Commontide
Anglican Commemoration
King of East Anglia & Martyr
November 20 · d. 870
also known as Edmund the Martyr, St. Edmund of Bury
Edmund was the last king of the East Angles, killed in 869 when the Danish army overran his kingdom in the east of England. The one near-contemporary notice, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, says only that he fought the Danes and fell; the martyrdom the church has kept was written a century later by Abbo of Fleury, who tells that Edmund refused to hold his people's faith under a pagan overlord, was bound to a tree and shot with arrows, and was beheaded. His body was enshrined at Beodricsworth, the place that grew into the great abbey of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, and for much of the Middle Ages he stood among the patron saints of England. His feast is November 20.
Edmund was king of the East Angles, the last man to rule that Christian people in the east of England as a kingdom of their own. He had come to the throne as a young man and governed it as a Christian king, and in his day a great heathen army came out of the north across the sea. It was an army that did not raid and leave but stayed to conquer, wintering in one English kingdom after another, and in the autumn of 869 it rode into East Anglia and made its camp at Thetford.
Edmund led his men against it and was beaten, and the Danish leader sent him terms. He might keep his life and even his throne, the message ran, if he would give up his treasure, rule as an under-king beneath a heathen lord, and let the old gods of the north stand again beside Christ in his land. It was a heavier demand than it sounded. A king in those days carried his people's religion in his own person; a king who bowed to other gods bowed his whole people with him, and to take the terms was to hand the Christian East Angles back, faith and all, to the men who meant to unmake that faith. Edmund took counsel with his bishop, and the bishop, seeing how few they were and how many the Danes, urged him to submit or to flee. Edmund would not. He would not buy his own life at the price of his people's God, and he sent back word that he would yield to the heathen only when the heathen turned to Christ.
So they came for him. He would not save himself by fighting on, and he laid down his weapons rather than resist, choosing to meet his death as his Lord had met death. The Danes seized him, bound him to a tree, and beat him with whips while he called aloud on Christ. Then they shot arrows into him as though it were sport, one after another, until the shafts stood so thick in him that he bristled like a hedgehog. Still he named the name of Christ, and to silence him they struck off his head and threw it away into the wood, so that his people should not find him whole to bury.
When the Danes had gone the East Angles came looking for their king. They found his body, but not the head, and they went through the trees calling to one another, the way men do who are searching in a wood. And out of the thickets a voice answered them, calling back, until it led them to the place. There lay the head, and over it stood a great grey wolf, holding it between its paws. The wolf was hungry, but it had not touched the head; God had set it there to guard the king from the other beasts, and it let the men take the head up and followed them, gentle as a hound, until they had laid it with the body. Then it turned and went back into the forest. They buried Edmund at a place called Beodricsworth, and the people who kept that grave were not keeping a defeat. They believed that the God who had guarded a dead king's head in the jaws of a wolf could raise the whole man at the last, and the small wooden shrine they raised over him was not the end of Edmund but the first stone of a house of prayer that would stand and grow for six hundred years.
How we know Edmund divides sharply between one early line and everything that follows it. The near-contemporary witness is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, set down within living memory of the event, and it is bare. The Chronicle enters him under the year 870, and in the Everyman translation the whole notice runs:
This year the army rode over Mercia into East-Anglia, and there fixed their winter-quarters at Thetford. And in the winter King Edmund fought with them; but the Danes gained the victory, and slew the king; whereupon they overran all that land, and destroyed all the monasteries to which they came.
That is all the earliest record says: a king who fought the invaders and was killed, and a land overrun. It does not say how he died, whether in the battle or after it, and the date itself is uncertain, because the Chronicle's year often began in the autumn, so that a death in November 869 by the modern reckoning could be entered under 870.
