St. Dunsten

Summary

Catholic Saints Podcast – St. Dunstan

Host: Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Guest: Dr. Jean Paul Juge
Date: May 19, 2026
Episode Theme: The Life, Legacy, and Lessons of St. Dunstan

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Overview

This episode dives into the story of St. Dunstan, a pivotal yet sometimes overlooked figure in English church history. Through a lively, insightful conversation, Dr. Jean Paul Juge and Dr. Elizabeth Klein explore Dunstan’s monastic roots, his influential role among English royalty, his confrontations with corruption, and the enduring spiritual lessons he offers today. The episode explores how an ascetic monk ended up shaping English politics and Church reform, drawing parallels to the delicate balance between prayer, personal integrity, and engagement with the world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing St. Dunstan

Who Was St. Dunstan?

• Lived in England c. 909–988, a period marked by political instability—"a very bad time to be king" ([01:22]).
• Outlived and interacted with eight kings, often serving as an advisor.
• Renowned for holiness, asceticism, and his monastic background; became abbot of Glastonbury, then Bishop of London, Worcester, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury.

Great Anglo-Saxon King Names

• Dr. Juge lists the colorful names of the kings Dunstan knew:
  • Edward, Aethelstan, Edmund, Eadred, Edwig, Edgar, Edward the Martyr, and Aethelred “the Unready” ([02:18]).
• Quote: “Aethelred the Unready, which is my favorite.” – Dr. Juge ([02:27])

2. The Monk Drawn Into Power

Why Monastics Were Chosen as Bishops

• Monks often perceived as more holy or disinterested in worldly power—drawn from the monastery for their spiritual credibility ([03:22]).

Dunstan’s Asceticism

• Built himself a “five foot long, two foot wide cell” as a sign of humility and ascetic practice ([03:44]).
• Quote: “In some ways I think he never left his five foot long, two foot wide cell in his spirituality.” – Dr. Juge ([10:35])

Legend of the Smith and the Devil

• Dunstan, also a skilled craftsman, is depicted seizing the devil’s face with his blacksmith’s tongs—a legendary moment representing spiritual warfare ([04:43], [05:26]).
• Dr. Klein: “Smack you with my liturgical tongs.” ([06:39])

3. A Life of Reform and Conflict

Early Life and Suffering

• Initially favored at court, Dunstan was a victim of jealousy and violence, left “for dead” by rivals ([04:34]).
• He later became abbot and renowned craftsman, producing liturgical items and copying books ([05:00]).

Standing Up to Kings

• Dunstan’s willingness to rebuke royalty, notably Edwig, whom he allegedly dragged to an imperial meeting despite the king’s resistance. This earned the king’s wrath and forced Dunstan into exile ([06:52]).
• Upon his return, he served King Edgar, who accepted Dunstan’s rigorous moral expectations, including a public seven-year penance ([07:49]).
• Quote: “He requires a seven years penance before Edgar can receive the crown. And surprisingly, this king Edgar submits.” – Dr. Juge ([07:41])

Investiture Controversy and Church-State Dynamics

• Discussion of the perennial tension between church and state: Should political leaders have the authority to appoint bishops?
• Dunstan is praised for resisting secular influence and maintaining moral authority, even at personal risk ([08:26], [09:16]).
• Dr. Klein: “The relationship between church and state … is always a complicated negotiation.” ([09:16])

4. Spiritual Lessons and Legacy

Retaining the Monastic Heart

• Dunstan’s capacity to remain spiritually grounded even amid political turmoil is highlighted as exemplary ([11:05]).
• Dr. Klein: “It can be really hard to balance … time praying versus … doing works of charity … Without having a life of personal prayer … we’re not going to have the resources to deal with these incredibly difficult situations.” ([11:05])

Generosity and Use of Wealth

• Dunstan is remembered for his generosity, notably using all of a large inheritance from a noblewoman to restore monasteries ([12:47]).
• Quote: “If a wealthy noble woman bequeathed it to me, I don’t know if all of it would go to an abbey. That’s sanctity.” – Dr. Juge ([13:14])

Enduring Impact

• Dunstan’s shrine was destroyed during the Reformation, but he remains a well-known saint in England ([10:35]).
• Legacy: Courageous reform, spiritual depth, and self-giving service.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the dangers of kingship in Dunstan’s era:
  “Kings just, they didn’t seem to live very long. … It should be like Deadliest Jobs, you know, that show.” – Dr. Juge ([01:43])

