You're Dead to Me, Edmund the Martyr
20th November, 869.
In the county of Suffolk lies the market town of Bury St Edmunds, which is where St Edmund, King of East Anglia from about 855 until his death, was buried. Rather annoyingly, the town is not called Bury St Edmunds because that’s where he was buried; the ‘Bury’ in the name doesn’t refer to the act of burial but is derived from the Old English word for ‘borough’ and is cognate with the German ‘burg’. So ‘Bury St Edmunds’ doesn’t mean ‘the burial place of St Edmund’, but rather ‘St Edmund’s borough’. Perhaps they should have called it ‘Bury St Edmunds Borough’.
Then again, perhaps not.
Either way, Edmund died and the exact details of how are not clear, although if we take into account that the year was 869 and throw in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s mention of ‘The Great Heathen Army’, or ‘The Vikings’ to you and me, who went on a rampage around East Anglia, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out what probably happened to him.
The Vikings came to East Anglia in 865, and Edmund made peace in exchange for a supply of horses and plenty of bags full of money. They duly wandered off in the direction of York to beat some people over the head with heavy things up there for a while and then came back in 868, where the Chronicle records that the army rode across Mercia into East Anglia, wintered at Thetford, and then killed the king in battle and conquered all his land.
Edmund was then buried in a chapel near where he fell, the exact location of which is unknown and under the reign of Æthelstan, who became king of the Anglo-Saxons in 924, Edmund's body was translated (the formal moving of relics) from Haegelisdun—the location of which has never been positively identified—to Beodricesworth, now modern Bury St Edmunds.
All well and good and mildly interesting. But, as it might be possible to tell by the name of the town, Edmund was by now a saint and saints who die by being beaten over the head by an angry Danish fellow don’t make for particularly good martyrs; otherwise, there’d be an awful lot of martyrs.
So, in around 986, the monks of Ramsey Abbey commissioned Abbo of Fleury to write Edmund's passio, or account of his martyrdom. Which means, of course, that he made it up. And it’s certainly a lot more interesting than ‘Was smashed by a Dane. The end.’
"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."
Edmund’s severed head is then thrown into a forest, where his followers go looking for it, calling out, rather hopefully, one would think, “Where art thou, friend!?” It being a miracle, the head calls back, “Here! Here! Here!” and they follow the voice to find Edmund’s severed head resting between the paws of a wolf, who was protecting it from being eaten by other animals.
The head is recovered and buried with the rest of him. When the body was exhumed in Beodericsworth sometime after 926, it had not only managed to avoid decaying but all the wounds were restored, and the head was reattached. However, it didn’t say anything this time, disappointingly.
’Ivar the impious pirate’ is probably referring to Ivarr inn beinlausi or ‘Ivar the Boneless’, son of Ragnar Lodbrok. Quite why Ivar was called ‘the Boneless’ isn’t clear, although some sources suggest that he was born with a skeletal condition that left him unable to walk. This apparent disability didn’t prevent him from leading The Great Heathen Army and beating the living shit out of not only Edmund but everyone else they came across, too.
Fair play to the bloke.
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