November XX

Saint Edmund, King and Martyr

From his life, written in 985, from the relation of St. Dunstan, by Abbo of Fleury, who lived then a monk at Canterbury; but died abbot of Fleury in France. To this work, published by Surius, is subjoined another containing a history of miracles wrought by this saint’s intercession, probably by another hand, as the authors of the Hist. Littr, de la France observe, t. 7, p. 175. A MS. copy of this book in Jesus’ College is called Liber Feretrariorum, i.e., the book of the treasurers or keepers of the relics. Abbo was assassinated by a Gascon, while he was employed in reforming the monastery of Reole in Gascony, on the 13th of November, 1004; was one of the most learned men of his age, and was honored in several churches as a martyr, as appears from the council of Limoges in 1031. His festival is still kept with solemnity at Fleury and Reole. See also St. Edmund’s life in verse, compiled by John Lydgate, the most learned professor, celebrated poet, and monk of St. Edmundsbury, who dedicated this book to Henry VI.* On the manuscript copies of this work see bishop Tanner, p. 490, who yet omits, among others, the original book which was presented by the author to Henry VI., in the Harleian library, one of the most beautiful manuscript books in the world. See also Lydgate’s account of the miracles of St. Edmund, and prayers to him, manuscripts, in several libraries, as (with other manuscripts relating to this saint) in the Norfolk library, belonging to the Royal Society. See on his virtues, Asserius, Annales Britan., (inter script. Angl. per Gale.) p. 159–161; Hearne, Pref. to Langtoft’s Chronicle, p. 66, and S. Edmundi regis vit per Osbertum de Clare, Westmonasterii Priorem in the Cottonian library in the British Museum, MSS. Vespasianus, A. viii. 4; also S. Edmundi regis vit, in the king’s library, ib. 8, c. vi. 20; Leland, Collect. vol. 1, p. 245.

a. d. 870.

Though from the time of King Egbert, in 802, the kings of the West Saxons were monarchs of all England, yet several kings reigned in certain parts after that time, in some measure subordinate to them. One Offa was king of the East-Angles, who, being desirous to end his days in penance and devotion at Rome, resigned his crown to St. Edmund, at that time only fifteen years of age, but a most virtuous prince, and descended from the old English-Saxon kings of this isle.^† The saint was placed on the throne of his ancestors, as Lydgate, Abbo, and others express themselves, and was crowned by Hunbert, bishop of Elman, on Christmas-day in 855, at Burum, a royal villa on he Stour, now called Bures or Buers.^‡ Though very young he was by his piety, goodness, humility, and all other virtues, the model of good princes. He was a declared enemy of flatterers and informers, and would see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears, to avoid being surprised into a wrong judgment, or imposed upon by the passions or ill designs of others. The peace and happiness of his people were his whole concern, which he endeavored to establish by an impartial administration of justice and religious regulations in his dominions. He was the father of his subjects, particularly of the poor, the protector of widows and orphans, and the support of the weak. Religion and piety were the most distinguishing part of his character. Monks and devout persons used to know the psalter without book, that they might recite the psalm at work, in travelling, and on every other occasion. To get it by heart S. Edmund lived in retirement a whole year in his royal tower at Hunstanton, (which he had built for a country solitude,) which place is now a village in Norfolk. The book which the saint used for that purpose was religiously kept at St. Edmundsbury till the dissolution of abbeys.¹

