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Edmund the Martyr

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Not to be confused with Edward the Martyr.
For the 13th century Archbishop, see St. Edmund of Abingdon.
St Edmund the Martyr
King of the East Angles
Detail from the Wilton Diptych.
Reign25 December, 855 – 20 November, 869
PredecessorÆthelweard
SuccessorOswald and/or
Æthelred
Burial
Bury St Edmunds
FatherAlcmund
MotherSiwara

Template:Infobox Monarch Saint

Edmund the Martyr (841–20 November 869) was a King of East Anglia. He succeeded to the East Anglian throne in 855, while still a boy. The earliest and most reliable accounts represent Edmund as descended from the preceding kings of East Anglia of the Wuffing line. Other accounts state that his father was King Æthelweard. Geoffrey of Wells claimed that Edmund was the youngest son of Alcmund, a Saxon king. Edmund was said to have been crowned by Bishop Humbert of Elmham on Christmas Day 855. In 869/70 Edmund was defeated in battle by the Great Heathen Army; he was captured, tortured and died the death of a martyr. He is venerated as a saint and a martyr in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Anglican Communion. The king's body was ultimately interred at Beadoriceworth, the modern Bury St Edmunds, where the pilgrimage to his shrine was encouraged by the twelfth-century monks' enlargement of the church. Edmund's popularity among the Anglo-Norman nobility helped justify claims of continuity with pre-Norman traditions; a banner of St. Edmund's arms was carried at the battle of Agincourt.

One can find churches dedicated to his memory all over England, including Christopher Wren's St Edmund the King and Martyr in London. There are a number of colleges named after St Edmund. Edmund is seen as the patron saint of various kings, pandemics, torture victims, and wolves; specifically, of England, the Roman Catholic diocese of East Anglia, the English county of Suffolk, and Douai Abbey.[1][2][3] A speculative account of Edmund's martyrdom is given in Bernard Cornwell's historical fiction novel, The Last Kingdom (2004). An alternative fictional version by Alan Moore of Edmund's martyrdom is given in the short story, November Saints, included in the collection, Voice of the Fire (2004).

Life

Edmund the Martyr was a King of East Anglia.[4] According to both Abbo of Fleury followed by John of Worcester, he came "ex antiquorum Saxonum nobili prosapia oriundus," which when translated seems to mean that St Edmund was of foreign origin and that he belonged to the Old Saxons of the continent.[5] This is a very doubtful tradition, as there is no evidence that his alleged father, King Alcmund, ever existed. The earliest and most reliable accounts represent Edmund as descended from the preceding kings of East Anglia.[6] Nevertheless, the story of Old Saxon origins was later expanded into a full legend which spoke of Edmund's parentage, his birth at Nuremberg to the otherwise unknown Alcmund, his adoption by King Æthelweard of East Anglia, his nomination as successor to the king, and his landing at Hunstanton to claim his kingdom.[7]

Other accounts state that his father was King Æthelweard.[6] What is certain is that the king died in 854, and was succeeded by Edmund when the boy was a fourteen-year-old.[8] Thus, his birthyear is 841.[4] Edmund was said to have been crowned by St Humbert on 25 December 855 at Burna (probably Bures St Mary, Suffolk), which at that time functioned as the royal capital.[8][7][9]

Almost nothing is known of the life of Edmund during the next fourteen years. It was recorded that Edmund was a model king who treated all with equal justice and was unbending to flatterers. It was also written that he retired for a year to his royal tower at Hunstanton and learned the whole Psalter, so that he could recite it from memory.[6]

Death

In the year 869,[10] the Danes who had wintered at York, marched through Mercia into East Anglia and took up their quarters at Thetford. Edmund engaged them fiercely in battle, but the Danes under their leaders Ubbe Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless had the victory, killed King Edmund, and remained in possession of the battlefield.[11][12] The conquerors may have simply killed the king in battle, or shortly after. The more popular version of the story, which makes Edmund die as a martyr to Danish arrows when he had refused to renounce Christ or hold his kingdom as a vassal from heathen overlords, dates from comparatively soon after the event.[4] It is not known which account is correct.

"(Edmund) was all beset with their shots, as with a porcupine's bristles".

According to Abbo of Fleury, Edmund's earliest biographer,[13] the story came to Abbo by way of St Dunstan, who heard it from the lips of Edmund's own standard-bearer.[5] Given accepted birth and death days, this is just chronologically possible.[4] In Abbo of Fleury's alternative version of events Edmund refused to meet the Danes in battle himself, preferring to die a martyr's death, with conscious parallels to the Passion of Christ:

King Edmund stood within his hall of the mindful Healer with Hinguar (Ivar), who then came, and discarded his weapons. He willed to imitate Christ's example, which forbade Peter to fight against the fierce Jews with weapons. Lo! to the dishonorable man Edmund then submitted and was scoffed at and beaten by cudgels. Thus the heathens lead the faithful king to a tree firmly rooted in Earth, tightened him thereto with sturdy bonds, and again scourged him for a long time with straps. He always called between the blows with belief in truth to Christ the Savior. The heathens then became brutally angry because of his beliefs, because he called Christ to himself to help. They shot then with missiles, as if to amuse themselves, until he was all covered with their missiles as with bristles of a hedgehog, just as Sebastian was. Then Hinguar, the dishonorable viking, saw that the noble king did not desire to renounce Christ, and with resolute faith always called to him; Hinguar then commanded to behead the king and the heathens thus did. While this was happening, Edmund called to Christ still. Then the heathens dragged the holy man to slaughter, and with a stroke struck the head from him. His soul set forth, blessed, to Christ.[5]

