Edmund The Martyr - Mediaeval Hagiographies and Legends

Mediaeval Hagiographies and Legends

De Infantia Sancti Edmundi, a fictitious 12th century hagiography of Edmund's early life by Geoffrey of Wells, represented him as the youngest son of 'Alcmund', a Saxon king of Germanic descent. 'Alcmund' may never have existed.

Edmund's fictitious continental origins were later expanded into legends which 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 Hunstanton on the North Norfolk coast to claim his kingdom. Other accounts state that his father was the king he succeeded, Æthelweard of East Anglia, who died in 854, apparently when Edmund was a boy of fourteen.

He was said to have been crowned by St Humbert (Bishop Humbert of Elmham) on 25 December 855, at a location known as Burna (probably Bures St. Mary in Suffolk) which at that time functioned as the royal capital. Later versions of his life recorded that he was a model king who treated all his subjects with equal justice and who was unbending to flatterers. 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.

Edmund may have been killed at Hoxne, in Suffolk. 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. The association of Edmund's cult with the village has continued to the present day. Dernford, Cambridgeshire and Bradfield St Clare (near Bury St Edmunds) are other possible sites for where Edmund was martyred.

The ancient wooden church of St Andrew, Greensted-juxta-Ongar, is said to have been a resting place for his body on the way to Bury St Edmunds in 1013