St Edmund
Posted by on July 9, 2010bbc knights of saint edmund channel4 knights of saint edmund St George is the patron saint of England but he hasn’t always had that title. Originally the position was held by St Edmund who gave his name to the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds. With St George struggling to catch the imagination of the English in the way that St Patrick has with the Irish, is it time to consider putting St Edmund back where he once was? BBC Radio Suffolk breakfast presenter Mark Murphy certainly is and has launched a campaign to raise the profile of St Edmund. Mark says “I don’t have anything against St George, in fact I still have some cross of St George bunting left over from the World Cup hanging up in my back garden but let’s be honest he hasn’t really caught on has he? The Irish have taken St Patrick to their hearts and have a massive party on his special day and no matter how hard we try St George seems to leave many people cold”. Mark adds “I’ve been interested in the Story of St Edmund for some time and thought it was about time his profile was raised again and anyway I quite fancy a bank holiday on November 20th, I could get my Christmas shopping done early.” The campaign has received the backing of the MP for Bury St Edmunds David Ruffley and the East Anglian Daily Times newspaper. If you’d like to join the campaign or to disagree with it then why not add your vote and comments below. But before you do, you can read a little more about St Edmund. So who was St Edmund? Unlike many medieval saints, St Edmund was a real person but not too much is known factually about him. What we do know is that he was a king who ruled the Anglo Saxon realm of East Anglia between 855AD and 869 AD. He even had Silver pennies struck in his honour. Several places claim to be the location of Saint Edmund’s death. Hoxne near Diss is the one favoured by most scholars. The story goes that he was captured by Danish or Viking raiders after hiding underneath Goldbrook bridge. The reflection of his golden spurs glinting in the water revealed his hiding place to a newly wed couple. He was then captured and tied to an oak tree. Legend has it that on refusing to renounce his faith he was put to death by a volley of arrows. He was said to have so many arrows in him that he “bristled like a hedgehog”. His head was then cut off and thrown into the woods. It was then allegedly whisked away by a wolf. Later as his followers were searching for his remains they heard a cry of “here, here, here” and traced the voice to the wolf who was protecting the severed head. On reuniting the head with its body the two are said to have miraculously joined together leaving only a faint red mark…the sign of a true saint. Many miracles were subsequently attributed to the power of St Edmund and he was patron saint of England until the dragon slaying George was awarded the title some time later. Historians now think he was killed much closer to Bury St Edmunds, probably near the village of Bradfield St Clare but even today brides on their way to church shy away from the Goldbrook bridge in case it brings them bad luck. The truth is no-one really knows for sure.It’s been reported that some time after his death his body was interred at a monastery in the small royal town of Bedericesworth. The shrine attracted pilgrims and the monastery grew ever more important. People soon started to call the town “Saint Edmund’s bury” now known as Bury St Edmunds. His name though lives on today. St Edmundsbury cathedral and council are named after him. Several schools and churches also bear his name. The shrine was dismantled in 1539 during the Reformation. Some say his remains had already been stolen in the 13th century and sent to France. In the 19th century a packet of bones marked with his name was found in the cathedral of St Sernin in Toulouse. A papal commission decided they were the bones of St Edmund and the pope ordered they should be sent to Westminster Cathedral. They only got as far as Arundel when a dispute broke out and to this day they are believed to be still there in a private chapel. Several local authorities are backing the campaign and some of them are flying the St Edmund flag above their offices: Bury St Edmunds Town Council, Suffolk County Council, Ipswich Borough Council and Hoxne Parish Council. Rougham Airfield near Bury has decided to rename one of its events in St Edmund’s honour. Their summer medieval show will be re-branded as a St Edmund pageant. The Conservative MP for Bury St Edmunds David Ruffley is backing the campaign. He’s helping to deliver the petition to the Houses of Commons and to 10, Downing Street in November 2006. Ipswich Town football club is backing the campaign and flying the flag at Portman Road stadium. Greene King brewery has backed the appeal and produced a special St Edmund ale. One Railway is backing the campaign and is naming a train St Edmund. Local schools have been using the campaign to look at local history. The Suffolk Tourism Partnership says this is a fabulous idea and is going to help boost visitor numbers to Suffolk. Crown Nursery in Ufford has found an old St Edmund pippin tree and planted it into its heritage garden. They are hoping to encourage people to buy and plant them again. The Real Sausage Company in Trimley St Martin has produced a St Edmund sausage (and, yes, it was his head that was cut off!). Edelweiss florist in Stowmarket has produced a St Edmund bouquet. The Mayor of Southwold backs the campaign and on St Edmunds day will be following the ancient tradition of handing out St Edmund sticky buns. Bury St Edmunds tourist information centre has agreed to run a series of BBC Radio Suffolk St Edmund walks. A St Edmund service is taking place at St Edmundsbury cathedral on Sunday 19th November 2006. A St Edmund rose is available from Cants in Colchester. Ladbrokes and William Hill