Gripla - 2021, Page 28

GRIPLA26
Until now, text from Dunstanus saga has only been known to exist in
a single independent manuscript: AM 180 b fol., written c. 1500. This
manuscript is incomplete due to a large portion from the middle of one leaf
(f. 2) having been cut away and lost at some point; other leaves have also
suffered some damage, causing loss of text. However, the text of Stowe
MS 980 helps to partly fill one of its lacunae.
The first chapter of three dealing with Dunstan (chapter two of
Anecdotes) does not have a corresponding text in Dunstanus saga in its
present state (this chapter is discussed further below), but the remaining
two chapters involving Dunstan and the following chapter that focuses
on Lanfranc are mostly taken from chapters 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, and 17 of
Dunstanus saga. In the second chapter, it is remarked that Dunstan joined
the monastery in “Glasconia” (Glastonbury) of which he was abbot for a
time. This may have been adapted from chapter seven of Dunstanus saga,
but the wording is general and does not match the saga text precisely.54
Then the compiler copies portions of chapters 9 and 10, which contain
historical facts from Dunstan’s life, and most of chapter 13, which contains
two anecdotes of how Dunstan made water spring out of a church floor
and how he shifted a whole church so that it pointed true east.55 The com-
piler, however, opts to omit an interpretation of the first miracle.56
Now, the compiler jumps back to chapter 9, prefacing it with: “Nu
skal segia sem fyrr uard ok uer uilium eigi ad um lidi at segía ath þa er
D(unstanus) uar bedinn ad uera byskup uíntoníe en hann neíttadí”57 (Now,
we shall tell of what happened earlier and do not want to pass over, that
Dunstan was offered the bishopric of Winchester, but he refused). What
follows is Dunstan’s vision of the apostles Peter, Paul, and Andrew, where
they reprimand him for his refusal.58
The third and final chapter dealing with Dunstan (the fourth chapter of
Anecdotes), begins with an anecdote about three false coiners who are sen-
54 Cf. Dunstanus saga, ed. Fell, 12.
55 Cf. Dunstanus saga, ed. Fell, 15.4–17, 15.24–26, 19.18–20.5 and 20.10–17.
56 Cf. Dunstanus saga, ed. Fell, 20.5–10. That this passage, which comes from Eadmer’s
Vita, is also rejected by Vincent of Beauvais (see Christine Elizabeth Fell, “Introduction,”
Dunstanus saga, ed. Christine Elizabeth Fell, Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, Series B, vol. 5
(Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1963), xxxv–xxxvi) is in all probability a coincidence.
57 Stowe MS 980, 40r39–40.
58 Cf. Dunstanus saga, ed. Fell, 14.8–15.1.