The holy king had reigned fifteen years when the Danes infested his dominions. The Danish Chronicle relates,² that Regner Lodbrog, king of Denmark, was taken prisoner, and put to death in Ireland, which he had invaded. Harald Klag, who had fled from his tyranny to Louis Dbonnaire in Germany, and received the Christain faith, succeeded him, but relapsed into idolatry. After him Syward III., and Eric I. and II., reigned; the latter, towards the end of his life, was converted to the faith by St. Anscharius. In his time the sons of Regner Lodbrog, after having subdued Norway, laid England waste. Their names were Eric, Orebic, Godfrey, Hinguar, Hubba, Ulfo, and Biorno, who, with mighty armies which they collected in the northern kingdoms, all commenced adventurers and pirates. Hinguar and Hubba, two of these brothers, the most barbarous of all the Danish plunderers, landing in England, wintered among the East Angles; then, having made a truce with that nation, they in summer sailed to the north, and, landing at the mouth of the Tweed, plundered with fire and sword Northumberland, and afterwards Mercia, directing their march through Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, and Cambridgeshire. Out of a lust of rage and cruelty, and the most implacable aversion to the Christian name, they everywhere destroyed the churches and monasteries; and, as it were in barbarous sport, massacred all priests and religious persons whom they met with. In the great monastery of Coldingham, beyond Berwick, the nuns fearing not death, but insults which might be offered to their chastity, at the instigation of St. Ebba, the holy abbess, cut off their noses and upper lips, that, appearing to the barbarians frightful spectacles of horror, they might preserve their virtue from danger: the infidels accordingly were disconcerted at such a sight, and spared their virtue, but put them all to the sword. In their march, among other monasteries, those of Bardney, Croyland, Peterborough, Ely, and Huntingdon were levelled with the ground, and the religious inhabitants murdered. In the cathedral of Peterborough is shown a monument (removed thither from a place without the building) called Monk’s-stone, on which are the effigies of an abbot and several monks. It stood over the pit in which fourscore monks of this house were interred, whom Hinguar and Hubba massacred in 870. The barbarians, reeking with blood, poured down upon St. Edmund’s dominions, burning Thetford, the first town they met with, and laying waste all before them. The people, relying upon the faith of treaties, thought themselves secure, and were unprepared. However, the good king raised what forces he could, met the infidels, or at least a part of their army, near Thetford, and discomfited them. But seeing them soon after reinforced with fresh numbers against which his small body was not able to make any stand, and being unwilling to sacrifice the lives of his soldiers in vain, and grieving for the eternal loss of the souls of his enemies, who would be slain in a fruitless engagement, he disbanded his troops, and retired himself towards his castle of Framlingham in Suffolk.* The barbarian had sent him proposals which were inconsistent both with religion and with the justice which he owed to his people. These the saint rejected, being resolved rather to die a victim of his faith and duty to God, than to do any thing against his conscience and religion. In his flight he was overtaken and surrounded by infidels at Oxon, upon the Waveney: he concealed himself for some short time, but, being discovered, was bound with heavy chains, and conducted to the general’s tent. Terms were again offered him equally prejudicial to religion and to his people, which the holy king refused to confirm, declaring that religion was dearer to him than his life, which he would never purchase by offending God. Hinguar, exasperated at this answer, in his barbarous rage caused him to be cruelly beaten with cudgels; then to be tied to a tree, and torn a long time together with whips. All this he bore with invincible meekness and patience, never ceasing to call upon the name of Jesus. The infidels were the more exasperated, and as he stood bound to the tree, they made him a mark wantonly to shoot at, till his body was covered with arrows, like a porcupine. Hinguar at length, in order to put an end to the butchery, commanded his head to be struck off. Thus the saint finished his martyrdom on the 20th of November, in 870, the fifteenth of his reign, and twenty-ninth of his age; the circumstances of which St. Dunstan learned from one who was armor-bearer to the saint and an eye-witness. The place was then called Henglesdun, now Hoxon or Hoxne; a priory of monks was afterwards built there, which bore the name of the martyr.