• On St. Dunstan’s strength in adversity:
  “He will not only smack the devil around, but also some English kings.” – Dr. Juge ([06:40])

• On laying the foundation for Church reform:
  “It is this really high call that … someone like this has to remain … a prophetic voice. … It’s pretty complicated and difficult to do when you’re being given all these responsibilities.” – Dr. Klein ([09:16])

• On sanctity and stewardship:
  “He used [the inheritance] entirely for the restoration of the monasteries. ... We see that and we’re like, oh, yeah, he's a saint, of course he did that. But it’s not like that’s necessarily easy to do.” – Dr. Klein ([12:47])

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• 01:22 – Introduction to St. Dunstan’s historical context and challenges with English kings
• 02:18 – Colorful list of Anglo-Saxon kings Dunstan advised
• 03:44 – Dunstan’s ascetic practices: the “five foot long, two foot wide cell”
• 04:34 – Jealousy, violence, and Dunstan’s early life trajectory
• 06:52 – Dunstan’s legendary confrontation with King Edwig
• 07:41 – Moral reform: King Edgar’s seven-year penance
• 08:26 – Investiture controversy and ecclesial authority
• 10:35 – Dunstan’s enduring spiritual legacy
• 12:47 – Dunstan’s generosity and practical sainthood

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Conclusion

This engaging episode paints St. Dunstan as much more than a distant medieval figure: he emerges as a model of fidelity, righteous courage, spiritual integration, and practical charity. His journey from monastic cell to royal council, and from victim to reformer, speaks powerfully to anyone seeking to remain rooted in faith while navigating the world’s challenges.

Saint Dunstan, pray for us. ([13:34])

Transcript

[Podcast Narrator]

You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live and share their faith.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Welcome to Catholic Saints, the podcast about the lives of the saints and their legacy for the church and for us. I'm your host, Dr. Elizabeth Klein, and I'm here with my colleague, Dr. Jean Paul Juge. Thanks for joining me.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Always good to be here.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

And we're talking today about Saint Dunstan, who is a really cool saint. And people who listen to the show will know I like obscure saints, but somehow I did not know about Saint Dunstan, who really isn't that obscure after all, as it turns out, after I learned a little bit about him. How did you pick Saint Dunstan or how did you hear about him?

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

So although he is generally more obscure, I knew two Dunstans because I studied with a Benedictine monk who took the name of Dunston, and one of my professors liked that name so much, he named his rescue dog after his student. So there's yet another Dunstan. I refer to them as Dunstan the Greater and Dunstan the Lesser, and I'll let you try to guess which one was which.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Yeah. All right. Well, let's hear about this Saint Dunstan. Who is he? When did he live?

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

So he lived at a time in England in which it was a very bad time to be for anyone to be king. He lived through eight different English kings. He was born around 909 and died in 988. And yeah, Kings just, they didn't seem to live very long. But he was associated with maybe four or five of these kings.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

So you get like five or 10 years as king.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

That's tough. Maybe five years, some of them, you know, probably just a little less than that. It should be like Deadliest Jobs, you know, that show, that would be the

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

early medieval British kings, like, unless then

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

that show, like, we're sorry, England's Toughest Jobs being king.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Well, you have furnished me a list that the viewers cannot see of the names of these kings. And because I am so fond of Anglo Saxon names, I was wondering if maybe you would just read the names of these kings and then for those keeping track as we go through his life and these kings, maybe you'll have some vague sense of the succession of these kings.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

I hope I pronounced some of them right. There's Edward, Aethelston, Edmund, Ed, Edwig, Edgar, Edward the Martyr. He didn't live very long as king. And then there was Aethelred the Unready, which is my Favorite.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

That's the greatest name.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Yeah, he was not remember well in history. And so he's the unready. Yeah, God forbid any of us be remembered as the unready.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Although it seems kind of like a gentle British critique. You know, it's like, well, you know, he's just, he's just a little unready.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

