Edmund The Martyr

Edmund the Martyr (also known as St Edmund or Edmund of East Anglia, died 20 November 869) was king of East Anglia from about 855 until his death.

Few historical facts about Edmund are known, as the kingdom of East Anglia was devastated by the Vikings, who destroyed any contemporary evidence of his reign. Coins minted by Edmund indicate that he succeeded Æthelweard of East Anglia, as they shared the same moneyers. He is thought to have been of East Anglian origin, but 12th century writers produced fictitious accounts of his family, succession and his rule as king. Edmund's death was mentioned in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', which relates that he was killed in 869 after the Great Heathen Army advanced into East Anglia. Medieval versions of Edmund's life and martyrdom differ as to whether he died in battle fighting the Great Heathen Army, or if he met his death after being captured and then refusing the Viking leaders' demand that he renounce Christ.

A popular cult emerged after Edmund's death, and he was canonised by the Church. A series of coins commemorating him was minted from around the time East Anglia was absorbed by the kingdom of Wessex in 918, and in about 986, the French monk Abbo wrote of his life and martyrdom.

During the 10th century, Edmund's remains were translated from an unidentified location in East Anglia to Beodricesworth (modern Bury St Edmunds); they were temporarily moved to London for safekeeping in 1010. Edmund's cult flourished during the Early and High Middle Ages, and he and Edward the Confessor were regarded as the patron saints of medieval England until they were replaced by Saint George in the 15th century. Medieval manuscripts and works of art relating to Edmund include Abbo's ''Passio Sancti Eadmundi'', John Lydgate's 15th-century ''Life'', the Wilton Diptych, and a number of church wall paintings.

King of the East Angles

Accession and rule

The existence of Edmund is known from coins minted by his moneyers, three of whom—Dudda, Eadmund, and Twicga—minted coins for Edmund's predecessor, Æthelweard which suggests that a smooth transition of power occurred. The number of coins issued in his name indicates that he reigned for a number of years, but the only contemporary documentary references to Edmund are the records of his death in Asser's life of Alfred the Great and the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''. The twelfth-century '' Annals of St Neots'' states that Edmund succeeded on Christmas Day 855 aged fourteen and was crowned by Bishop Hunberht on Christmas Day 856 at a royal vill in Burna in Suffolk, but no source is known for these statements. The devastation in East Anglia that was caused by the Vikings destroyed all the charters that may have referred to Edmund.

Edmund cannot be placed within any ruling dynasty. The 10th century French monk Abbo of Fleury stated that Edmund was ', which according to Ridyard "was probably Abbo's rather verbose way of saying he was descended from the ancient nobility of his race".

A variety of different coins were minted by Edmund's moneyers during his reign. The letters ''AN'', standing for 'Anglia', appear on the coins of only Edmund and Æthelstan, another 9th century king of the East Angles; the letters appear on Edmund's coins as part of the phrase ''+ EADMUND REX AN LORUM' ("Edmund, King of the Angles"). Edmund's later coins read ''+ EADMUND REX'' ("Edmund, King"). Otherwise, no chronology for his coins has been confirmed.

Death and burial

For decades after the Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793, their attacks on England were mainly raids on isolated monastic communities. According to the ''Annales Bertiniani'' and the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', a larger-scale attack occurred in . By the end of the decade the Vikings had started to over-winter in England. In the autumn of 865 a force probably numbering over 5,000 combatants, described by the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' as "a great heathen army", came to East Anglia. Edmund made peace with them and gave them horses and other supplies, and they stayed there until the summer of 866, when they moved on to York. The army attacked Mercia by the end of 867 and made peaceful terms with the Mercians; a year later the Vikings returned to East Anglia.

The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', which generally described few matters relating to the East Angles and their rulers, relates that "here the army rode across Mercia into East Anglia, and took winter-quarters at Thetford; and that winter King Edmund fought against them, and the Danish took the victory, and killed the king and conquered all that land". Where Edmund was killed and whether he died in battle or was murdered by the Danes afterwards is not known. The Great Heathen Army went on to invade Wessex in late 870, where they were confronted by Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, the future Alfred the Great.

Edmund was buried in a wooden chapel near to where he was killed. At a date generally assumed by historians to have been during the reign of Æthelstan, who became king of the Anglo-Saxons in 924, Edmund's body was translated from —the location of which has never been conclusively identified—to ', now modern Bury St Edmunds. In 925 Æthelstan founded a religious community to take care of Edmund's shrine.

Memorial coinage

Following the death of the Danish Guthrum, king of East Anglia, in around 890, the same moneyers who had minted his coins started to produce money in commemoration of Edmund. The coins, whose design was based upon those produced during Edmund's reign, provide the earliest evidence that he was venerated as a saint. All the pennies and (more rarely) half-pennies that were produced read ''SCE EADMVND REX''—'O St Edmund the king!'. Some of them have a legend that provides evidence that the Vikings experimented with their initial design.

The St Edmund memorial coins were minted in great quantities by a group of more than 70 moneyers, many of whom appear to have originated from continental Europe; over 1800 specimens were found when the Cuerdale Hoard was discovered in Lancashire in 1840. The coins were widely used within the Danelaw. They have mainly been found in the east of England, but the exact location of any of the mints they came from is not known with certainty, although scholars have assumed that they were made in East Anglia.

