St. Edmund, King and Martyr: Changing Images of a Medieval Saint

by Anthony Bale (Contributor), A.S.G. Edwards (Contributor), Alexandra Gillespie (Contributor)

St. Edmund, king and martyr, supposedly killed by Danes (or "Vikings") in 869, was one of the pre-eminent saints of the middle ages; his cult was favoured and patronised by several English kings and spawned a rich array of visual, literary, musical and political artefacts. Celebrated throughout England, especially at the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, it also inspired separate cults in France, Iceland and Italy. The essays in this collection offer a range of readings from a variety of disciplines - literature, history, music, art history - and of sources - chronicles, poems, theological material - providing an overview of the multi-faceted nature of St Edmund's cult, from the ninth century to the early modern period. They demonstrate the openness and dynamism of a medieval saint's cult, showing how the saint's image could be used in many and changing contexts: Edmund's image was bent to various political and propagandistic ends, often articulating conflicting messages and ideals, negotiating identity, politics and belief.

Contents:
Introduction : St. Edmund's medieval lives / Anthony Bale --
King, martyr, and virgin : Imitatio Christi in Aelfric's Life of St. Edmund / Carl Phelpstead --
Chronology, genealogy, and conversion : the afterlife of St. Edmund in the north / Alison Finlay --
Geoffrey of Wells's Liber de infantia sancti Edmundi and the "anarchy" of King Stephen's reign / Paul Antony Hayward --
Music and identity in medieval Bury St. Edmunds / Lisa Colton --
Medieval images of St. Edmund in Norfolk churches / Rebecca Pinner --
John Lydgate's Lives of Ss. Edmund and Fremund : politics, hagiography, and literature / A.S.G. Edwards --
St. Edmund in fifteenth-century London : the Lydgatian Miracles of St. Edmund / Anthony Bale --
The later lives of St. Edmund : John Lydgate to John Stow / Alexandra Gillespie.

214 pages, Hardcover

First published August 20, 2009

About the author

Professor Anthony Bale, MA (Oxford), MA (York), DPhil (Oxford), is Professor of Medieval Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, England.

Anthony Bale teaches on the BA English, MA Medieval Literature and Culture and supervises doctoral students working on medieval topics.

Bale has published widely on medieval literature, culture, and religion. In particular, his work has explored relations between Christians and Jews in medieval England. He has also edited and translated several medieval texts, and has recently published a new translation and edition of The Book of Margery Kempe with Oxford University Press. His current work explores travel and pilgrimage between England and the Holy Land in the later Middle Ages.

He has received fellowships from the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the Australian Research Councils, the British Academy, the Huntington Library, the Leverhulme Trust, the University of Michigan Frankel Institute, and the National Humanities Center.