Editing Edmund the Martyr (section)

== Medieval hagiographies and legends ==
=== ''Passio Sancti Eadmundi'' ===
{{anchor|Passio Sancti Eadmundi}}
In about 986, the monks of [[Ramsey Abbey]] commissioned Abbo of Fleury to write Edmund's ''{{lang|la|[[Hagiography|passio]]}}'', or account of his martyrdom.{{sfn|Gransden|1992|p=47}} According to Abbo, [[Dunstan|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.{{sfn|Ridyard|1988|p=63}}

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".{{sfn|Ridyard|1988|pp=66{{ndash}}67}}

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| title = Edmund's death, according to Ælfric of Eynsham
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|source = Ælfric of Eynsham, ''Old English paraphrase of Abbo of Fleury, 'Passio Sancti Eadmundi'''<ref>{{cite web |title=Medieval Sourcebook: Abbo of Fleury: The Martyrdom of St. Edmund, King of East Anglia, 870 |url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/870abbo-edmund.asp |publisher=[[Fordham University]] |access-date=13 December 2021 |ref=for |date=2021}}</ref>
| quote = "King Edmund, against whom Ivar advanced, stood inside his hall, and mindful of the Saviour, threw out his weapons. He wanted to match the example of Christ, who forbade Peter to win the cruel Jews with weapons. Lo! the impious one then bound Edmund and insulted him ignominiously, and beat him with rods, and afterwards led the devout king to a firm living tree, and tied him there with strong bonds, and beat him with whips. In between the whip lashes, Edmund called out with true belief in the Saviour Christ. Because of his belief, because he called to Christ to aid him, the heathens became furiously angry. They then shot spears at him, as if it was a game, until he was entirely covered with their missiles, like the bristles of a hedgehog (just like [[St Sebastian]] was).

When Ivar the impious pirate saw that the noble king would not forsake Christ, but with resolute faith called after Him, he ordered Edmund beheaded, and the heathens did so. While Edmund still called out to Christ, the heathen dragged the holy man to his death, and with one stroke struck off his head, and his soul journeyed happily to Christ."}}

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]].{{sfn|Ridyard|1988|p=67}} After describing the horrific manner of Edmund's death, the ''{{lang|la|Passio}}'' continued the story. His severed head was thrown into the wood. As Edmund's followers searched for him, calling out "Where are you, friend?" the head answered, {{lang|ang|Her, her, her}} ("Here! Here! Here!") until at last they found it, clasped between a wolf's paws, protected from other animals and uneaten. The followers then recovered the head.{{sfn|Ridyard|1988|p=212}}{{sfn|Young|2018|p=55}}

Abbo failed to date these events surrounding Edmund's translation to {{lang|ang|Beodericsworth}}, although from his text it can be seen that he believed that the relics had been taken to Beodericsworth by the time that [[Theodred (bishop of London)|Theodred]] became [[Bishop of London]] in around 926.{{sfn|Ridyard|1988|p=231}} Upon [[Exhumation#Exhumation|exhumation]] of the body, a miracle was discovered. All the arrow wounds upon Edmund's undecayed corpse had healed and his head was reattached.{{sfn|Ridyard|1988|p=212}} The last recorded inspection of the body whilst at Bury St Edmunds was in 1198.{{sfn|Gem|2020}}{{sfn|Houghton|1970|p=51}}

[[File:St Andrew, Greensted-juxta-Ongar - 51572794143.jpg|thumb|A 19th century carving depicting the wolf guarding Edmund's head, in [[St Andrew's Church, Greensted-juxta-Ongar]].]]
The resemblance between the deaths of St Sebastian and St Edmund was remarked upon by Abbo: both saints were attacked by [[Archery|archers]], although only Edmund is supposed to have been decapitated. His death bears some resemblance to the fate suffered by other saints: [[Saint Denis of Paris|St Denis]] was [[whip]]ped and beheaded and the body of [[Mary of Egypt]] was said to have been guarded by a [[lion]].{{sfn|Gransden|1992|p=87}} The English [[Medieval studies|medievalist]] [[Antonia Gransden]] described Abbo's ''Passio'' as "little more than a hotch-potch of hagiographical commonplaces" and argues that Abbo's ignorance of what actually happened to Edmund would have led him to use aspects of the ''Lives'' of well-known saints such as Sebastian and Denis as models for his version of Edmund's martydom. Gransden acknowledged that there are some aspects of the story—such as the appearance of the wolf that guards Edmund's head—that do not have exact parallels elsewhere.{{sfn|Gransden|1992|pp=86{{ndash}}87}}

===''Miracles of St Edmund''===
[[Herman the Archdeacon]], who was an excellent Latinist, wrote another hagiography of Edmund, the ''Miracles of St Edmund'', at the end of the eleventh century. His original text does not survive, but a shortened version is part of a book dating to around 1100 produced by Bury St Edmunds Abbey, which is composed of Abbo's hagiography, followed by Herman's. The hagiographer and musician, [[Goscelin]], soon afterwards produced a revised version of Herman's ''Miracles'', which was hostile to Herman personally.{{sfn|Licence|2014|pp=xci, cix, cxiv–cxxix}} Both versions are printed and translated by [[Tom Licence]].{{sfn|Licence|2014}}

