Blog: Margery Kemp at Candlemas

A Clerk of Oxford wrote in her blog yesterday: 'The other day I posted a description of a miracle which was said to have taken place during a Candlemas service in Anglo-Saxon England, in a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary at Glastonbury, c.910.

As the congregation stood with their candles, the pregnant mother of the future St Dunstan had her candle miraculously kindled by light from heaven, and from her candle light spread to the congregation and all the people of England.

That miracle-story, of course, draws a parallel between the infant Christ and the unborn St Dunstan, though like the Biblical narrative it centres on the experience of a woman: Dunstan's mother is cast in the role of Mary, bringing her child to the temple and his light to the world. But the story is told about (and by) a monk, and we know nothing about St Dunstan's mother except her name - Cynethryth.  

Read on here: http://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/margery-kempe-at-candlemas.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+AClerkOfOxford+(A+Clerk+of+Oxford)