Dunstan, to whose memory so many churches have been dedicated, was born near Glastonbury, in county Somerset, and educated at the Abbey. In subsequent years, when he passed a retired life, he built himself a small cell, and enacted there (if tradition holds its own) one of, if not the greatest miracle upon record. He was a favourite with King Athelstan, whom he much pleased by musical performances on his harp, and many astounding tales have been handed down to us about this instrument playing without being touched, and rendering such musical and hitherto unknown melody as enabled the humbler classes to be much imposed upon. Dunstan died May 18, A.D. 988, so that he has been dead just 900 years. And yet to-day is still recorded that marvellous meeting he once had with “the evil one,” or, as we were told in our youth, the Devil. Many a time did this tempter “try his hand” upon our musical blacksmith. He appeared to him in every shape and form, even as a beautiful female, and certainly to our mind the most likely “to draw.” Poor Dunstan in his little cell at Glastonbury, whenever at his devotional practice as harpist, or using his forge and anvil as blacksmith, was certain to receive a visit, and his sweet song drowned by the black visitor’s unholy jeers. At last the day of reckoning came, Dunstan seized a golden opportunity when his tyrannical tormenter put in appearance at the very time his forge was at work and his pincers hot. Little was said, no doubt, but the doings were great—the greatest ever recorded of man’s work—for
St. Dunstan, so the story goes,
Seized his sable Majesty by the nose,
And made him loudly roar;
So loud, indeed, from North to South,
From East to West, like from thunder’s mouth
It echoed a thousand miles and more.
But the pulling of the evil one’s nose was but a part of the transaction, for our blacksmith then and there pulled out his parchment and made the enemy sign that famous declaration, never in future to molest Holy Church or Holy men, and keep aloof of all buildings in which hang the horseshoe. It is not many years ago that in two streets in London this emblem of protection or “luck” may have been seen—Dudley Street, St. Giles’s, and Dean Street, Fetter Lane—the latter place not a thousand miles, but only a few yards, from where this account is printed. As for the hammer, anvil and tongs of St. Dunstan, Mr. Lower in his notices of the ironworks of Sussex, gives woodcuts of the three articles, said to be “the famous originals, preserved at Mayfield in that county, so noted for its iron. The anvil and tongs are of no great antiquity, but the hammer with its iron handle may be considered a mediæval relic.” A few years ago we attended a sale of curiosities of more than the usual interest, and which were the lifelong attention of Mr. Snoxall, Charterhouse Square. One of the lots was the original anvil and hammer of the “Harmonious Blacksmith,” from which Handel composed his celebrated song, and we can endorse, from a trial we made, the assertion of the MS. description that Powell’s anvil produced B and E notes, as few anvils have done, or are likely to do again.
St. Dunstan is the patron saint of the Goldsmiths’ Company, and he figures in their hall both in picture and in statue. The legend was a favourite one in their Lord Mayor’s Show, especially in that of 1687, when in the trade pageant the prelate seated on a chair of State, having a golden mitre on his head, a crozier in one hand and tongs in the other, surrounded by forges and anvils and blacksmith at work, taught the devil the oft-repeated lesson not to intrude on forbidden ground. We might multiply evidences of the popularity of the famous legend, but we have said enough, and must proceed with our Company’s history.
In the first year of the reign of Henry VII. (1485) both the Blacksmiths’ and Spurriers’ guilds will be found in the list given by Campbell, vol. i. p. 4; and a few years later, in 1502, standing in precedency the 36th Company, the Blacksmiths had a livery of sixteen, and the Spurriers, standing the 46th, had six. When Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine “shall pass by towards their Coronation,” the same Companies sent members to represent them, and in the eighth year of that King’s reign, 1517, it was settled that in precedency in the future the Blacksmiths should be the 41st Company and the Spurriers the 46th. There were then about sixty Companies in the City, but of these ten were not in the “clothing,” that is to say, had a livery.