A page from the Anglo—Saxon Chronicle

Date and location of death

The traditional date of his death, quoted by most reference works, is 870.[14] However recent research has led to the claim that he actually died in 869,[15] and this date is now accepted as fact in most new histories.[4]

This uncertainty arose because the compilers of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dated the start of the year from September, so an event that took place in November 869 according to the modern calendar would be considered by them to take place in 870.[11] The Great Heathen Army conquered the Kingdom of Northumbria in 866. They then invaded Wessex, the English kingdom whose history from that time is best documented, in December 870.[16] The uncertainty raises the question of whether they did so within a few weeks of killing Edmund, or whether they spent a year pillaging and consolidating their position in East Anglia.

One possible location for the battle is at Hoxne near Eye in Suffolk, some 20 miles east of Thetford.[8] Another candidate is in Dernford, Cambridgeshire,[17] while Bradfield St Clare, near Bury St Edmunds is also a possible site for the martyrdom.[18]

Legacy

The king's body was ultimately interred at Beadoriceworth, the modern Bury St Edmunds.[8][19] The shrine of Edmund soon became one of the most famous and wealthy pilgrimage locations in England and the reputation of the saint became universal.[4][20] The date of his canonisation is unknown, although Archdeacon Hermann's Life of Edmund, written in the late eleventh century, seems to state that it happened in the reign of Athelstan (924–939). Edmund's popularity among the English nobility was lasting. It is known that his banner was borne in the Irish expedition of the Anglo-Normans and also when Caerlaverock Castle was taken in 1300. A banner with Edmund's crest was also carried at the battle of Agincourt.[21][22] Churches dedicated to his memory are found all over England, including Christopher Wren's St Edmund the King and Martyr in London. There are a number of colleges named after St Edmund. His shrine at Bury St Edmunds was destroyed in 1539, during the English Reformation. His feast day in the Orthodox, Roman, and Anglican traditions is 20 November.[8]

In legend

Martyrdom

File:EdmundMartyr.jpg
Edmund in The Little Lives of the Saints, illustrated by Charles Robinson in 1904.

Abbo of Fleury's vita[8][5] continues the narration of Edmund's decapitation without a break. His severed head was thrown into the wood. Day and night as Edmund's followers went seeking, calling out "Where are you, friend?" the head would answer, "Here, here, here," until at last, "a great wonder", they found Edmund's head in the possession of a grey wolf, clasped between its paws. "They were astonished at the wolf's guardianship".[23] The wolf, sent by God to protect the head from the animals of the forest, was starving but did not eat the head for all the days it was lost. After recovering the head the villagers marched back to the kingdom, praising God and the wolf that served him. The wolf walked beside them as if tame all the way to the town, after which it turned around and vanished into the forest.[5]

After giving the head and body a speedy burial, the kingdom rebuilt itself for several years before finally erecting a church worthy of Edmund's burial.[4] Legend told that upon exhumation of the body, a miracle was discovered. All the arrow wounds upon Edmund's corpse were healed and his head reattached to his body. The only evidence of his previous decapitation was a thin, red line around his neck. Despite being buried for many years in a flimsy coffin, his skin was soft and fresh as if he were merely sleeping the entire time.[5] These details induced the writers of the British Museum's account of the bog body called Lindow Man[24] to suggest that the body of St Edmund recovered in the fens "was in fact a prehistoric bog body, and that in trying to find their murdered king, his people had recovered the remains of a sacred king of the old religion still bearing the marks of his ritual strangulation."[25]

Revenge

In Percy Dearmer's The Little Lives of the Saints, we are told of Edmund's posthumous revenge on the Danes:

...the last heathen Danish king, Sweyen (the father of Canute), tried to destroy (Bury St Edmunds). He laid siege to it, and demanded all the treasure of the church, else he threatened to destroy the church and kill all the clergy; and this he said with many taunting words about the saint who lay buried there. But as he was sitting on his war–horse, waiting to attack the town, he saw in the sky St Edmund coming towards him, a crown on his head and a long bright lance in his hand. 'Help, friends!' he cried. 'Edmund is coming to kill me!' Then he fell down, and died in convulsions.[7]

Sweyn's son, King Canute, converted to Christianity and rebuilt the abbey at Bury St Edmunds. In 1020, he made a pilgrimage there and offered his own crown upon the shrine as atonement for the sins of his forefathers.[7]

Relics

Until the middle of the 19th century, an old tree stood in Hoxne Park and it was believed that it was the tree on which Edmund had been martyred. In 1849, the old tree fell down and was chopped up. According to the story, in the heart of the tree an arrow head was found. Pieces of the tree were kept and one of them was used to form part of the altar of a church which was dedicated to Edmund.[7] Another piece of this tree is in the collection of Moyse's Hall Museum. A dentist volunteered to x-ray this piece and found that it contained a bent nail.

