Talk:Dunstan

message: I noticed the date 961, when Dunstan became archbishop of Canterbury, is inconsistent with the article 960. So I checked other websites, but there is no consensus - 1 said 958, 6 said 959, 12 said 960, 5 said 961, and although some left the year out, none said anything like "about 960" - they were all sure. The history of this page is that it was changed from 960 to 961 by "Harry Potter".  Art LaPella 22:15, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
:Well, from the research I just did it seems that most agree that it was 960. The discrepancy it seems comes from the fact that there were a series of either incompetent or somehow shortlived archbishops between 957 and 960, a period where therefore a few sites conted that Dustan exhibited more control and should be called the start of his "reign." I would say though that 960 is the better year to call the official start of his tenure. RShnike 01:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah I did changed it thanks.--RShnike 01:37, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  961 

message: None of this has anything to do with this article:
* In the Dark Horse Comics series Hellboy by Mike Mignola, the legend of St. Dunstan is referenced in the story Box Full of Evil (a two-issue tale included in the graphic novel The Right Hand of Doom). The story is embellished upon so that not only did St. Dunstan pinch the devil's nose with tongs, he also hammered the devil's head on an anvil before sealing him away in a box. A thousand years later, in the present day, the box and its key are recovered by the scam artist Igor Bromhead, who opens it. In doing so he unleashes its captive devil Ualac, a minor demon of Hell who covets Hellboy's Crown of the Apocalypse.
*In Robertson Davies' novel Fifth Business, at the prompting of his lover, the protagonist changes his name from "Dunstable" to "Dunstan" Ramsay based on the saint's life and personality. Ramsay is meant to personify Saint Dunstan in the novel, especially considering the saint's meeting with the Devil.
* Manly Wade Wellman often made reference to St. Dunstan in his stories.  His occult detective character Judge Pursuivant carried a sword cane with a silver blade forged by the saint.  A later character, John Thunstone, had even closer connections to the character.  The name "Thunstone" was meant to evoke "Dunstan."
--SECisek 22:29, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see why this shouldn't be included in the article. He was a popular saint, and shows up in popular culture. It's not as though this information is particularly more irrelevant than any 'in popular culture' section. It's not a list of miscellaneous items. That said, nothing wrong with making them less lengthy. Thoughts? Geno-Supremo (talk) 16:47, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Popular culture

message: There are several paragraphs in the body of this article that are reproduced almost verbatium from the public domain Catholic Encyclopedia. This needs to be cleaned up. -- SECisek 03:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have some other material to add and I have to make cites, but it probably getting close to "GA" class. -- SECisek 09:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Catholic Encyclopedia

message: I question the value of this material - listcruft in this article:
* Saint Dunstan Orthodox Church of Poole, Dorset, UK 
* St Dunstan's, Mayfield
* St Dunstan's, Stepney
* St Dunstan-in-the-East, London
* St Dunstan-in-the-West, London 
* St Dunstan's East Acton, London
* St. Dunstan's, Auburn, AL
* St. Dunstan's Church of the Highlands Parish, Shoreline, Washington
* St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, Madison
* St Dunstan's Parish, Fredericton, NB, Canada
* St Dunstan's, Canterbury , Kent
* St Dunstan's, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
* St. Dunstan's Basilica, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada 
* St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, Waitsfield, VT
* St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, Atlanta, GA
* St. Dunstan's Anglican Church, Camberwell, Victoria, Australia
* St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, San Diego, CA
-- SECisek 16:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Churches dedicated to St Dunstan

message: Congratulations on an excellent copyedit on the suggestions provided. I have now passed Dunstan as a Good Article, and listed it as such on the Good Articles page under Philosophy and religion >  Religion, mysticism, and mythology > Religious figures and leaders. For the record, Secisek, Angusmclellan and Wassupwestcoast contributed significantly to this GA pass (with five or more major edits in the last 50).
Well done all! EyeSereneTALK 19:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: GA pass