opened a book on St Edmund getting his old job back for more information on the “I’m backing St Edmund” campaign and to get regular updates listen to Mark Murphy’s breakfast show, Monday to Friday from 6.30-9.00am. Shortly after the Norman Conquest William the Conqueror ordered that all major nobles, bishops and Abbeys had to provide a certain number of Knights to the crown. This service was normally for 3 months every year. The Abbey of St Edmund had the unique privilege of holding the eight and half hundreds of west Suffolk, known as the Liberty of St Edmund, and consequently 40 knights were demanded by the King. When not on campaign these knights had to perform garrison duty at Norwich castle on a three month rota. The original Knights were granted land in return for undertaking this military service on behalf of the Abbey. Many of the leading Anglo-Norman families in Suffolk became Knights of St Edmund including the de Clare, de Vere, de Valognes, Blundus and Bigod families. Even old Anglo-Saxon families held Knights fees from the Abbey, most notably the de Cockfield family. The Knight therefore formed a club of local families holding land in Suffolk. Apart from guarding Norwich castle the Knights of St Edmund also had to act as advisors, jurors and feudal tenants of the Abbot of Bury St Edmund who was also the Baron of St Edmund. Like other Barons the knights swore allegiance too the Abbot of St Edmunds as their feudal overlord. This was important as if they died without issue or before their children where old enough to inherit the Abbot could take their estates into his hands until either an heir matured or until the Abbot could marry-off the heiress. The zenith of the Knights’ career occurred in 1173 when they led the royalist army into battle, defeating and routing the largely Flemish mercenary rebel army led by Robert Beaumont, the Earl of Leicester, at the battle of Fornham St Genevieve. The Knights were led into battle by the banner of St Edmund which was carried by Roger Bigod. By the beginning of the 13th century rising costs of military activity led the Knights of St Edmund to insist that they were not obliged to serve outside England. Warfare was becoming more expensive and more professional so the crown took the opportunity switch from using part-timers, like the Knights of St Edmund, to demanding cash payment or scutage from the Abbey of St Edmunds. Consequently following the 13th century the Knights of St Edmund adopted a more ceremonial, legal and advisory rather than practical role. However, the Knights continued to have a practical role in the defence of the town because they were required to help maintain the defences around Bury St Edmunds, Originally this consisted of earthwork ditch and bank and timber palisade which was replaced in the 12th or 13th century by a new stone wall. Due to the obligation and duty required of the Knights of St Edmund to defend the town of St Edmund, the campaign has adopted the name the Knights of St Edmund to once again defend a town from the most sinister threat to the town for almost a thousand years. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ivarr’s ‘great heathen army’ moved south from York in 868 and set up its winter quarters in Mercia, at Nottingham. The Vikings’ arrival there marked the first recorded threat to the heartlands of Mercia. Nottingham’s primary attraction to the Danes was its defensive position. Occupying high ground above the Trent at the lowest point at which it could be easily forded, it commanded two of the major routes between Mercia and Northumbria. King Burgred of Mercia sent for help from King Ethelred of Wessex and his brother and heir Alfred. The combined armies of Mercia and Wessex assembled before the Danish position. Ivarr realised that he was outnumbered and could not hope to win a battle. He relied instead on guile to secure a peace – the Treaty of Nottingham – to extricate the Danes from their position. Henry of Huntingdon, writing almost 250 years later, described Ivarr’s response: Ingwar [Ivarr] then, seeing that the whole force of England was there gathered, and that his host was the weaker, and was there shut in, betook himself to smooth words – cunning fox that he was – and won peace and troth from the English. Then he went back to York, and abode there one year with all cruelty. Under the cover of this peace, Ivarr recrossed Mercia with his army and his brother Ubbe Ragnarrson, and, in 870, conquered the kingdom of East Anglia at the Battle of Haegelisdun (probably Hellesden, in Bradfield St Clare, Suffolk). Ivarr is also credited with the brutal execution of King Edmund in the small village of Hoxne, which later English sources equate with the martyrdom of St Sebastian. In his life of St Edmund, the 10th-century French monk Abbo of Fleury wrote: Hingwar [Ivarr] then arrogantly commanded his troops that they should, all of them, take the king alone, who had despised his command, and instantly bind him. When Hingwar came, Edmund the king stood within his hall, mindful of the Saviour, and threw away his weapons, desiring to imitate the example of Christ … Then those wicked men bound Edmund and shamefully insulted him and beat him with clubs, and afterwards they led the faithful king to an earth-fast tree and tied him to it with hard bonds, and afterwards scourged him a long while with whips, and among the blows he was always calling with true faith on Jesus Christ. Then the heathen were madly angry because of his faith, because he called upon Christ to help him. They shot at him with javelins as if for their amusement, until he was all beset with their shots, as with a porcupine’s bristles, even as Sebastian was. When Hingwar, the wicked seaman, saw that the noble king would not deny Christ, but with steadfast faith ever called upon Him, he commanded men to behead him, and the heathen did so. For while he was yet calling upon