Everything that makes Edmund a martyr comes from a single later source, Abbo of Fleury's Passio Sancti Eadmundi, written at the abbey of Ramsey between about 985 and 987, more than a hundred years after Edmund died. Abbo was candid about how the story had reached him, and the chain he describes is itself a piece of the history. He had it, he says, from Archbishop Dunstan of Canterbury, who had heard it in his own youth at the court of King Athelstan from the lips of a very old man, Edmund's armour-bearer, who claimed to have been present and seen it happen. Three tellers, then, span the gap: the armour-bearer who was there, Dunstan who heard him, and Abbo who wrote it down, across roughly a hundred and fifteen years. It was Abbo who gave the martyrdom its enduring images, the bound king bristling under the arrows like a hedgehog or a thistle grown thick with spines, and the severed head that answered its searchers from the wood in a cry his Latin gives as "Hic, hic, hic," here, here, here. Within a few years Ælfric of Eynsham turned Abbo's Latin into an Old English homily, and it is largely through Ælfric that the story passed into the English imagination.
The wonders belong to that later telling, and Abbo wrote them down a century after the fact on an oral chain he was careful to name. But the telling is old in its own right, and it took hold with remarkable speed and reach, which is itself part of Edmund's history. Within a generation of his death the Danish kings who had settled East Anglia, now themselves Christian, were striking a memorial coinage in his name. The shrine at Beodricsworth grew into Bury St Edmunds, one of the wealthiest abbeys in medieval England and a great place of pilgrimage; later ages that opened the shrine told of a body that had not decayed and a head grown back to its shoulders, marked only by a thin red line where the sword had passed. For much of the Middle Ages Edmund, together with Edward the Confessor, was reckoned among the patron saints of the English, and his banner was carried in war until, in the later fourteenth century, St George rose past him. Whether or not the wolf kept the head as Abbo says, a real king did fall to the heathen army in 869 rather than surrender his people's faith, and the church that remembered him that way built one of its greatest houses over his grave.
Edmund is kept on November 20, the day of his death, in the Church of England and in the Roman calendar. He is the patron saint of Suffolk, whose county flag is his banner, a white cross with crossed golden arrows on a blue field, and he is remembered as a patron of kings; he is invoked against plague and pandemics, and, for the beast that guarded his head, he is even named a patron of wolves. Long before St George, he and Edward the Confessor were among the patrons of England, and there are still those who would see his patronage restored.
In art Edmund is shown as a crowned king, young and richly robed, holding an arrow or a sheaf of arrows, the instrument of his death, and often a sword; frequently a wolf sits at his feet or guards the crowned head between its paws. The arms attributed to him, three golden crowns on a blue field, became the emblem of Bury St Edmunds and of the abbey that bore his body. That abbey was for centuries the heart of his cult, its town named for him, its great church a magnet for pilgrims until the Dissolution swept it away; the ruins still stand at Bury St Edmunds, and his name still marks churches and wells across East Anglia and beyond.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (annal 870)(Old English, 870)
The only near-contemporary record of Edmund: a single sentence for the year 870 noting that the Danish army wintered at Thetford, that King Edmund fought them and was slain, and that the land was overrun. The historical anchor against which Abbo's later Passio is read.
Public domain: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Everyman/Ingram-Giles translation, Avalon Project
Passio Sancti Eadmundi(Latin, c. 985-987)
The source of the whole martyrdom (written more than a century after Edmund's death): the heathen leader's demand, the bishop's counsel and Edmund's refusal, the tree and the arrows, the beheading, the guarding wolf and the head that cried "Hic, hic, hic," and the transmission chain (Abbo from Dunstan from Edmund's armour-bearer).
Public domain: Corolla Sancti Eadmundi, ed. Francis Hervey (1907), Internet Archive
Life of St Edmund (Old English)(Old English, c. 990)
Aelfric's Old English homily on Edmund, made within a few years of Abbo and closely following him; the version through which the martyrdom entered the English imagination (it keeps the hedgehog but drops Abbo's thistle, and gives the head's cry as "Her, her, her").
Public domain: Aelfric's Lives of Saints, ed. W. W. Skeat (EETS), Wikisource
The Cult of St Edmund in Medieval East Anglia(English, 2015)
The standard modern study of Edmund's cult, sober about the thin early record and generous to the long devotion built on it; the book for a reader who wants the afterlife of the saint from Abbo to the abbey.