message: :I suggest that there are several failings due to a largely uncritical acceptance of Christian orthodoxy and in particular the Catholic Encyclopedia.
:Sir Francis Palgrave - an otherwise quite credulous Christian apopolgist- refers to Dunstan as being "partially insane" in that he would see visions that nobody else could & would today be called psychotic- such as the devil laughing at him from the arch of his monastery as he was forced to flee, quite apart from the devil appearing to him disguised as a woman or a wolf or snake.
:The role of Dunstan and Odo in the persecution of Queen Elgiva is understated. Elgiva was within exactly nine degrees of consanguinity of Edwy, for which reason the marriage was annulled. She was also his foster sister and the sister of Aethelweard the Historian. Edgar also married the daughter of his foster father, Athelstan Half-King, to whom he was related in exactly the same degree. Elgiva was disfigured and sold into slavery in Ireland, where they took pity upon her and she returned to England to find Edwy once more but was ambushed and murdered. edwy died shortly after in circumstances which have never been explained. In the accession of Edgar, Dunstan attained such a position of dominance that he was de facto King of England- which hwe was by heredity as senior direct descendant of King Ethelred I. Given this position it is impossible to believe that the shameful treatment of Edwy and Elgiva were not by his knowledge and consent. 
:Dunstan showed his dominance by refusing to allow King Edgar to be crowned until he had reigned for seven years as penance for murdering his foster brother in order to take his wife- somewhat more serious an offence than Edwy's pecadillo.
:Dunstan's championing of the Benedictine cause, and celibacy of the priesthood and displacing of married priests, split the country almost to the point of civil war, since armed followers of Bryhtnoth turned out to protect the monasteries in East Anglia. 
:The incidents at Calne and other places were not Witans but Synods and preceding the debacle at Calne, Dunstan had claimed before a hostile audience of priests that a crucifix had spoken in his support and this was a miracle. The priests however exposed this as ventriloquism on Dunstan's part. The meeting at Calne was unusual in that it took place indoors and on an upper storey prompting the suspicion that the collapse was due to Dunstan's men removing the supports, killing several priests in the process.
:In Dunstan's favour he would have made a better king had he not been a priest. His de facto reign was the high point of Anglo Saxon culture. A campaign of wolf eradication was carried out and in order to stop fights in pubs by men who shared pint pots, Dunstan decreed they should be marked into quarters- thus inventing the gill- which shows a concern for the minutiae of working class life.He was a renowned metal smith and actually made the Crown of England himself (probably not the first as Athelstan had been sent a diadem as a gift and this is referred to in the account of Dunstan's row with Edwy as  "lying on the floor"). What happened to it we do not know, but King John lost his baggage in the Wash (not the laundry but... well you know)around 250 years later & it was probably in it. He is one of the most fascinating characters in English history and pivotal in the Anglo Saxon period for good and ill, but I think he deserves a  more rounded assessment than the orthodox hagiography.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Streona (talk • contribs) 15:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have suitable sources for this, why not write it into the article? There's some interesting stuff here ;) EyeSereneTALK 16:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks. I was a bit reluctant to muck up the GA article without some kind of permission. I will have to check the sources to cite them which may take a bit more time (I am impressed the swiftness of your  replies)Streona 08:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: ARTICLE UNCRITICAL OF DUNSTAN'S FLAWS