The saint’s head was carried by the infidels into a wood, and thrown into a brake of bushes; but miraculously found by a pillar of light, and deposited with the body at Hoxon. These sacred remains were very soon after conveyed to Bedricsworth, or Kingston, since called St. Edmundsbury, because this place was St. Edmund’s own town and private patrimony; not on account of his burial, for Bury in the English-Saxon language signified a court or palace.³ A church of timber was erected over the place where he was interred; which was thus built, according to the fashion of those times. Trunks of large trees were sawn lengthwise in the middle, and reared up with one end fixed in the ground, with the bark or rough side outermost. These trunks being made of an equal height, and set up close to one another and the interstices filled up with mud or mortar, formed the four walls, upon which was raised a thatched roof.^† Nor can we be surprised at the homeliness of this structure, since the same was the fabric of the royal rich abbey of Glastenbury, the work of the mast munificent and powerful West Saxon kings, till in latter ages it was built in a stately manner of stone. The precious remains of St. Edmund were honored with many miracles. In 920, for fear of the barbarians under Turkil the Dane in the reign of king Ethelred, they were conveyed to London by Alfun, bishop of that city and the monk Egelwin, or Ailwin, the keeper of this sacred treasure, who never abandoned it. After remaining three years in the church of St. Gregory in London, it was translated again with honor to St. Edmundsbury, in 923.⁴ The great church of timber-work stood till king Knute, or Canutus, to make reparation for the injuries his father Swein, or Sweno, had done to this place, and to the relies of the martyr, built and founded there, in 1020, a new and most magnificent church and abbey in honor of this holy martyr.* The unparalleled piety, humility, meekness, and other virtues of St. Edmund are admirably set forth by our historians.⁵ This incomparable prince and holy martyr was considered by succeeding English kings as their special patron, and as an accomplished model of all royal virtues. Henry VI. who, with a weak understanding in secular matters, joined an uncommon goodness of heart, made the practice of religion the study of his whole life, and shared largely in afflictions, the portion of the elect, had a singular devotion to this saint, and enjoyed nowhere so much comfort, peace, and joy as in the retreats which he made in the monastery of St. Edmundsbury. The feast of St. Edmund is reckoned among the holidays of precept in this kingdom by the national council of Oxford, in 1222; but is omitted in the constitutions of archbishop Simon Islep, who retrenched certain holidays in 1362.⁶

No Christian can be surprised that innocence should suffer. Prosperity is often the most grievous judgment that God exercises upon a wicked man, who by it is suffered, in punishment of his impiety, to blind and harden himself in his evil courses, and to plunge himself deeper in iniquity. On the other hand, God, in his merciful providence, conducts second causes, so that afflictions fall to the share of those souls whose sanctification he has particularly in view. By tribulation a man learns perfectly to die to the world and himself, a work which without its aid, even the severest self-denial, and the most perfect obedience, leave imperfect. By tribulation we learn the perfect exercise of humility, patience, meekness, resignation, and pure love of God; which are neither practised nor learned without such occasions. By a good use of tribulation a person becomes a saint in a very short time, and at a cheap rate. The opportunity and grace of suffering well is a mercy in favor of chosen souls; and a mercy to which every saint from Abel to the last of the elect is indebted for his crown. We meet with sufferings from ourselves, from disappointments, from friends, and from enemies. We are on every side beset with crosses. But we bear them with impatience and complaints. Thus we cherish our passions, and multiply sins by the very means which are given us to crucify and overcome them. To learn to bear crosses well is one of the most essential and most important duties of a Christian life. To make a good use of the little crosses which we continually meet with, is the means of making the greatest progress in all virtue, and of obtaining strength to stand our ground under great trials. St. Edmund’s whole life was a preparation for martyrdom.

St. Humbert, Bishop of the East Angles, M.

St. Edmund was crowned king by this holy prelate on the 25th of December, in 855; and St. Humbert was martyred by the hands of the same Danes, and about the same time with him, and was likewise honored by our ancestors among the martyrs on the same day.

St. Felix of Valois, C.