=== Other legends ===
[[File:12th-century painters - Life of St Edmund - WGA15723.jpg|thumb|alt=page from an illuminated manuscript |A 12th-century depiction of Edmund's martyrdom ([[Morgan Library & Museum]], New York)]]
''De Infantia Sancti Edmundi'', a fictitious 12th-century hagiography of Edmund's early life by the English [[Canon (priest)|canon]] [[Geoffrey of Wells]], represented him as the youngest son of 'Alcmund', a [[Saxons|Saxon]] king of Germanic descent. 'Alcmund' may never have existed.{{sfn|Phillips|1909|p=295}} Edmund's fictitious continental origins were later elaborated upon in the 15th century by the poet John Lydgate in his ''The Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund''.{{sfn|Reimer|2004|p=169}} Lydgate spoke of his parentage, his birth at [[Nuremberg]], his adoption by [[Offa of Mercia]], his nomination as successor to the king and his landing at [[Old Hunstanton]] on the North Norfolk coast to claim his kingdom.{{sfn|Reimer|2004|p=179}} 

Biographical details of Edmund in the ''Catholic Encyclopedia'', published in 1913, include that "he showed himself a model ruler from the first, anxious to treat all with equal justice, and closing his ears to flatterers and untrustworthy informers".{{sfn|Phillips|1909|p=295}} It was written that he withdrew for a year to his royal tower at Hunstanton and learned the whole [[Psalter]], so that he could recite it from memory.{{sfn|Houghton|1970|p=16}}

Edmund may have been killed at [[Hoxne]], in Suffolk.{{sfn|Warner|1996|p=219}} His martyrdom is mentioned in a charter that was written when the church and chapel at Hoxne were granted to Norwich Priory in 1101. Place-name evidence has been used to link the name of Hoxne with Haegelisdun, named by Abbo of Fleury as the site of Edmund's martyrdom, but this evidence is dismissed by the historian Peter Warner.{{sfn|Warner|1996|pp=139, 141}} The association of Edmund's cult with the village has continued into modern times.{{refn|Until 1849, an old tree stood in Hoxne Park that was believed to be where Edmund had been martyred. In the heart of the tree, an arrowhead was found. A piece of the tree was used to form part of an altar of a church dedicated to Edmund. Another legend relates that after being routed in battle, Edmund hid under the Goldbrook bridge at Hoxne, but his hiding place was revealed to a wedding party, who gave him away to his enemies.|group=note}} [[Dernford]] in Cambridgeshire,{{sfn|Houghton|1970|p=24}} and [[Bradfield St Clare]]<ref>{{cite web|last=Reimer|first=Stephen R.|title=The Lives of Ss. Edmund and Fremund: Introduction|url=https://www.ualberta.ca/~sreimer/edmund/intro/int3.htm|work=The Canon of John Lydgate Project|access-date=26 April 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120214011805/http://www.ualberta.ca/~sreimer/edmund/intro/int3.htm|archive-date=14 February 2012}}</ref> (near Bury St Edmunds) are other possible sites for where Edmund was martyred.{{refn|However, there is a spot where places named in the early accounts occur close together. A field called 'Hellesdon' lay just south of Pitcher's Green at [[Bradfield St Clare]]; Sutton Hall stands a mile south of Bradfield St Clare on the parish boundary; Kingshall Farm, Kingshall Green and Kingshall Street occur in [[Rushbrooke with Rougham|Rougham]], two miles to the north. Bradfield St Clare is approximately six miles from Bury St Edmunds, which was an Anglo-Saxon royal vill (settlement). A monastery already existed, founded by King Sigeberht in 633AD. There was also a building called Bradfield Hall that stood within the St Edmund's Abbey, and accounts show that the Abbey's Cellarer paid rent for small pieces of land at Bradfield St Clare Hall (6 [[Shilling (British coin)|shilling]]s 8d [[Penny (British pre-decimal coin)|pence]]) and Sutton Hall (3s 2d.).|group=note}} In a preface to Lydgate's ''Life'', in which Edmund's banner—depicting three crowns set on a blue background—is described,{{sfn|Frantzen|2004|pp=68{{ndash}}69}} the crowns are said to represent Edmund's martyrdom, virginity and kingship.{{sfn|Preble|1917|p=123}}{{refn|The three crowns banner (representing the [[coat of arms]] of Bury St Edmunds) appears in Lydgate's book.<ref name="BL-2278">British Library online ''Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts'': [http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=15554, Harley 2278 f.3v] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160910034409/http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=15554, |date=10 September 2016 }} (Arms of Bury).</ref>|group=note}}

The ancient wooden [[Greensted Church|St Andrew's Church, Greensted-juxta-Ongar]] in Essex, is said to have been a resting place for his body on the way to Bury St Edmunds in 1013.{{sfn|Westwood|1986|p=152}}