message: Sometime ago I put in ad edit that Dunstan was the grandson of King Ethelred I, which was reverted as I did not source it. Recently I began to work on this point and found that the article with my edit in it was copy & pasted on to Wiki Answers and I cannot remove it.
Basically the argument is thus- Dunstan's uncle is given as Athelm, Archbishop of Canterbury in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, from Vita Dunstani and his father as Heorstan and his other uncle as Alfheah the Bald. The sons of Ethelred were Princes Aethelwald and Aethelhelm. Aethelwald was passed over in favour of his uncle Alfred the Great and fought Alfred's son Edward the Elder in 901. He threw in his lot with the Danes and his son was named after the Danish leader Hastan- in English Heorstan.
If Prince Aethelhelm was the same as Athelm, the Archbishop and Heorstan was the same Heorstan as was Dunstan's father, then Dunstan was the grandson of Ethelred's eldest son. Heorstan must have been as popular an English forename as Adolf after WW2, so how many could there have been, especially with uncles- or rther greatuncle's called Aethelhelm ? Athelm is said to have been a monk of Glastonbury, local to Dunstan, but Prince Aethelhelm had a son, Aethelthyrth. However this is not impossible as it seems likely that after the debacle of Aethelwald's rebellion, other family members would take up the cloth to eliminate themselves from the running, until the fuss had died down and then left their vows behind. Before Dunstan's Benedictine reforms clerical vows were very lax and Alfheah himself had a son when Archbishop.
This is important as it gives a new perspective to the career of Dunstan. Quite clearly his ecclesiastical career was very much fast-tracked by his connections and eventually he exercised even greater than Royal authority- regarding Edwy and Edgar. Just who did he think he was? And that is the question- maybe he thought he was the King of England. The identification of Heorstan and Athelm is not confirmed in PASE but it seems suggestive. Whadya think guys? Can we ever be sure? This would also indicate the relationship between Dunstan and Edric of Washington and Athelstan Half-King- the respective foster-parents of Edwy and Edgar.
I know that Angus was not impressed with the King Ethelred-King Harold connection, of which I suppose this is a sub department.--Streona (talk) 23:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Sorry

message: :Image:Edgarobv.2.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 19:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Edgarobv.2.jpg

message: I have no idea what the attributes parameter in the  is meant to be, but it initially looked to me to be "alt" text for consumption by screen readers. On investigation I discovered that this template doesn't yet support an alt parameter, so I've requested that one be added here. When it is, the present attribute text can easily be copied aross. --Malleus Fatuorum 15:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: DUH. Attributes is the "symbolism" of the saint. It's the heraldry/icons associated with the saint. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:46, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Is the text correct then? Still seems to me to be "alt" text describing the picture. FYI, I came across this article during a GA Sweepa reassessment; obviously it still meets the GA criteria, and I'll update the article history to say so. --Malleus Fatuorum 15:57, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Honestly, I think so, but am not sure. That sort of information is kinda hard to source, and I'm on the road anyway so my books aren't here with me, so call it good. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:19, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox used in this article 

message: Hi all - while creating the article clock chimes, I found a little cache of Dunstan info in the lovely book Church Bells of England.  Full text available on the internet archive - I don't have time to add any here, but perhaps someone else will!
--Vivisel (talk) 23:41, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dunstan and bells 

message: This is a relatively minor point but I am confused about Dunstan’s family on his father’s side. In the 3rd sentence of the “Birth” section it states that Dunstan’s "father Heorstan was the brother of Athelm, the bishop of Wells and Winchester". This means of course that Athelm was Dunstan's uncle. Later, under the section “School to the king's court” in the last sentence of the second paragraph, it states that Dunstan “journeyed to Winchester and entered the service of his uncle, Aelfheah, Bishop of Winchester". The wiki entries for these two clearly describes them as two different men. Therefore, it appears that Dunstan had two uncles both of whom served as Bishop of Winchester. However, stating unequivocally that Aelfheah was Dunstan's uncle may be inaccurate because his wiki entry says only that he ". . . MAY have been a relative of Dunstan". Perhaps the confusion comes from the fact that there are different citation for them, Green and Toke. Or what is also very possible: I am missing something. Terence (talk) 16:41, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: This article relies far too much on old and doubtful sources. Athelm was Archbishop of Canterbury, not Bishop of Winchester. I have corrected Dunstan's birth and relatives based on the most reliable source, the DNB entry for him, but the whole article needs updating. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:06, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dunstan's uncle(s), bishop(s) of Winchester? 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 
The result of the move request was: not moved.  Favonian (talk) 18:30, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 9 February 2022 

message: This article relies heavily on unreliable sources, especially Toke's 1909 article, and I have marked it accordingly. Dudley Miles (talk) 07:33, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreliable sources 

message: He had gifts in language, such as writing, and could extend to speaking too. Historyghecko (talk) 07:23, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  oritur is possibly orator.