Christ, the heathen drew away the saint to slay him, and struck off his head with a single blow, and his soul departed joyfully to Christ. With that ‘single blow’ – Edmund’s brother Edwold having fled to Cerne Abbas in Dorset and become a hermit – the East Anglian royal dynasty disappeared for ever. One of the best-known stories of this region tells how the Danes left Edmund’s corpse unburied and his head thrown away into deep brambles. After a search by local people, the body was found, but not the head. They then heard the howling of a wolf (probably Edmund’s own hunting-dog or wolfhound) and, following the sound, came to the place where the head lay. The corpse and head were placed in a hastily built hut-like chapel and, it is said, miracles immediately began – a light was seen over the chapel, and the blind and the sick were healed. Edmund’s head became joined to his body, with only a red scar marking the place of the previous used car prices cut. Locals came as pilgrims to venerate Edmund’s relics, which did not decay and rot. The murdered king was revered as a martyr and his cult quickly spread. Thirty years after his death, his body was interred in Bedericsworth, the central town of Suffolk, which soon became known as St Edmund’s Town, or Bury St Edmunds. An abbey was founded in 1020, and the relics were moved to a shrine there in 1198. (At the beginning of the 13th century, these were stolen by French knights and taken to Toulouse.) Edmund became the patron saint of all East Anglia. His symbol of three crowns – representing his kingship, his martyrdom and his virginity – can still be seen on many emblems, crests and flags all over East Anglia. Meanwhile, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Vikings … overcame all the land. They destroyed all the churches they came to; the same time they came to Medhamsted [Peterborough], they burned and broke, killed the abbot and monks, and all they found there. Ivarr then returned to York, probably leaving the Viking army under the joint control of his brothers Halfdan and Ubbe. They proceeded to attack Wessex. Following the Thames to Reading, they made the town their headquarters after a fight. Because the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was written in Wessex, we know what happened there in some detail. For instance, the chronicler specifies the Viking leaders – a collection of warlords, some of whom called themselves kings, others who did not have the support or the ambition to be more than jarls (earls). Ethelred died, and Alfred (later to known as ‘the Great’) continued his campaign. There were at least nine engagements that the chronicler considered worthy of the name ‘battle’, plus many lesser forays mounted by the Wessex forces to harass or repulse the attacking Danes. By the end of 870, the Vikings, having lost one king and nine jarls, were willing to make peace. In an attempt to prevent the desecration of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, one of England’s most historic towns, the Knights of St Edmund have decided to unleash a 1,000 year old curse against Centros Miller Ltd., Miller group and Debenhams. These companies, in the face of overwhelming local opposition, want to construct a huge 80 million shopping development in the town which will fundamentally alter the character and lay-out of the town. The curse of St Edmund and St Edmund’s reputation for extremely supernatural violence against those who threaten his Liberty, abbey, town or shrine, was familiar to everyone in medieval England. On St Edmund’s day, the 20th November 2005, a formal and public cursing ceremony will take place at Bury St Edmunds to once again summon the avenging saint and dread King to punish his 21st century enemies. The ancient curse of St Edmund has not been used for over 500 years, but with the determination of developers to destroy the whole character of a town laid-out almost 1,000 years ago, leaves the good people of Bury St Edmunds with no other option. They will have to summon divine vengeance down upon those hell-bent on wrecking their town, unless Centros Miller Ltd., Miller Group and Debenhams unconditionally withdraw all their plans for redeveloping the cattle-market site by close of business on Friday 18th November 2005.St Edmund was the last Anglo-Saxon King of East Anglia who fought against the Viking invaders but was captured by them c.869. The Viking’s offered Edmund the chance to live if he ruled as their puppet and abandoned his Christian faith. St Edmund refused to do either and so the Viking’s tied him to a tree and used him for archery practice before cutting off his head and throwing it into the undergrowth of Hellesdon Wood near Norwich. After the Viking’s left St Edmund’s people found his head guarded by a Wolf who had protected the saint’s head until his followers recovered it. When the head was placed in a coffin with the body it was reported that the head and the body join together miraculously, leaving only a thin red-line as a mark where Edmund had been beheaded. The body was removed to a small chapel near by before being moved c.918-52 to the town of Bedericsworth where a new timber church was constructed by the people of East Anglia for the shrine of their martyred King. This church was later replaced by a small octagonal stone church by King Cnut c.1020, who staffed it with Benedictine monks and changing the town’s name to Bury St Edmunds. Cnut’s church was in turn replaced by a massive new St Edmund’s Abbey church c.1097 whose ruins can still be seen today. By the end of the 12th century St Edmunds Abbey was one of the most important pilgrimage centres in Europe and thousands flocked to the shrine to of this patron saint of England seeking cures for illnesses or asking for the saint’s help. The saint’s body was at times of emergency was processed around the town and occasionally displayed so that people could wonder