Winterbottom, Michael, ed., "Life of St. Edmund" in Three Lives of English Saints (Canada: The Hunter Rose Company, 1972). ISBN: 888444508
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Text name(s): Life of St. Edmund

Number of pages of primary source text: 24

Medieval Author(s): Abbo of Fleury

Dates: 945 - 1004

Archival Reference: MS Cotton Tiberius, B.ii

Original Language(s): Latin;

Translation: Original language included.

Translation Comments:

Geopolitical Region(s): England;

County/Region: East Anglia; Bury St Edmunds

Apparatus: Glossary Bibliography Introduction

Comments:

St. Edmund was the king of East Anglia during the Viking invasions of 869-70. He was captured in battle, and refusing to renounce his Christian faith, he was executed by unconfirmed means: either scourged, shot, and beheaded as his armour-bearer told Abbo; or offered as a traditional Viking sacrifice to the gods, ‘spread-eagled.’ His body was interred in a nearby chapel, and when his body was discovered around 915, it was be uncorrupted. The area was subsequently named “Bury St. Edmunds.” Abbo of Fleury was a monastic scholar who wrote works on math and science a well as grammar and hagiography.

Introduction Summary:

Introduction includes brief discussion on the political environment during the times of Sts. Ethelwold and Edmund and the Danish invasions, background information on the two men, location of the manuscripts and some notes on the use of Anglo-Saxon letters in the text.

Cataloger: KMU