That's very polite. Yeah. And so it may seem odd to our listeners why we're talking about king so much, but. So Dunstan was a. He was a Benedictine abbot of Glastonbury in England. And he found himself, I guess through his holiness and his reputation and his general likability to be kind of sucked into the orbit of kings. And they tried to make him bishop. They wanted him to be an advisor. He eventually would be a bishop of London and then of Worcester, eventually of Canterbury. I think abbots like Dunstan tended to be sought out because of kind of widespread corruption among bishops at about this time in the church's history.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

This is kind of a recurring theme that often bishops are drawn from monastics because they're seen as, and often are holier. They didn't take orders maybe for the purpose of gain or fame, or they had a different motivation. And so they're sort of pulled from their monastic seclusion into these orbits.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Speaking of seclusion, when he took holy orders in 943, he built for himself a five foot long, two foot wide cell.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Right.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

And he's a short guy. Yeah, so. Right. They came shorter back then, I guess. And so this was his ascetic lifestyle he had for himself. But he really gets dragged out of it. Although there's one legend that's still kind of depicted in images of him, of him grabbing the devil with the tongs that he would work with as a smith and grabbing him by the face amidst a moment of temptation. But later he's going to be invited to court by the king and. And he's going to be very famous in the moral reform of England, opposing practices of simony and nepotism.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Okay, so how does he. Do we know kind of about. How do we know about his life? What do we know about his early life or how does he end up a monk?

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Great. Yeah. So he got associated with the monastery, was tonsured at a very young age, it seemed, you know, very early on. The king at the time had. Had made him a part of the court and he became so favored. But those who were jealous of him, beat him, left him for dead. He seems to have suff for years based on wounds of this experience. And he goes on. Right. Becomes an abbot in the Benedictine monastery. He's a craftsman, so he's making beautiful liturgical items. He's copying out books.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Okay, so. Okay, so back me up. So he was in the court of a king, and then jealousy kind of had him cast out. Then he became a monk, and then he gets called back into the sort of realm.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Yeah. So he was tonsured, you know, was kind of, I guess, drawn out of this monastic orbit and brought into the king's court, but then, you know, return. Okay. Yeah, that's right. And becomes abbot.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

And you mentioned his tongs and his smithing. Yeah, so he was like a smith for the purposes of a Mostly, like, liturgical nature. Okay. And describing books. And so it's with his, like, liturgical tongs that he smacks the devil. Is that the idea?

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

I guess that's it. Right. Which.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Wow, that's quite the image.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

You know, if you Google it, you'll find some pretty interesting artistic depictions of this.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Yeah. You know, you read these letters, and I don't want to totally spiritualize them. There's so many stories about the Devil appearing to monks and having these interactions. So I do not at all doubt that these experience happened. But there is a sort of cool, like, spiritual imagery there, you know, of smacking the devil with liturgical tongs. We think about these moments. I don't know if you've ever experienced these moments, but sometimes I have of, you know, you're at Mass, you're in prayer, and you sort of have this thought that comes to you, like, this is all a waste of time, or, I'm so bored, or thinking of something else. And then it comes to you that that is from outside. That's a temptation of the devil. And you can have a really sort of forceful reaction like, no, that's wrong. Like, be gone.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Smack you with my liturgical tongs.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Yeah, no, that's right. And he will not only smack the devil around, but also some English kings. And so some are gonna respond positively, some negatively to the tongs of Duncan. That's right.

[Podcast Narrator]