Public domain: Boydell & Brewer (publisher)
Primary sources. The one near-contemporary witness is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, whose entry for 870 records in a single sentence that King Edmund fought the Danish army and was killed and his land overrun. It is free in the common Everyman translation of the Chronicle, hosted at the Avalon Project.
Principal hagiography. The martyrdom narrative rests entirely on Abbo of Fleury's Passio Sancti Eadmundi (c. 985 to 987), which supplies the demand of the heathen leader, the refusal, the tree and the arrows, the beheading, the wolf, and the transmission chain running back through Dunstan to Edmund's armour-bearer. It is printed with an English translation in Lord Francis Hervey's 1907 dossier Corolla Sancti Eadmundi, free at the Internet Archive. Ælfric of Eynsham's Old English Life of St Edmund, made within a few years of Abbo, is the version through which the story reached English readers; the Old English text is free in W. W. Skeat's edition of Ælfric's Lives of Saints.
Recommended modern biography. Rebecca Pinner's The Cult of St Edmund in Medieval East Anglia (Boydell Press, 2015) is the standard modern study of how Edmund was remembered, sober about the thin early record and generous to the long devotion that grew from it; the book for a reader who wants the whole afterlife of the cult, from Abbo to the abbey.
Further reading. Susan J. Ridyard's The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1988) sets Edmund among the other martyred and royal saints of the age and weighs the sources with care. Hervey's Corolla Sancti Eadmundi itself remains the fullest single gathering of the medieval texts about Edmund for the reader who wants to go to the sources.
Online resources. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is at the Avalon Project; Hervey's Corolla, with Abbo's Passio in Latin and English, is at the Internet Archive; Ælfric's Old English Life is at Wikisource in Skeat's edition.
S. Edmund the confessor and bishop, which rests at Pounteney in France, was born in England in the town of Abingdon. His mother was Mabel the rich, and she was right holy, both wife and widow. And this said S. Edmund, her son, was born on S. Edmund's day, the king and martyr, and in his birth no cloth was fouled by him. And he was born in the first springing of the day, and lay all that day till night as he had been dead, so that the midwife would have had him buried. But his mother said: Nay; and soon after he revived and was borne to church and christened and named Edmund, because he was born on S Edmund's day, and as he grew in age so increased he in virtues. He had a brother named Robert, and the mother set them both to school; also she had two daughters, that one was named Mary, and that other Alice, which were both made nuns at Catesby in Northamptonshire by the labour of their brother Edmund. And the mother gave to them gifts to fast the Friday, and drew them to virtuous and holy living by gifts and fair behests, so that when they came to more perfect age it grieved them not. Their mother ware hard hair for our Lady's love, and led her life in great penance and daily laboured. And on a time as she put out wool for to spin, she delivered so much for the pound that the spinners might not live thereby, which complained thereof to her son Edmund, and he took the yarn that was spun for a pound and raked it in the fire, and a certain time after he took it out of the fire, and the just pound was not hurt ne lessed, but as much as was more than a pound was wasted and burnt by the fire. And when she saw this she repented her greatly and did so never more after. After this she sent her two sons to Paris to school, and delivered to them money for their costs and school hire, and also two shirts of hair, and prayed them for God's love and hers that they would wear those shirts once or twice in the week, and they should lack nothing needful to them, and they granted gladly to do after their mother's desire, insomuch that within a while, of custom they ware the hair every day, and lay therein every night. This was a blessed mother that so virtuously brought forth her children, and in short time S. Edmund increased so greatly in virtue that every man had joy of him, giving laud to God thereof. And on a day as his fellows and he went to play, he left their fellowships and went alone into a meadow, and under a hedge he said his devotions. And suddenly there appeared tofore him a fair child in white clothing which said: Hail! fellow, that go alone. And S. Edmund, being abashed, marvelled from whence this child came, to whom the child said: Edmund, knowest thou not me? And he said: Nay, I am your fellow in the school, and in all where you go I am ever on your right side, and yet you know me not, but look in my forehead and there you shall find my name written. And then Edmund looked in his forehead and saw written therein with letters of gold, Jesus Nazarenus rex Judeorum. And then the child said: Dread you not, Edmund, for I am Jesu Christ your Lord, and I shall be your defender here whilst you live. And then Edmund fell down, meekly thanking God of his great mercy and goodness. And then our Lord taught him to say when he shall go to his bed, or arise, and bless him with this prayer: Jesus Nazarenus rex Judeorum, Filius Dei miserere mei, in remembrance of my passion, and the devil shall never have power to overcome you. And then anon this child vanished away. And S. Edmund thanked humbly our Lord that it pleased to him to show him in this manner, and ever after both evening and morning, he used continually to bless him with that holy prayer to his life's end, and did much penance ever after for God's sake. And when he had continued at school a long time at Paris, he came home and went to Oxenford to school. And always in this time he was chaste in his living and a clean virgin, in will and deed, and never consented to the sin of the flesh. And on a day he made his prayers devoutly before an image of our Lady, and he put a ring upon her finger, and promised to her faithfully never to have other wife but only her during his life, and humbly greeted our Lady with these four words: Ave Maria gratia plena, which words were written on the said ring.