The surname of Valois was given to this saint, according to some, because he was of the royal branch of Valois in France;* but according to Jaffred,¹ Baillet, and many others, because he was of the province of Valois. The saint was born in 1127, and when grown up renounced his estate, which was very considerable, and retired into a great wood, in the diocese of Meaux, called Cerfroi. Here, sequestered from the world, and forgetting its shadows and appearances, which grossly impose upon its deluded votaries, he enjoyed himself and God, and studied to purify, reform, and govern his own heart, and to live only to his Creator. In the calm and serenity of this silent retreat, letting others amuse themselves with the airy bubbles of ambition, and enjoy the cheats of fancy, and the flatteries of sense, he abandoned himself to the heavenly delights of holy contemplation, (which raised his soul above all created things,) and to the greatest rigors of penance, which were known only to God, but which fervor, love, and compunction rendered sweeter to him than the joys of theatres. The devout hermit had no thoughts but of dying in the obscurity of this silent retreat, when Divine Providence called him thence to make him a great instrument of advancing his honor among men.

St. John of Matha, a young nobleman, a native of Provence, and doctor of divinity, who was lately ordained priest, having heard much of the wonderful sanctity of the holy hermit of Cerfroi, sought him out in his desert, and put himself under his direction. Felix soon perceived that his new guest was no novice in the exercises of a spiritual life; and it is not to be expressed with what fervor the two servants of God applied themselves to the practice of all virtues. Their fasts and watchings exceeded the strength of those who have not inured themselves by long habits to such extraordinary austerities: prayer and contemplation were their ordinary employment, and all their conversation tended to inflame each other to the most ardent love of God. After some time St. John proposed to the other a project of establishing a religious order for the redemption of captives, a design with which he was inspired when he said his first mass. Felix, though seventy years of age, readily offered himself to do and suffer whatever it should please God in the execution of so charitable a design. They agreed to consult heaven by redoubling their fasts and prayers for three days: after which term they resolved to beg the approbation of the holy see, and made an austere pilgrimage together to Rome, in the depth of winter, and arrived there in January, 1198. Innocent III., who was lately installed in St. Peter’s chair, having read the strong letters of recommendation which the bishop of Paris sent him in their favor, received them as if they had been two angels sent by God, and lodged them in his own palace. After many audiences, and several deliberations with his cardinals and prelates, having consulted God by prayer and fasting, his holiness was persuaded the two hermits were moved by the Holy Ghost, and gave a solemn approbation of a new religious institute which he would have called of the Holy Trinity, and of which he appointed St. John of Matha the superior-general. Eudo of Sully, bishop of Paris, and the abbot of St. Victor were commissioned by him to draw up a rule or constitutions, which they had already projected; and they were confirmed by his holiness on the 17th of December following. The holy founders who had taken a second journey to Rome to present their rule to the pope, returned into France with its confirmation, and were everywhere received with applause and benedictions. King Philip Augustus authorized the establishment of their order in France, and promoted it by his liberalities. Margaret of Blois gave them twenty acres of the wood where their hermitage was situate, with other benefactions; and they built the monastery of Cerfroi, which is the mother and chief house of the order, about a mile from their old cells.* This order within the space of forty years was so much increased as to be possessed of six hundred monasteries. St. John being obliged to go to Rome to settle his institute there in the church of St. Thomas della Navicella, upon Mount Clius, the direction of the new convents which were erected in France, was left to St. Felix, who, among other houses, founded one at Paris, in the church of St. Maturinus, though the house was afterwards rebuilt more spacious by Robert Gaguin, the learned and famous general of this order, who died in 1501. St. John, after two voyages to Barbary, spent the two last years of his life at Rome, where he died on the 21st of December, in 1213.^† St. Felix died in his solitude at Cerfroi a year and about six weeks before him, on the 4th of November in the year 1212, being fourscore and five years and seven months old. It is related, that a little time before his death, coming to choir to matins before the rest, he saw there the Blessed Virgin with a company of heavenly spirits singing the divine office; which vision is frequently represented in pictures of this saint. It is the constant tradition of the order, that these two founders were canonized by a bull of Urban IV. in 1260: though the bull is nowhere extant. That the festival of St. Felix was kept in the whole diocese of Meaux in 1219, is proved by an authentic act, produced by Du Plessis.² Alexander VII. in 1666 declared his veneration to be of time immemorial. Innocent XI. in 1679 transferred the feast of St. John to the 8th of February; and that of St. Felix to the 20th of November. See Gaguin, Hist. Franc. in Philip Aug. and in the Chronicles of his order; Ciaconius in Innocent III., Francis a S. Laurentio, Compendium Vit SS. Johannis et Felicis; Joffred, Nica Illustr. p. 123; Du Plessis, Hist. de l’Eglise de Meaux, l. 2, c. 116, 135, p. 172, &c.