at its miraculous state of preservation. The first version of St Edmund’s martyrdom was written down by Abbo of Fleury as the Passio sancti Eadmundi Regis et Martyris c.985-7 at Ramsey Abbey (Arnold I 1890: 3-25). This was based on the eye-witness account of St Edmund’s armour bearer, who had been with him on the day of his martyrdom. Abbo records two of the earliest examples of St Edmunds capacity for revenge; the capture and punishment of thieves robbing his tomb and the sending insane of the young and impious Thane Leofstan. In c.1094 Herman the Deacon produced Liber de miraculis sancti Edmundi to celebrate the transfer of the saint’s body from Cnut’s church to the new Abbey church (Arnold I 1890: 29-92) . This updated and included many new stories about the saint and the miracles that occurred at his shrine. In Herman’s work the tradition of the vengeful St Edmund is explicit and repeatedly made, from then on more and more stories of the curse of St Edmund started to circulate.So successful was St Edmund’s community in promoting the divinely vengeful aspect of St Edmund cult that when the Royal exchequer was faced with raising the enormous ransom demanded for the release of King Richard c. 1192-1194, someone (probably William de Longchamps, bishop of Ely and Chancellor) was foolish enough to suggest that by despoiling St Edmund’s tomb that the ransom might be quickly raised. Jocelyn of Brakleond reports the incident as follows:- “..whether St Edmund’s shrine should be partly stripped for the king’s ransom was argued before the Barons of the Exchequer, and the abbot stood up and answered the point in this way: ‘Take it for a certainty, that this shall never be authorized by me, nor is there any man who would get me best acne treatment to agree to it. But I will open the doors of the church-let anyone enter who will, let anyone come near who dare.’ Each judge replied with an oath, ‘I shall not go’, ‘Nor I. St Edmund vents his rage on the distant and the absent: much greater will his fury be on those close at hand who seek to rob him of his clothing’. Because of what was said, the shrine was not despoiled, nor was there a loan raised on it.” (Greenaway & Sawyer 1998: 86) By the beginning of the 13th-century the reputation of St Edmund and his divine vengeance had reached such a level of public consciousness that even royal officials, such as St Edmund’s arch-rivals the Bishop of Ely, had baulked at incurring the saints displeasure. St Edmund’s vengeful reputation continued to grow, for example; during the capture of Damietta in Egypt in 1219, the two mosques in the captured town were converted into churches. One church was dedicated by the crusaders to St Edward the Confessor and the other to Saint Edmund. In the latter a tableau or illustrated life of St Edmund was erected in order to instruct visitors about the life of the saint. A visiting Fleming mocked the life of St Edmund only to be instantly divinely punished for his impiety, much impressing the local Muslim population. Thus by the 13th-century the myth of St Edmund had expanded to include an intercontinental strike-capacity for revenge The 14th century saw a series of major conflicts between the Abbey and people of the town, as the Abbey tried to increase it profits and screw more money out of the town’s people. This led to the Abbey being attacked twice by the town people in c. 1327 and 1381. On the first occasion this resulted in the total destruction of the Abbey gate-house, the burning of 13 manors, the theft of animals valued at I 6000 and the public burning by the rioters of all the property deeds the Abbey held. However, despite all this violence the Saint’s shrine was never threatened or damaged by the town’s people. Their argument was not with St Edmund but with the corrupt church officials and the abbey’s greedy agents and factors. In these battles St Edmund clearly was Car Share on the side of the people of his town rather than the administration. For example, in c.1381 the corrupt Prior was fleeing from towns people who had once again rebelled against his mismanagement and reached the ferry at Mildenhall. The Prior managed to get on the ferry which the ferry-woman then pushed out to mid-stream and she then raised a hue and cry. The Prior was captured by the town’s people of Bury, was tried for his crimes and beheaded on the spot, as a terrible warning to those whose maladministration of St Edmund’s town causes trouble. In 1539 Henry VIII’s officials ordered the closure of the Abbey of St Edmund. The monks took the body of St Edmund and secretly hid it somewhere within the Abbey grounds. The last resting place of St Edmund, patron Saint of England remains a mystery even today. However, his intercontinental strike-capacity for divine revenge still persists and this will be unleashed by the Knights of St Edmund against those who would despoil his town and rob his people, unless they unconditionally withdraw all their plans for redeveloping the cattle-market site by close of business on Friday 18th November 2005. Furthermore, that Centros Miller Ltd., the Miller Group nor Debenhams publicly vow to never set foot in Bury St Edmunds again. Failure to comply will see the curse unleashed and may the Lord God have mercy upon their souls.Saint Edmund the Martyr (died 20 November 869) was a king of East Anglia who was venerated as a martyr saint soon after his death at the hands of Danish Vikings. Contemporary evidence for his life and death is largely confined to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and his coinage. In the late 10th century, Abbo of Fleury was commissioned to write a life of the saint, which was translated into Old English by Ælfric of Eynsham. According to Abbo, Edmund was captured and tortured by the Great Heathen Army 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. It is said that the king’s body was ultimately interred at Beadoriceworth, the modern Bury St Edmunds, where the pilgrimage to his shrine was encouraged by the 12th century monks’ enlargement of the corporate entertainment 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. 