And his host had a daughter that laboured greatly to make S. Edmund to sin with her fleshly, and long time he put her off, and she laboured so sore that at the last he granted her to come to his bed, and then she was right glad, and she espied her time and came to his chamber, and anon made her ready to come to his bed, and she stood naked tofore him. And then he took a sharp rod and beat the maid, that the blood ran down on every side of her body, and said to her: Thus you shall learn to release your soul from the foul lusts of your flesh. And so with beating he put away all her foul lust, and ever after she lived a clean virgin unto her life's end. And soon after, the good mother sent for Edmund and her other children, for she knew that she should shortly pass out of this world, and charged Edmund to see that his brother and sisters should be well guided, and after she gave to them her blessing and departed out of this world, and is buried at Abingdon in S. Nicholas' Church in a tomb of marble before the rood, where is written: Here lies Mabel, flower of widows. And after, S. Edmund did do make a chapel at Catesby, in which both his sisters were buried, and one of them was prioress of the place ere she died, and was a holy woman for whom God showed many miracles. And S. Edmund dwelled long after at Oxenford, living a holy life and ware a shirt of hair full of hard knots, and a breech of the same, and the knots stuck in the flesh that it made his body to bleed, and he bound the shirt to his body with a cord so strait that unnethe he might bow his body.
And on a time when his shirt of hair was right foul he took it to his servant for to burn in the fire, but the fire might not perish ne hurt it. Then his servant took it out of the fire, and bound a stone thereto and threw it into a pond, and told his master that he had burnt it. S. Edmund and his fellows, on a day as they came from Lewkenor to Abingdon, saw in a valley many black fowls like crows or ravens, among whorn was one which was all to-rent and torn with the other black birds, and threw him from one to another that it was a piteous sight to see, and they that accompanied S. Edmund were almost from themselves for fear of the sight. But then S. Edmund comforted them and said to them what it meant, he said that these be wicked fiends of hell that bear with them a man's soul, which died right now at Chalgrove, which soul is damned for his wicked living, and then he and his fellows went to Chalgrove and found all things as he had said. S. Edmund was accustomed to say every day unto our Lady and S. John the Evangelist the prayer: O intemerata, and on day, for certain business that he had, he forgat it and said it not. Wherefore S. John appeared to him in a ghastful manner, blaming him greatly for that he had not said it, and after that he said it every day unto his life's end.