St. Bernward, Bishop of Hildesheim, C.

He was chaplain to Otho III., king of Germany, afterwards emperor, being made bishop of Hildesheim, in 992, he spent the day in his functions, and a great part of the night in prayer, and died in 1021, on the 20th of November. His name was enrolled among the saints by Celestin III. in 1194. See his life begun by Tangmar, his preceptor, and continued by two others who knew the saint, in Brower’s Sider. Illustr. and in Surius.

St. Maxentia V. M.

This saint was a Scottish, or rather Irish lady, and is said to have been of royal extraction. To preserve her virginity, which she had consecrated to God by vow, she retired into France, where she lived a recluse near the river Oise, two leagues from Senlis. She was pursued, discovered, and murdered by a child of Belial who had not been able to shake her virtuous resolution. One of the continuators of Fredegarius mentions in the seventh century her veneration¹ at the passage of the Oise, which town is, from her precious relics which are honored there, called Pont-Sainte-Maxence. Her festival was kept in Ireland and England on the 24th of October: in some places in England on the 16th of April, to which Wilson transfers it in the second edition of his English Martyrology: in Scotland, and in the diocese of Beauvais, it is celebrated on the 20th of November, as appears from the Breviaries of Aberdeen and Beauvais. See Henschenius, t. 2, Apr., p. 402.

* Lydgate was a very learned man, versed especially in every branch of polite literature; he wrote many other poems besides this, and several works in prose, especially of piety and prayers, on which see Tanner, Bibl. Britan. p. 489. He had travelled in France and Italy, and was a disciple of Chaucer, whom he far excelled in the article of versification. His verses were so very smooth, that it was said of him that his wit was framed and fashioned by the muses themselves. See Lives of (Engl.) Poets, (by several hands,) t. 1.

^† Blomfield, in his Norfolk, pretends that St. Edmund was son to one Alemund, king of Old Saxony in Germany, and that he was adopted by his cousin Offa, in his way to Rome. But Lydgate and our best historians assure us, that he derived his pedigree from the old English-Saxon kings of the East-Angles; and tells us, that he was an Englishman born. Nor does David Chytræus, in his Saxonia, name any Alemund who ever reigned there; or place St. Edmund in the list of kings which Old Saxony gave to England. See also Leland, Collect. vol. 1, p. 245.

^‡ Hearne rather thinks Bures to be Sudbury.

¹ Blomfield’s Norfolk; and Camden, ib. vol. 1, p. 470.

² Published by Lindenbruch, with Adam Bremensis, p. 26.

* Framlingham castle since the conquest has been in the hands sometimes of the dukes of Norfolk, and sometimes of the crown, till, in 1654, it was bequeathed by Sir N. Hilcham, who had purchased it of the Norfolk family, to Pembroke-hall, in Cambridge, to which this castle and manor now belong. The fine outward old walls are now standing, but, by the consent of the college, a new workhouse is erected within them. The chief palace of the kings of the East-Angles was Kaninghall, Kyning or Cing being our old name for king: at which time Thetford, on account of its neighborhood, within twelve miles, might be esteemed the capital city; it is now filled with ruins of religious houses above all other towns in the kingdom, in part monuments of the piety of those kings. The manor of Keninghall passed from the Mowbrays to the Howards, dukes of Norfolk. Duke Thomas, in the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII., built there a stately seat, known by the name of the duke’s palace, about a furlong distant from the ruins of the royal palace, where coins and other antiquities have been sometimes dug up. Upon that duke’s attainder, this manor was seized by the king. The princess Mary retired hither when she was called to the crown. Queen Elizabeth afterwards lived here some time; and Queen Bess’s-lane and other places still retain her name. It was recovered by the Howards, and the duke of Norfolk is still possessed of this most honorable manor, though the great house was pulled down by the family in 1650. The ruins are still visible.