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. He succeeded to the East Anglian throne in 855, while still a boy. Edmund was a King of East Anglia. According to 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 is no evidence that his alleged father, King Alcmund, ever existed. The earliest and most reliable accounts represent Edmund as descendant of the preceding kings of East Anglia; the Wuffing line. 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. 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. 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. 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. In the year 869, 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 had refused to renounce Christ or hold his kingdom as a vassal from heathen overlords, dates from comparatively soon after the event. It is not known which account is correct. According to Abbo of Fleury, Edmund’s earliest biographer, the story came to Abbo by way of St Dunstan, who heard it from the lips of Edmund’s own sword-bearer. Given accepted birth and death days, this is just chronologically possible. 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 led 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 Saviour. 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. The traditional date of his death, quoted by most reference works, is 870. 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. 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. 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. The uncertainty raises the question of Kent Wedding Photographer 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. Local legend has is that, after being routed in battle against the Danes, King Edmund of East Anglia hid under the Goldbrook bridge. The reflection of his golden spurs glinting in the water revealed his hiding place to a newly wed couple. Nice couple that they were, they gave away his position to the Danes who promptly captured Edmund and demanded he renounce his faith. He refused and was tied to a nearby oak tree. After whipping him, the Danes shot spears at him until he was entirely covered with their missiles – like the bristles of a hedgehog. Even then he would not forsake Christ and so was beheaded and the head was thrown into the woods. Another candidate is in Dernford, Cambridgeshire while Bradfield St Clare, near Bury St Edmunds is also a possible site for the martyrdom. The king’s body was ultimately interred at Beadoriceworth, the modern Bury St Edmunds. 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. The date of his canonisation is unknown, although Archdeacon Hermann’s Life of Edmund, written in the late 11th 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 also 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. Abbo of Fleury’s vita 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”. 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. 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. Legend told that upon exhumation of the body save marriage, 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. These details induced the writers of the British Museum’s account of the bog body called Lindow Man 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 bedroom vanity remains of a sacred king of the old religion still bearing the marks of his ritual strangulation.” 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. The Orthodox and Catholic Churches have considered him patron saint of England, but he is no longer mentioned in the national liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church in England. In 2006, a group that healthy living 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 good health 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. BBC Radio Suffolk also called for a change of the English flag from the Cross of St George (Argent, a DJ Controller cross Gules or a red cross on a white field) to the new Flag of Suffolk. This consists of three gold crowns on a field of blue (Azure, three crowns Or). This is a heraldic banner introduced DJ Equipment during the Norman period. Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected the request, however their attempt was successful on another level: “St Edmund (was) named patron saint of free stuff 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 Best Man Speeches patron saint but was ousted by St George.” Until the middle of the 19th century, an old tree stood in Hoxne Park and it was believed that it was the seo company 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 baby gift baskets tree were kept and one of them was used to form part of the altar of a church which was dedicated to Edmund. In Percy Dearmer’s The Little Lives of the Saints, we are told of loans bad credit 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 Tax Attorney pointing 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 Hair Transplant 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.” 