Bury St Edmunds - The Abbey.
2022 - A year of celebrations to mark 1,000 years since the founding of the Abbey of St Edmund in Bury St Edmunds by King Canute. Various events are being held this year and I took a brief visit to get a snapshot of the celebrations. Obviously, I have visited Bury many times before, so the first couple of images are from the beautiful gardens taken previously.
The story of St Edmund, who ruled East Anglia from AD 855 to 869 and was most likely crowned on Christmas Day, tells of the brave King Edmund who was killed by Danish invaders on 20 November 869 after refusing to denounce his Christianity. So goes the story; not sure the Danes were too bothered about other peoples religion! Anyway it makes a great story and the following two images (in Bury) give another angle on it, the King being tied to a stake and shot to death with arrows!
A wolf is a central figure of his story. The story goes that after being tied to a tree and shot full of arrows he was then beheaded. The king's body was found but his head was missing.
His supporters heard a wolf call to them and they found him guarding the king's head, which was then reunited with his body and body and head fused back together. This was the first of many miracles! Amazing what people will believe! Anyway, in our local Church of St Mary is a pew end relating to this story.
A wolf with a head in its jaw.
In 903 the remains of St Edmund, the original Patron Saint of England, were moved to the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Beodericsworth (later known as Bury St Edmunds) where the site had already been in religious use for nearly three centuries.
St Edmund’s body was moved to London in 1010 for safe keeping when The Danes were again marauding through East Anglia but three years later his body was returned to Beodericsworth.
In 1020, King Canute had a stone church built for Edmund's body and the first abbots arrived. This was the beginning of the Abbey of St Edmund and it became a site of great pilgrimage as people from all over Europe came to visit St Edmund’s shrine.
When the great Abbey Church was built in 1095 St Edmund’s body was moved there in a silver and gold shrine. The shrine became one of the most famous and wealthy pilgrimage locations in England. For centuries the shrine was visited by various kings of England, many of whom gave generously to the abbey. The last time that Edmund’s body was verified was in 1198 after a fire set the shrine alight.
The Abbey was desecrated during Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 and Edmund’s remains are believed to have been removed from the shrine.
The commissioners who dissolved the Abbey in 1539, mentioned nothing about the body, and given St Edmund's royal status it is likely they would have quietly allowed the monks to remove the body from the shrine and relocate it. The whereabouts of St Edmund remains a mystery today.
In his book Edmund – In Search of England’s Lost King, historian Dr Francis Young explores the theory that St Edmund’s remains still lie within the abbey ruins today. In 2013 he came across a document that was previously unknown, from a monk that said Edmund’s body was placed in an iron chest. In his book Dr Young explains his theory that St Edmund may be buried in the monks’ cemetery which lay beneath the former tennis courts in the Abbey Gardens and consecrated ground.
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.
The magnificent modern Abbey Church
A view of the stunning interior looking toward the Sanctuary.
One other reason I went to visit was that seven manuscripts from the Abbey Scriptorium were being reunited for the first time in their place of origin since 1539. Written and decorated by hand by monks in the Abbey, they will be displayed in the Cathedral Treasury. The manuscripts are on loan from Pembroke College, Cambridge where they were donated by William Smart (Portreeve of Ipswich) in 1599. They really were in marvelous condition, and I cannot believe how such small, neat writing was done by hand, and not just a sheet of paper but book after book. - amazing!
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