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DUNSTAN (saint), c. A.D. 909-988, was born in Glastonbury of noble parents. He became abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Glastonbury and served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 960-988. Throughout the medieval period, there was a tradition that St. Dunstan had devils as his servants, as instruments of God.

The fiend says that sometimes devils have been servants to man, as they were to Saint Dunstan, FrT 1502-1503.

Dunstan, Anglo-Saxon for "mountain stone," appears in final rhyming position, FrT 1502.

E.S. Duckett, St. Dunstan of Canterbury; Sister Mary Immaculate, "Fiends as 'servant unto man' in the Friar's Tale." PQ 21 (1942): 240-244; J.A. Robinson, The Times of St. Dunstan; The South-English Legendary, ed. C. D'Evelyn and A.J. Mill, I: 204-211.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.
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