In fiction

A realistic and possible account of Edmund's martyrdom is given in Bernard Cornwell's historical fiction novel, The Last Kingdom. There is also a description of Edmund just before his death in The Namesake, a juvenile historical novel by C. Walter Hodges. An alternative fictional version of Edmund's martyrdom is given in the short story, "November Saints", included in Alan Moore's novel/story collection, Voice of the Fire (2004).

Contemporary campaign in Suffolk

In 2006, a group that included BBC Radio Suffolk and the East Anglian Daily Times saw the failure of their campaign to get St Edmund named as the patron saint of England. Apparently, Edward III replaced him by associating Saint George with the Order of the Garter.[26] The Bury St Edmunds MP David Ruffley had taken up the cause and helped deliver a large petition to the government in London.[3] BBC Radio Suffolk also called for a change of the English flag from the Cross of St George (Argent, a cross Gules or a red cross on a white field) to the Flag of St Edmund.[27] This consists of three gold crowns on a field of blue (Azure, three crowns Or).[21] This is an heraldic banner introduced during the Norman period.[28] Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected the request, however their attempt was successful on another level:

St Edmund (was) named patron saint of Suffolk...the high point of a successful campaign which was launched by Breakfast show presenter Mark Murphy and producer Emily Fellows in the autumn of 2006. St Edmund was originally the English patron saint but was ousted by St George.[3][1]

See also

References

  1. ^ Butler, Alban (2000). Butler's Lives of the Saints, New Edition (November) pages=173–175. Continuum International Publishing Group. {{cite book}}: Missing pipe in: |title= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ "Edmund of East Anglia". Patron Saints Index. Catholic Community Forum. Retrieved 2007-08-20. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ a b c "St Edmund, Patron Saint of Suffolk". St Edmund's day feature. BBC. 25 April 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edition. USA: Oxford University Press. 13 March 1997. p. 428. ISBN 0–19–211655–X. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ a b c d e f Abbo of Fleury (1961). Life of St Edmund in Anglo – Saxon Primer 9th Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  6. ^ a b c "St Edmund the Martyr". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. 1909. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  7. ^ a b c d e Dearmer, Percy (1904). The Little Lives of the Saints. London: Wells Gardner, Darton & Co.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Bunson (1998). Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Saints. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing. p. 212. ISBN 0–87973–588–0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ Bishop Humbert of Elmham was later venerated as Saint Humbert
  10. ^ The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports the following details and the defeat and death of Edmund under the year 869.
  11. ^ a b Swanton, Michael. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. pp. pp. xiv–xvi. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  12. ^ Keynes, Simon (2004). Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0–140–44409–2. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ His vita was written in 985.
  14. ^ Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo–Saxon England. Blackwell Publishing. 2000. ISBN 9780631224921. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ Whitelock, Dorothy (1969). Fact and Fiction in the Legend of St Edmund in Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology Volume 31. pp. 217–233.
  16. ^ Churchill, Winston (1966). The Birth of Britain p.102. Dodd, Mead. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  17. ^ Scarle, R.D. "Do you know where King Edmund died in 869 AD ?". The Good Grid Reference. Cambridge Archaeology. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  18. ^ Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History Volume 35 part 3. 1983. pp. p223. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  19. ^ "The conquest of Mercia: AD 867–870". In the footsteps of Ivarr the Boneless. Channel 4. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  20. ^ Cynthia Hahn, "Peregrinatio et Natio: The Illustrated Life of Edmund, King and Martyr", Gesta 30.2 (1991:119-139) analyses an illuminated manuscript in the Morgan Library "carefully calculated to demonstrate that Edmund is first among the saints of England." (p. 119).
  21. ^ a b Perrin, W.G. (1922). British Flags. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  22. ^ "Manuscript:Yates Thompson 47 f. 107". British Library:Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessdaymonth=, |month=, |accessyear=, |accessmonthday=, and |coauthors= (help)
  23. ^ Edmund was the last of the Wuffinga line.
  24. ^ I. Stead, J. Bourke and D. Brothwell, Lindow Man: The Body in the Bog (British Museum) 1986.
  25. ^ John Grigsby, Beowulf & Grendel (London: Watkins) 2005.
  26. ^ Daniell, Christopher (2003). From Norman Conquest to Magna Carta: England, 1066 – 1215. Routledge. p. 78. ISBN 041522215X.
  27. ^ "St Edmund". Where I Live: Suffolk. BBC. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  28. ^ Scott–Giles, W.C. (1965). The Romance of Heraldry. London: J. M. Dent.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Public Domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Further reading

  • Grant, Judith, editor. La Passiun de Seint Edmund. London: Anglo–Norman Text Society, 1978. ISBN 0–905474–04–X
  • Hervey, Francis. Corolla Sancti Eadmundi. London: J. Murray, 1907.

External links

English royalty
Preceded by King of East Anglia
December 25 855 – 20 November 869 		Succeeded by


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