19th of May - St Dunstans Day
19th of May is the 139th day of the year
St Dunstans Day:
Unlike many of the saints in our calendar St Dunstan is very much one of our own, and intriguingly he is still commemorated in Britain not just through his feast day being marked in some churches, but in one craft with which he was closely associated.
Dunstan was born in Somerset in the early 10th century, of a noble family and well connected in the church. He became not just a cleric but a noted craftsman, famed for his skill in metal-working (even at the end of a career that saw him become Archbishop of Canterbury he still made bells it seems). During a long life he was a counsellor to various kings, Edmund the Martyr, Eadred, and Edgar among them. As Abbot of Glastonbury he restored its fortunes.
Until Thomas Becket surpassed him in fame Dunstan was our most revered and important saint, and he is still recalled in a practical way by gold and silversmiths, whose patron saint he is: the hallmark year runs from May 19th to May 18th, the former being the day he died in 988.
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