coverings which are now in use were
presented to the cathedral by Queen Mary, the wife of William III., when
she visited Canterbury. A chalice, given by the Earl of Arundel in 1636,
is among the communion-plate. In his account of the building of the new
choir, Gervase tells us that "the Master carefully prepared a
resting-place for St. Dunstan and St. Elfege--the co-exiles of the monks."
When the choir was ready, "Prior Alan, taking with him nine of the
brethren of the Church in whom he could trust, went by night to the tombs
of the saints, so that he might not be incommoded by a crowd, and having
locked the doors of the church, he commanded the stone-work that inclosed
them to be taken down. The monks and the servants of the Church, in
obedience to the Prior's commands, took the structure to pieces, opened
the stone coffins of the saints, and bore their relics to the
_vestiarium_. Then, having removed the cloths in which they had been
wrapped, and which were half-consumed from age and rottenness, they
covered them with other and more handsome palls, and bound them with linen
bands. They bore the saints, thus prepared, to their altars, and deposited
them in wooden chests, covered within and without with lead: which chests,
thus lead-covered, and strongly bound with iron, were inclosed in
stone-work that was consolidated with melted lead." This translation
was thus carried out by Prior Alan on the night before the formal re-entry
into the choir: the rest of the monks, who had not assisted at the
ceremony, were highly incensed by the prior's action, for they had
intended that the translation of the fathers should have been performed
with great and devout solemnity. They even went so far as to cite the
prior and the trusty monks who had assisted him before the Archbishop, and
it was only by the intervention of the latter, and other men of authority,
and "after due apology and repentance," that harmony was restored in the
convent.

[Illustration: THE CHOIR BEFORE RESTORATION.]

The bones of St. Dunstan were long a cause of contention between the
churches of Canterbury and Glastonbury. The monks of Glastonbury
considered that they had a prior claim on the relics of the sainted
archbishop, and stoutly contended that his body had been conveyed to their
own sanctuary after the sack of Canterbury by the Danes; and they used to
exhibit a coffin as containing Dunstan's remains. But early in the
fourteenth century they went so far