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 wrinkle cream crown upon the shrine as atonement for the sins of his forefathers. In the Bernard Cornwell book The Last Kingdom King Edmund talks himself into martyrdom when he tries to wholesale silver jewellery convince Ivar the Boneless of the greatness of God. The Danes recreate the maytyrdom of Saint Sebastian to see if a miracle would happen and God would protect Edmund from the arrows. One hundred and fifty years before the cars forum Norman Conquest the remains of St Edmund were moved from their first resting place close to the site of the martyrdom to Baedericesworth on the River Lark. Less than 50 years after the removal of the bedroom furniture remains to the new location the later King Edmund made a major grant of land in 945 to the monastery, securing the whole area of the later town within the boundary known as The Banleuca. Bury auto glass mn St Edmunds, as it later became known, was on the way to becoming one of the most wealthy and influential Abbeys in England. But video interviewing what of the Saint from whom it has taken its name? Edmund, King of the East Angles, is known only from two near contemporary sources: the Anglo Saxon Chronicle written by a monk between 877 – 899 and the remarkable memorial coinage, issued in around 890 and which continued for some 20 years. Beyond Internet Income this date the well known details of the martyrdom of King Edmund, and the miracles attributed to him, come from sources increasingly distant from the date of his free iphone death, making it difficult to disentangle fact from enthusiasm. The ‘Kingdom’ of East Anglia had its origins in the 5th century migrations of Angles and Saxons from North Germany and Denmark. Their settlements and culture are uniquely illustrated by the excavations and reconstructions of the early Anglo-Saxon village at West Stow, some seven miles to the west of Bury St Edmunds. By the early 7th century diy repair towns began to be established, particularly Ipswich, signalling the dramatic changes taking place with continental trade, political and sell my car regal development and the introduction of Christianity. East Anglia, that is Suffolk, Norfolk and most of Cambridgeshire, was an established kingdom based on the Royal House of the Wuffings. Their most notable King, Redwald, was buried in astonishing 18th birthday ideas splendour at Sutton Hoo in 625. After the death of Redwald, who had been recognised as the ‘High King of England’, the fortunes of the kingdom fluctuated, with increasing pressures from and eventual domination of the Midland Kingdom of Mercia by 793 and Northumbria by outdoor table tennis table 821. By the 9th century the East Anglian kings were eclipsed by their more powerful neighbours to a point where most are hardly known. The bald statement about table tennis Edmund’s death in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle for the year 869 may have passed unnoticed if it were not for the remarkable reputation for miracles which tinnitus treatment rapidly accrued to his remains. The development of the story of St Edmund is laid out below. It shows not only the year of the event (AD) but also how long each event was in distance of press release distribution years from the time of the death of King Edmund. In a letter to Archbishop Dunstan, Abbo says he heard the Archbishop relate the story and that he said he heard it as a young man from a very old man who claimed to have been fat burning furnace review King Edmund’s armour bearer at the time of his death. It is likely therefore, that the basics of the story are correct. The account recorded by Abbo is this: Two Danish leaders, Hinguar and Habba, came to Northumbria, which they solar power systems overran. Hinguar proceeded to the east with a fleet and surprised a city which they Business Intelligence Software sacked. Eventually Edmund was taken prisoner, whipped and tied to a tree and shot with USPS change of address arrows ‘until he bristled with them like a hedgehog or thistle’. He was then beheaded and the head thrown into bramble thickets in Hegelisdun Wood. The date was given as November 20th which remains St Edmunds’ Feast Day today. The Group Halloween Costumes survivors searched for the head and found it guarded by a wolf and calling ‘here, here, here’. The king was buried in a small chapel built for the purpose where the body remained for many years before being moved to Bedericsworth. There are many cash advance accounts of miracles associated with the Saint and of the incorrupt nature of the body until at least 1198 when it was examined after a disastrous fire. Even if the later and prostate treatment more colourful details are stripped away as accumulations around the core there remain three key sources which relate to the story: the bald statement in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle which pinpoints the date of the death of an best acne treatment otherwise unrecorded King of East Anglia; the memorial coinage issued only twenty years later and current within the Danelaw which solidly attests the veneration already attached to the martyred pyxism king; and the account of Abbo, writing at Ramsey Abbey, recording the events related by the Kings’s armour bearer to Archbishop Dunstan. We do not know the sources used by Herman in 1095 but green marketing his addition of a ‘Sutton’ as the first burial place has aroused much discussion. The site of the martyrdom as reported by Abbo was at a place called Haegelisdun. Hoxne was claimed to be the site in 1101 but ‘Hoxne’ cannot be derived from Haegelisdun. It is suggested that there were CD replication political reasons for the Bishop of East Anglia to make the claim at the time to counter the growing influence of Bury Abbey, which was outside his jurisdiction. ‘Hellesdon’ (near Portable Stage Norwich) can be derived from ‘Haegelisdun’ has also been suggested but has no other supporting evidence. ‘Sutton’ has been equated with Sutton Hoo but there is no other nature sounds evidence than the name. In Bradfield St Clare some six miles south of Bury there is an old field name, ‘Hellesdon’. This is not too much to go on, but there are other suggestive video interviewing associations. To the north, there is a group of ‘Kingshall’ place names, and to the South a ‘Sutton’ Hall. This grouping of place names, so close to Bury itself, and not far from the winter head quarters of the Danish army at Thetford, is surely worthy of serious consideration. The influence of St Edmund, the martyred Diamond Engagement Rings king of East Anglia, survived