And after this as he sat in a night in his study, labouring in divers of the seven sciences, the spirit of his mother appeared to him in a vision, and charged him to leave to study in particular sciences, but that he should from then forthon labour in divinity only, for that was the will of God, and he has sent to you word by me, and this said, she vanished away. And ever after he laboured in divinity so that he profited therein marvellously, so that men wondered of his conning; and when he read divinity in schools, his scholars and hearers profited more in one day than they did of other men's teaching a whole week. And many of his scholars by his teaching and ensample of living, forsook the world and became religious men. And on a day he came to the school for to dispute of the blessed Trinity, and was there ere any of his scholars came, and fell in slumbering, sitting in his chair, and a white dove brought him the body of our Lord and put it into his mouth, and the dove ascended up into heaven again, and ever after S. Edmund thought that the sweet savour of our Lord's flesh was in his mouth, by which he knew great privities of our Lord in heaven, for he passed all the doctors in Oxenford in conning, for he spake more like an angel than a man, and in all his lessons he remembered ever our Lord's passion. And in a night as he studied long in his books, suddenly he fell asleep and forgat to bless him and to think on the passion of our Lord, and anon the devil lay so heavy on him that he might not bless him with neither hand, and knew not what to do, but through the grace of God he remembered his blessed passion, and then the fiend had no more power, but fell down from him anon. And S. Edmund then charged the fiend by the virtue of our Lord's passion, to tell to him how he should best defend him, that he should have no power over him, and then the fiend answered and said: The remembrance of the passion of our Lord Jesu Christ, for when any man remembers the passion of Jesu Christ, I have no power over them. And ever after S. Edmund had full great devotion to the passion of our Lord Jesu Christ, and was continually in holy prayers and meditations, for all the delights of the world were but heaviness to him. He was a man of great alms, and often preached and edified the people, and all the people had great devotion to hear him. In that time the pope sent out a crusade against the Turks and miscreants into England, and this holy man, Edmund, was chosen to publish it through the realm, and he stirred much people to receive the crusade, and to go to the Holy Land to fight agamst the enemies of God. And as a young man came with others for to receive the cross, a woman that loved him letted him of his purpose, and drew him away from thence with her hands, and anon her hands were made stiff and hard as a board, and also crooked. And then she made great sorrow, and cried God mercy full meekly, and prayed S. Edmund to pray for her to our Lord, and he said to her: Woman, will you take the cross? And she said: Yea, sir, full fain, and then she received it and anon was made perfectly whole, and she thanked God and S. Edmund; and for this miracle much the more people took the cross.
In a time as this holy man preached at Oxenford in the churchyard of All Hallows, and much people being there to hear him, suddenly the weather changed, and waxed all dark in such wise that the people were aghast and afeard, and began fast to flee away from the sermon. And this holy man said to the people: Abide you still here, for the power of God is stronger than the fiend's power, for this he does for envy to distrouble God's words. And then S. Edmund lift up his hands and his mind to Almighty God, and besought him of his mercy and grace; and when he had ended his orison and his prayer, the weather began to withdraw by that other side of the churchyard, and all they that abode still and moved not, but heard the preaching, had not one drop of rain, and they that went away from the preaching were through wet, for there fell so much rain in the high street that men might not go ne ride therein, wherefore the people thanked God and his holy saint for this miracle. And at Winchester another time, as he preached, there was showed a like miracle, for there he chased away such a dark weather by his holy prayer. After, for his blessed living he was chosen to be a high canon of Salisbury, and by the chapter was made common treasurer, where he lived full blessedly in giving alms largely unto the poor people, insomuch that unnethe he kept anything for himself, for which cause he went to the abbey of Stanley, and sojourned there till his rents came in. And the abbot, named Master Stephen Lexington,was sometime his scholar in Oxenford. He was a man of great abstinence, and ate so little meat that men wondered whereby he lived. He ate but seldom flesh. From Shrovetide till Easter he would eat nothing that suffered death, ne in Advent he ate never but Lent meat, and when the archbishop of Canterbury was dead, he was elected and chosen by all the convent to be their bishop, which election was sent to him by three messengers to Salisbury.