So.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

So, yeah. So at one point, you know, while he's kind of an advisor now, as. As a bishop, there's this. This King Edwig, and there's at least a rumor that he, on the day of coronation, had to drag this king by the collar to one of the important imperial meetings. I think maybe he was. He was flirting or. Or something.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Wasting his time.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Wasting his time away. Right. And actually Dunstan had to flee the king's anger for for this event and had to go to Flanders. And eventually this bad king is driven out and, and replaced. And, and you, you then have Edgar, who's, who's a better king. And he's kind of like the King David to Dunstan's Nathan. Okay, so when Edgar, you know, commits a serious immoral act and Dunstan requires penance of him. Right. So he requires a seven years penance before Edgar can receive the crown. And surprisingly, this king Edgar submits. Right. Submits to the penance.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Oh, wow, that's really. That's amazing. It reminds me of the story of St. Ambrose, you know, making Theodosius do penance. But these long penances, this seems kind of intense to us. But this was fairly common, especially in England at this time. If you had a serious sin, especially of a public nature, you could be required to do a long period of penance. And so refusing him the crown. This makes me think about something you said before about the investiture controversy. You might want to explain to people what the investiture controversy is or a little bit about it. And then I don't know if he played a role.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Yeah, there's this ongoing problem, especially going to the Middle ages of those in political power, leaders of state appointing bishops and appointing abbots. And so it's a really striking moment in which Dunstan as an abbot, when he becomes this close advisor to kings, doesn't let this power, this privilege, deter him from his desire to enact serious moral reform in the church. Even to the point of calling, you know, calling kings out who that he's so closely associated with. You know, he risks exile. Right. He risks even worse than that. And fortunately, Edgar, you know, I think is remembered as a humble king. I think he's remembered as Edgar the peaceful. Right. And so he actually, you know, kind of submitted to this penance that was asked of him.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Yeah, I mean, the messenger controversy is one of those moments in the church that just points out how complicated history is. It's always a complicated negotiation about what relationship is between church and state and how the church should sort of interact with worldly powers. Because the state would sort of say, well, no, we have the authority to ultimately invest the bishop with his crozier, to give the bishop his power. And if we don't, then he does not actually a bishop. And this sort of had to be refuted on theological grounds that this wasn't actually properly the case. And this is ongoing, especially in England, for long after Dunstan. But it is this really high call that like, you Pointed out, Nathan, that someone like this has where to remain a sort of, to maintain the moral high ground in those situations, such that you can be a prophetic voice. It's pretty complicated and difficult to do when you're being given all these responsibilities. And maybe even someone who's a hermit is kind of out of their element being thrown into a political situation like this. And it seems like Dunstan held his ground.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

He had the tongs and he had the pincer grass to grab the drag.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

That's great. That's right.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

So is there any sort of legacy? I mean, Dunstan, I think is pretty well known saint in England, but is there any other sort of legacy you could think about that he sort of leaves?

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Well, I think his shrine ultimately is destroyed in the Reformation. You know, I think maybe as a kind of takeaway for us from Dunstan's legacy. Right. There's. There's something really important in which he is amidst a worldly crowd and responsible for many worldly things. But in some ways I think he never left his five foot long, two foot wide cell in his spirituality. He seems to have been able to bring his monasticism to the world rather than losing it.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

And this is such a repeated theme in the lives of the saints, both ancient and more modern saints, that they often have a sort of period of seclusion that prepares them for the mission that God is going to send them on. Think of Catherine of Siena or others who live either a hermetical life or a semi hermetical life and then are really asked to deal with pretty big issues and be on the public stage. And with Dunstan, especially when he's dealing with things like nepotism and simony and investor controversy, you can see how the Lord prepares people through this, like time apart. I think that's like so important for us. It can be really hard to balance like, well, how much do I spend time praying versus how much do I spend time doing the works of charity? That can be a difficult balance. But this sort of priority to, you know, without me you can do nothing. You know, without having a life of personal prayer, without having a still space in our heart to spend with God, we're not going to have the resources to deal with these really incredibly difficult situations. I mean, I work at a Catholic institution, I'm a professor, so I don't have a lot of like political intrigue whirling about me. But I do think of many who may be listening who work in the corporate world and are Catholic. And I think like you, unless you have that still space in your heart to go out and deal with greed and corruption and mistreatment constantly and try to navigate that while remaining a prophetic voice. That's pretty hard.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

That's right. And to use those resources well. So, I mean, he's kind of famous for all that he received and had bequeathed to him by nobility of giving it back to the church. Oh yeah.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

I came across the one story where he had been the counselor to some wealthy lady and she left him a large fortune that he used entirely for the restoration of the monasteries. Which, I mean, that, like, we see that and we're like, oh, yeah, he's a saint, of course he did that. But it's not like that's necessarily easy to do. I'm sure there's lots of worldly comforts that you might have wanted in like 10th century England that you could have used your money to acquire.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

If a wealthy noble woman bequeathed it to me, I don't know if all of it would go to an abbey. So. That's right. That's sanctity.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Well, thank you so much for sharing with me about Dunstan, Advisor, great reformer of the monastic life, monk and bishop and politically savvy dude.

[Dr. Jean Paul Juge]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Elizabeth Klein]

Saint Dunstan, pray for us.

[Podcast Narrator]

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