the times of Danish domination and the Norman Conquest to become the focal point for the development of one of the greatest Houston Personal Injury Lawyer abbeys of England, whose abbey church was the largest in Europe, larger even than Norwich, built about the same time. The reconstructions and interpretation of the Anglo-Saxon village at West Stow examine the very foundations on which the Starcraft 2 guide culture, wealth and influence of later Saxon England were built and find echoes in the ruins of the once great abbey of St Edmund. Bury St Edmunds is a historic market town in the county of Suffolk, England and formerly the county town of West Suffolk. It is the main town in the borough of St Edmundsbury and known for the tourbillon watches ruined abbey near the town centre. Bury is the seat of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, with the episcopal see at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. The town is known for brewing and malting (with the large Greene King brewery) and for a British Sugar processing factory. Many large reverse phone lookup and small businesses are located in Bury, which traditionally has given Bury an affluent economy with low unemployment, with the town being the main cultural and retail logo polo shirts centre for West Suffolk. Tourism is also a major part of the economy, plus local government. Bury St Edmunds (Beodericsworth, St Edmund’s Bury), supposed by some to have been the Villa Faustina of the Romans, was one of the royal towns of the Saxons. Sigebert, king of the East Angles, founded a monastery here about 633, which in 903 became the burial place of King Edmund, who was slain by the Danes in 869, and owed most of its early celebrity to the reputed miracles performed at the shrine of the martyr king. The town grew around Bury St Edmunds Abbey, a site of pilgrimage. By 925 the fame of St Edmund had spread far and wide, and the name of the town was changed to St Edmund’s Bury. In 942 or 945 King Edmund had granted to the abbot and convent jurisdiction over the whole town, free from all secular services, and Canute in 1020 freed it from episcopal control. Edward the Confessor made the abbot lord of the franchise. Sweyn, in 1020, having destroyed the older monastery and ejected the secular priests, built a Benedictine abbey on St Edmund’s Bury. The town is associated with Magna Carta. In 1214 the barons of England are believed to have met in the Abbey Church and sworn to force King John to accept the Charter of Liberties, the document which influenced the creation of the Magna Carta. By various grants from the abbots, the town gradually attained the rank of a borough. Henry III in 1235 granted to the abbot two annual fairs, one in December (which still survives) and the other the great St Matthew’s fair, which was abolished by the Fairs Act of 1871. In 1327, the Great Riot occurred, in which the local populace led an armed revolt against the Abbey. The burghers were angry at the overwhelming power, wealth and corruption of the monastery, which ran almost every aspect of local life with a view to enriching itself. The riot destroyed the main gate and a new, fortified gate was built in its stead. However in 1381 during the Great Uprising, the Abbey was sacked and looted again. This time, the Prior was executed; his severed head was placed on a pike in the Great Market. Thomas Warren’s map of Bury St Edmunds, 1776. The town developed into a flourishing cloth-making town, with a large woollen trade, by the 14th century. In 1405 Henry IV granted another fair. Elizabeth I in 1562 confirmed the charters which former kings had granted to the abbots. The reversion of the fairs and two markets on Wednesday and Saturday were granted by James I in fee farm to the corporation. James I in 1606 granted a charter of incorporation with an annual fair in Easter week and a market. James granted further charters in 1608 and 1614, as did Charles II in 1668 and 1684. Parliaments were held in the borough in 1272, 1296 and 1446, but the borough was not represented until 1608, when James I conferred on it the privilege of sending two members. The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 reduced the representation to one. The borough of Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding area, like much of East Anglia, being part of the Eastern Association, supported Puritan sentiment during the first half of the 17th century. By 1640, several families had departed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony as part of the wave of emigration that occurred during the Great Migration. Bury’s ancient grammar school also educated notable puritan theologians such as Richard Sibbes, the master of St. Catherine’s Hall in Cambridge and noteworthy future colonists such as Simonds D’Ewes and John Winthrop, Jr. The town was the setting for the Bury St. Edmunds witch trials between 1599 and 1694. On 3 March 1974 a Turkish Airlines DC10 jet Flight 981 crashed near Paris killing all 346 people on board. Among the victims were 17 members of Bury St Edmunds rugby club, returning from France. The town council election on 3 May 2007 was won by the “Abolish Bury Town Council” party. The party lost its majority following a by-election in June 2007 and, to date, the Town Council is still in existence. Near the gardens stands Britain’s first internally illuminated street sign, the pillar of salt. When built, it needed permission because it did not conform to regulations. Bury St Edmunds is terminus of the A1101, Great Britain’s lowest road. There is a network of tunnels which are evidence of chalk-workings, though there is no evidence of extensive tunnels under the town centre. Some buildings have inter-communicating cellars. Due to their unsafe nature the chalk-workings are not open to the public, although viewing has been granted to individuals. Some have caused subsidence in living