Everything about Edmund Of East Anglia totally explained
:
For the 13th century Archbishop, see St. Edmund of Abingdon.
Edmund the Martyr (841–
20 November 869) was a
King and
martyr 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, 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, the Roman Catholic diocese of
East Anglia, the
English county of
Suffolk,
Douai Abbey and the French city of
Toulouse.
Life
Edmund the Martyr was a
King of
East Anglia. 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 Edmund was of foreign origin and that he belonged to the
Old Saxons of the continent. This is a very doubtful tradition, as there's 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 of the
Wuffing line.
Other accounts state that his father was King Æthelweard. What is certain is that the king died in 854, and was succeeded by Edmund when the boy was a fourteen-year-old. Thus, his birthyear is 841.
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. 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. 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'd refused to renounce Christ or hold his kingdom as a vassal from heathen overlords, dates from comparatively soon after the event. the story came to Abbo by way of
St Dunstan, who heard it from the lips of Edmund's own
sword-bearer. However recent research has led to the claim that he actually died in 869, and this date is now accepted as fact in most new histories. 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. while
Bradfield St Clare, near
Bury St Edmunds is also a possible site for the martyrdom.
Legacy
The king's body was ultimately interred at Beadoriceworth, the modern Bury St Edmunds. 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.
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. The wolf, sent by God to protect the head from the animals of the forest, was starving but didn't 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. 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."
Patronage
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, the Roman Catholic diocese of
East Anglia, the
English county of
Suffolk,
Douai Abbey and the French city of
Toulouse.
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.
Edward III replaced Edmund as a national saint by associating
Saint George with the
Order of the Garter. The Bury St Edmunds
MP David Ruffley had taken up the cause and helped deliver a large petition to the government in
London. This consists of three gold crowns on a field of blue (
Azure, three crowns Or). This is an heraldic banner introduced during the Norman period.
Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected the request, however their attempt was successful on another level:
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.
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.
Revenge
In Percy Dearmer's
The Little Lives of the Saints, we're told of Edmund's posthumous revenge on the Danes:
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.
[Further Information]
Get more info on 'Edmund Of East Anglia'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://edmund_the_martyr.totallyexplained.com">Edmund the Martyr Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