But then he was at Calne, which was a prebend of his, and was solitary in his chamber, alone in his prayers, and one of his chaplains came to him and told to him that he was chosen to be archbishop of Canterbury and that the messengers were come to him for the same cause. But S. Edmund was nothing glad of the tidings, and then the messengers came and did their message and delivered to him letters which he read and understood, and after, said to the messengers: I thank you of your labour and good will, but I am nothing glad of these tidings; notwithstanding I will go to Sahsbury and take counsel of my fellows in this matter. And anon as he was come he laid tofore the whole chapter this matter and showed to them; his letters, and all the chapter advised him to take it upon him. And he, always excusing him, refused it to his power; but at last the bishop of Salisbury, with the chapter, commanded him by virtue of obedience that he should take it on him, and then he humbly, sore weeping, agreed to receive it. And forthwith they led him to the high altar and sang devoutly: Te Deum laudamus, and all the while this holy man wept full bitterly and shed many a tear, and prayed devoutly to our Lord to have mercy on him, and besought our blessed Lady and S. John Evangelist to pray for him and to help him in his need. And then after he was brought to Canterbury and there in time and space was consecrated, and stalled into the see of the archbishop, and so ruled the church of England that all men spake good of him. And he did great penance and gave great alms to poor people.
And on a time a poor tenant of his died, and the bailiff took his best beast for a mortuary, and then the poor widow which had lost her husband, and also her best beast, came to this holy man, S. Edmund, and complained to him of her great poverty and prayed him for the love of God that he would give her again her beast. And he said: You know well that the chief lord must have the best beast, but if so be that I deliver to you again this beast, will you keep him well to my behoof till I ask him again another time ? To whom she said: Yea, sir, with a good will to your pleasure, or else God defend, and pray for you also that you vouchsafe to do so much grace to me a poor wretch. And then he commanded his bailiff to deliver it to her and she kept it after to her life's end. This holy man was merciful to poor people and full truly to his power maintained all the right of holy church. And the devil, having ever envy on good works, set a debate between the king and him, which was Henry III. son of king John, which desired certain points against the liberties of holy church. But this good archbishop withstood him to his power, and prayed the king to spare holy church for the love of God, and maintain them as he was bounden and had promised. But the king would not hear him, but expressly did certain things against the right of the church and menaced greatly S. Edmund. And when S. Edmund saw the king so cruel against the church he spake sharply unto the king, and at the last executed the censures against them that vexed it, and cursed them that took away the liberties of it. And when the king heard of this cursing he was greatly moved against S. Edmund, howbeit this holy man was firm and constant in his holy purpose, which was ready to put his life in jeopardy for the right of the church. And S. Thomas of Canterbury appeared to him, and bade him to maintain and hold the right of the church to his power, and rather to suffer death than to lese any of the liberties and franchises of holy church, like as he did. And after that S. Edmund was more bold to abide and maintain the liberties of the church. And he taking ensample of S. Thomas, how he went into France to the end that the king should be better disposed, and in likewise did S. Edmund, and went over sea, trusting to God that the king would better be disposed and forsake his opinions; and was in the abbey of Pounteney in high France six years, praying for the good state of the church of England and lived there so holy and perfect a life that every man had joy of him. And in short time after, he became sick and feeble, and his friends counselled him to remove thence, and then he departed and went to a place called Soly, which is twenty miles thence, but the monks of Pounteney made great sorrow for his departing. But he comforted them and said: I promise you to be with you at S. Edmund's day, king and martyr. And as he came into Soly he waxed so sick that he knew well that he should hastily depart out of this world, and then he desired to receive the sacraments of the church, which, when he had received with great reverence, he passed out of this life unto our Lord, full of virtues, in the year of our Lord twelve hundred and forty. And from the town of Soly he was brought again to Pounteney upon S. Edmund's day, king and martyr, and where he might not keep his promise alive, he performed it when he was dead. And the monks of Pounteney received him worshipfully and buried him solemnly, and afterwards, for the great miracles that God showed for him there, his bones were taken up and laid in a worshipful shrine tofore the high altar in the said abbey, where our Lord has showed many a fair miracle for his holy servant S. Edmund. Then let us devoutly pray to Almighty God that by the merits of this holy man S. Edmund he have mercy on us and pardon us our sins. Amen.
British (Received Pronunciation): Mercia /ˈmɜːrʃiə/
Almighty God, you gave your servant Edmund boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Readings for a Martyr
Jeremiah 15:15–21Psalm 34Revelation 7:9–17Luke 12:4–12