³ See Lambert’s Topographical Dictionary of England, p. 33.

^† A draught of this old church may be seen in the collection of antiquities made by Mr. Martin of Palgrave, in Suffolk, together with some large pictures, manuscript books, and other curiosities relating to the abbey of St. Edmundsbury.

⁴ See Asser. Annal. Britan. ab an. 596, ad 914, cum Continuat. inter Histor. Angl. par Gal. 159, 160, 161, &c.

* Leland, who saw this abbey in its splendor, though then expiring, writes of it as follows: “The sun hath not seen either a city more finely seated or a goodlier abbey, whether a man consider the revenues and endowments, or the largeness and the incomparable magnificence thereof. A man who saw the abbey would say verily it were a city; so many gates there are in it, and some of brass; so many towers, and a most stately church, upon which attend three other churches, also standing gloriously in the same churchyard, all of passing fine and curious workmanship.” Thus the antiquarian who by order of Henry VIII. made the tour of the abbeys and churches of England to collect antiquities, which commission, by losing his senses, he never was able to finish, nor to reduce the researches he had made into order. He went all the lengths of the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., and died in 1552. Of St. Edmundsbury abbey nothing now remains but amazing ruins, and two churches in one churchyard: that called St. James’s was finished, and reduced into its present form by Edward VI.: the other is the old church called St. Mary’s, full of old monuments of illustrious persons there buried, as of Alan, earl of Brittany, and Richmond, nephew to the Conqueror, in 1093; of Mary, queen of France, sister to Henry VIII., &c., though few remain entire; the very brass plates and inscriptions of many having been pilfered. Henry VIII. spared Peterborough church for the sake of his queen Catharino, who was buried there. Many wish a like indulgence had been shown to St. Edmundsbury for the sake of his sister, &c. “It is pity,” says Dr. Brown Willis, (Hist. of Mitred Abbeys, vol. 1, p. 142.) “that Henry VIII. did not leave the monastery of Bury for the sake of his sister Mary, the French queen, who, after the death of her first husband Lewis XII., married Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and lies buried there.” King Edmund, father to king Edgar, gave to this church the town and territory of Beodricesworth. Other kings, bishops, &c. gave other towns and manors enumerated by Leland in several pages, Collect. vol. 1, p. 249. &c.

⁵ See Harpsfield, Sæc. 9, c. 8; Capgrave and Alford’s Annals, ad an. 920, and 1010.

⁶ N. 3.

* Hugh, third and youngest son of Henry I., king of France married Adelaide, daughter of Herbert, and heiress of the country of Vermandois, in 1102. This Hugh is said to have been grandfather of our saint, who, out of humility, changed the name he received at baptism, which was Hugh, into that of Felix. See Henault, t. 1, p. 147. Others object to this pedigree, that Ralph of Peronne was at that time count of Crepi and Valois. See Du Plessis, Hist. de Meaux, n. 43, t. 1, p. 730, and F. Anselme, Hist. Généal. de la Maison de France, c. 18, t. 1, p. 533, who makes this saint of the royal branch; but this is objected to by his continuators. At least after Lewis VII., then on the throne, the families of Dreux and Courtenay were nearer the crown than that of the count of Vermandois, Valois, Amiens, and Crepi.

¹ Nicæ Illustrata, part 1, tit. 12, p. 123.

* The Trinitarians were sometimes called in England Red Friars: for though their habit is white, they wear a red and blue cross patee upon their scapular.

^† See the life of St. John of Matha on the 8th of February.

² Hist. du Dioc. de Meaux, t. 2, p. 253.

¹ Chron. Contin. p. 666, ed. Ruin.

 Butler, A., The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) IV, 518-524.