history. Among noteworthy buildings is St Mary’s Church, where Mary Tudor, Queen of France and sister of Tudor king Henry VIII, was re-buried, six years after her death, having been moved from the Abbey after her brother’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. Queen Victoria had a stained glass window fitted into the church to commemorate Mary’s interment. The name Bury is etymologically connected with borough , which has cognates in other Germanic languages such as the Old Norse “borg” meaning “wall, castle”; and Gothic “baurgs” meaning “city”. They all derive from Proto-Germanic *burgs meaning “fortress”. This in turn derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhrgh meaning “fortified elevation”, with cognates including Welsh bera (“stack”) and Sanskrit bhrant- (“high, elevated building”). There is thus no justification for the folk etymology stating that the Cathedral Town was so called because St Edmund was buried there. The second section of the name refers to Edmund King of the East Angles, who was killed by the Vikings in the year 869. He became venerated as a saint and a martyr, and his shrine made Bury St Edmunds an important place of pilgrimage. The formal name of both the borough and the diocese is “St. Edmundsbury”. Local residents often refer to Bury St Edmunds simply as “Bury”. In the centre of Bury St Edmunds lie the remains of an abbey, surrounded by the Abbey Gardens, a park. The abbey is a shrine to Saint Edmund, the Saxon King of the East Angles. The abbey was sacked by the townspeople in the 14th century, and then largely destroyed during the 16th century with the Dissolution of the Monasteries but Bury remained prosperous throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, falling into relative decline with the Industrial Revolution. Bury St Edmunds Cathedral was created when the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich was formed in 1914. The cathedral was extended with an eastern end in the 1960s, commemorated by Benjamin Britten’s Fanfare for St Edmundsbury. A new Gothic revival cathedral tower was built as part of a millennium project running from 2000 to 2005. The opening for the tower took place in July 2005, and included a brass band concert and fireworks. Parts of the cathedral remain uncompleted, including the cloisters. Many areas remain inaccessible to the public due to building work. The tower makes St Edmundsbury the only recently completed Anglican cathedral in the UK. Only a handful of Gothic revival cathedrals are being built worldwide. The tower was constructed using original fabrication techniques by six masons who placed the machine-pre-cut stone individually as they arrived. St. Mary’s Church is the civic church of Bury St. Edmunds and the third largest parish church in England. It was part of the abbey complex and originally was one of three large churches in the town (the others being St. James, now St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, and St. Margaret’s, now gone). The Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds was built by National Gallery architect William Wilkins in 1819. It is the sole surviving Regency Theatre in the country . The theatre, owned by the Greene King brewery, is leased to the National Trust for a nominal charge, and underwent restoration between 2005 and 2007. It presents a full programme of performances and is also open for public tours. Moyse’s Hall Museum is one of the oldest (c. 1180) domestic buildings in East Anglia open to the public. It has collections of fine art, for example Mary Beale, costume, e.g. Charles Frederick Worth, horology, local and social history; including Red Barn Murder and Witchcraft. Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery is located in The Market Cross, restored by Robert Adam in the late 1700s. The Gallery was established in 1972 and today hosts a programme of changing contemporary art and craft exhibitions and events by British and international artists. Artists featured in the Gallery have included Cornelia Parker, David Batchelor, Anri Sala and Mark Fairnington. The town holds a festival in May. This including concerts, plays, dance, and lecturers culminating in fireworks. Bury St Edmunds is home to England’s oldest Scout group, 1st Bury St Edmunds (Mayors Own). The town’s main football club, Bury Town, is the fourth oldest non-league team in England.[14] They are members of the Southern Football League Division One Midlands. Team Bury, associated with the football academy at West Suffolk College play in Division One of the Eastern Counties League. Suffolk County Cricket Club play occasional games at the Victory Ground which is also the home ground of Bury St Edmunds Cricket Italian Club. The UK’s largest British-owned brewery, Greene King, is situated in Bury, as is the smaller Old Cannon Brewery. Just outside the town, on the site of RAF Bury St Edmunds, is Bartrums Brewery, originally based in Thurston. Another beer-related landmark is Britain’s smallest public house, The Nutshell, which is on The Traverse, just off the marketplace. Bury’s largest landmark is the British Sugar factory near the A14, which processes revitol hair removal cream sugar beet into refined crystal sugar. It was built in 1925 and processes beet from 1,300 growers. 660 lorry-loads of beet can be accepted each day when beet is being harvested. Not all the beet can be crystallised immediately, and some is kept in solution in holding tanks until late spring and early summer, when the plant has spare crystallising capacity. The sugar is sold under the Silver Spoon name (the other major British brand, Tate & Lyle, is made from imported sugar cane). By-products include molassed sugar beet feed for cattle and LimeX70, a soil improver. The factory has its own power station, which powers around 110,000 homes. A smell of burnt starch from the plant is noticeable on some days.