Veneration

Cult at Bury St Edmunds

Edmund's cult was promoted and flourished, but it declined, with the production of St Edmund coins ceasing after around 910. The saint did not reappear in liturgical calendars from the 9th century until the appearance of Abbo of Fleury's ''Passio Sancti Eadmundi'' three centuries later. In 1010, Edmund's remains were translated to London to protect them from the Vikings, where they were kept for three years before being returned to Bury.

The Danish king Canute, who ruled England from 1016, converted to Christianity and was instrumental in founding the abbey at Bury St Edmunds. The new stone abbey church was completed in 1032, having possibly been commissioned by Canute in time to be consecrated on the 16th anniversary of the Battle of Assandun, which took place on 18 October 1016. Edmund's shrine became one of the most famous and wealthy pilgrimage locations in England. The abbey's power grew upon being given jurisdiction over the western half of the county of Suffolk by the creation in 1044 of the Liberty of Saint Edmund, established by Edward the Confessor, and a larger church was built in 1095, into which Edmund's relics were translated. After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the abbot planned out over 300 new houses within a grid-iron pattern at a location that was close to the abbey precincts, a development which caused the town to more than double in size. King John is said to have given a great sapphire and a precious stone set in gold to the shrine, which he was permitted to keep upon the condition that it was returned to the abbey when he died.

Edmund's shrine was destroyed in 1539, during the dissolution of the monasteries. According to a letter (now in the British Library's Cotton Collection), the shrine was defaced, and silver and gold to the value of over 5,000 marks was taken away. The abbot and his monks were expelled and the abbey was dissolved.

Cult at Toulouse

In 1664, a lawyer from the French city of Toulouse publicized a claim that Edmund's remains had been taken from Bury by the future Louis VIII of France following his defeat at the Battle of Lincoln in 1217. The relics had then been donated by Louis to the Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse. The first record of this is a relic list for Saint-Sernin of around 1425, which included St Edmund among the church's relics.

In 1644, after the city was saved from the plague from 1628 to 1631, which the population ascribed to the intercession of a saint known to the church authorities as ''Aymundus'', who they decided was Edmund. In gratitude for its deliverance, the city vowed to build a new reliquary for the saint's remains. Edmund's cult flourished there for over two centuries. The reliquary, designed by Jean Chalette, was silver and adorned with solid silver statues. In 1644, the relics were verified and catalogued for interment in the newly-completed shrine, by which time the cult's origins had been forgotten. Edmund's shrine was removed in 1794 during the French Revolution. The saint's relics were restored to the Basilica of Saint-Sernin in 1845 and placed in a new reliquary.

Relics at Arundel

In 1901 the Archbishop of Westminster, Herbert Vaughan, received "certain relics" from the Basilica of Saint-Sernin. The relics, believed at the time to be those of St Edmund, were intended for the high altar of London's Westminster Cathedral, which was then under construction.

The acceptance of the relics required the intercession of Pope Leo XIII, after an initial refusal by the church in France. Upon their arrival in England they were housed in the Fitzalan Chapel at Arundel Castle prior to their translation to Westminster. Although their validity had been confirmed in 1874, when two pieces were given to Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, concerns were raised about the authenticity of the Arundel relics by Montague James and Charles Biggs in ''The Times''. The relics remained at Arundel under the care of the Duke of Norfolk while a historical commission was set up by Cardinal Vaughan and Archbishop Germain of Saint-Sernin. They remain at Arundel. In 1966 three teeth from the collection of relics from France were given to Douai Abbey in Berkshire.

Commemoration and attributes

The feast day of Edmund, King and Martyr in the Catholic Church is 20 November. He is also remembered in the Church of England, with a Lesser Festival on this day of the year. Edmund's particular attributes are the arrow and the sword, being an English king, his attributes include the orb and sceptre. According to the '' Oxford Dictionary of Saints'', his attribute can also be a wolf.

A stone cross at Hoxne in Suffolk marks one supposed location of Edmund's death. The monument records that it was built on the site of an ancient oak tree which fell in 1848 and was found to have an arrow head embedded in its trunk. Some fifty-five Church of England parish churches are dedicated to Edmund, perhaps the most notable being the Church of St Edmund, King and Martyr, Lombard Street in the City of London. The Benedictine community of Douai Abbey also has Edmund as its patron. There is a St Edmunds chapel at the East end of Tewkesbury Abbey

Medieval hagiographies and legends

''Passio Sancti Eadmundi''

In about 986, the monks of Ramsey Abbey commissioned Abbo of Fleury to write Edmund's ', or account of his martyrdom. According to Abbo, St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the source of the story of the martyrdom, which he had heard told long before, in the presence of Æthelstan, by an old man who swore an oath that he had been Edmund's sword-bearer.

In Abbo's version of events, the king refused to meet the Danes in battle, preferring to die a martyr's death. According to Ridyard, Edmund's martyrdom cannot be proven and the nature of his fate—whether he died fighting or was murdered after the battle—cannot be read from the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''. Ridyard notes that the story that Edmund had an armour-bearer implies that he would have been a warrior king who was prepared to fight the Vikings on the battlefield, but she acknowledges the possibility that such later accounts belong to "the realm of hagiographical fantasy".

Abbo named one of Edmund's killers as Hinguar, who can probably be identified with Ivarr inn beinlausi (Ivar the Boneless), son of Ragnar Lodbrok

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