia (which has the double meaning of ‘harmony’ and ‘meeting’) to consider ‘ut in isto sui aduentus carmine uideretur cum superno contubernio aduenire et, hoc finito, sue requietionis apothecam subire’.Footnote 135 While Goscelin’s account suggests that the vision is not caused by, but simply coincides with, the performance of the twelfth responsory, there is an underlying suggestion that the song of Mildreth’s arrival invokes invisible presences and brings the eternal into the temporal. Like relics themselves – which Peter Brown has called small objects with boundless associations – the liturgy brought the great, timeless expanses of heaven down in to the cloisters.Footnote 136 The passage is also an extended allusion to chapter 19 of the Regula S. Benedicti, which instructs monks to sing with their full attention ‘in conspectu diuinitatis et angelorum eius’.Footnote 137 Goscelin takes this idea further by suggesting that angels are not merely audience-members, but members of the same, universal choir: ‘[c]um ergo credamus (psalmista docente) in conspectu angelorum nos Domino psallere, nec dedignare conciues angelos cum deuotis famulis Deum laudere’.Footnote 138
The concurrent praise of humans and angels in veneration of saints’ relics is also prominent in the first book of the Transl. Augustini. On the Octave of Augustine’s translation, at the same time that members of the community of the abbey kept vigil with psalms around the altar of the saint, a priest from Canterbury witnessed a vision of a choir of angels descending a ladder from heaven into the nave of the abbey.Footnote 139 Goscelin offers a gloss on the vision: ‘Nos quoque fide videamus, quod ille videndo forsitan non perpendit: scilicet Angelicos cives per illam scalam ad dulces exuvias animae contubernalis Augustini amabiliter descendisse, & revictura in sua claritate pignora visitatione gratissima refovisse, simulque ostendisse, se cum terrigenis ejus gloriae congaudere.’Footnote 140 Goscelin goes on to clarify that the ladder allowing angels to descend to the relics also allowed Augustine to ascend to heaven through his merits – an allusion to the ladder of humility in the Benedictine Rule.Footnote 141 This story, like the aforementioned vision of Mildreth, demonstrates that the relics of saints in St Augustine’s Abbey act as a nexus between heaven and earth. The monks singing the office do not so much imitate celestial song as participate in a joint liturgy. The auditions of heavenly choirs in the oratory of St Mary in the Transl. Augustini differ from these two visions in that they focus on place, not relics, but they nevertheless contribute to Goscelin’s portrayal of St Augustine’s Abbey as a community where past and present, spirits and bodies, divine and human, come together in liturgical worship.
CONCLUSION
Dunstan’s appearances in the Transl. Augustini enriched the abbey’s reputation by suggesting that a line of holiness ran from Augustine, its co-founder, through Dunstan and to the Anglo-Norman abbots who renovated the building and translated its saints. Symbols of the abbey’s Anglo-Saxon heritage, Dunstan and the heavenly choirs acted as validating presences, justifying the actions of Scotland, the abbey’s first Anglo-Norman architect. As such, the text may fall into the category of what Hayward has called the ‘authority-laden translation-narrative’ of the post-Conquest era, with Goscelin both invoking the gravitas of Dunstan and drawing on the oratory’s existing reputation as a place where celestial choirs could be perceived.Footnote 142 He picked up the threads of Dunstan’s intense spirituality and his miraculous auditory experiences from earlier hagiographical narratives, which suggests that this aspect of his sainthood would have resonated with the Canterbury readership. By affirming that the oratory was a locus of divine praise, and that any other building on that spot would also play host to heavenly presences, Goscelin insulated the abbey against the potentially damaging effects of change. While the translation ceremonies of 1091 were an ephemeral, if spectacular event, the holiness of the site on which the abbey stood – a site shared by monks and heavenly choirs as both performed their liturgical praise – was everlasting.Footnote 143
