Edmund the Martyr (also known as St Edmund and Edmund of East Anglia, died 20 November 869) was king of East Anglia from about 855 until his death.
Few historical facts about Edmund are known, as 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.
A popular cult emerged after Edmund's death, and he was canonised by the Church. A series of coins commemorating him was minted from around the time East Anglia was absorbed by the kingdom of Wessex in 918, and in about 986, the French monk Abbo of Fleury wrote of his life and martyrdom.
During the 10th century, Edmund's remains were translated from an unidentified location in East Anglia to Beodericsworth (modern Bury St Edmunds); they were temporarily moved to London for safekeeping in 1010. Edmund's cult flourished during the Early and High Middle Ages, and he and Edward the Confessor were regarded as the patron saints of medieval England until they were replaced by Saint George in the 15th century. Medieval manuscripts and works of art relating to Edmund include Abbo's Passio Sancti Eadmundi, John Lydgate's 15th-century Life, the Wilton Diptych, and a number of church wall paintings.
The existence of Edmund is known from coins minted by his moneyers, three of whom—Dudda, Eadmund, and Twicga—minted coins for Edmund's predecessor, Æthelweard which suggests that a smooth transition of power occurred. The number of coins issued in his name indicates that he reigned for a number of years, but the only contemporary documentary references to Edmund are the records of his death in Asser's life of Alfred the Great and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The 12th-century Annals of St Neots states that Edmund succeeded on Christmas Day 855 aged fourteen and was crowned by Bishop Hunberht on Christmas Day 856 at a royal vill in Burna in Suffolk, but no source is known for these statements. The devastation in East Anglia that was caused by the Vikings destroyed all the charters that may have referred to Edmund.
Edmund cannot be placed within any ruling dynasty. The 10th-century French monk Abbo of Fleury stated that Edmund was ex antiquorum Saxonum nobili prosapia oriundus, which according to Ridyard "was probably Abbo's rather verbose way of saying he was descended from the ancient nobility of his race".
A variety of different coins were minted by Edmund's moneyers during his reign. The letters AN, standing for 'Anglia', appear on the coins of only Edmund and Æthelstan, another 9th-century king of the East Angles; the letters appear on Edmund's coins as part of the phrase + EADMUND REX AN[GLORUM] ("Edmund, King of the Angles"). Edmund's later coins read + EADMUND REX ("Edmund, King"). Otherwise, no chronology for his coins has been confirmed.
For decades after the Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793, their attacks on England were mainly raids on isolated monastic communities. According to the Annales Bertiniani and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a larger-scale attack occurred in c. 844. By the end of the decade the Vikings had started to over-winter in England. In the autumn of 865 a force probably numbering over 5,000 combatants, described by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as "a great heathen army", came to East Anglia. Edmund made peace with them and gave them horses and other supplies, and they stayed there until the summer of 866, when they moved on to York. The army attacked Mercia by the end of 867 and made peaceful terms with the Mercians; a year later the Vikings returned to East Anglia.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which generally described few matters relating to the East Angles and their rulers, relates that "here the army rode across Mercia into East Anglia, and took winter-quarters at Thetford; and that winter King Edmund fought against them, and the Danish took the victory, and killed the king and conquered all that land". Where Edmund was killed and whether he died in battle or was murdered by the Danes afterwards is not known. The Great Heathen Army went on to invade Wessex in late 870, where they were confronted by Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, the future Alfred the Great.
Edmund was buried in a wooden chapel near to where he was killed. At a date generally assumed by historians to have been during the reign of Æthelstan, who became king of the Anglo-Saxons in 924, Edmund's body was translated from Haegelisdun (the location of which has not been conclusively identified) to Beodricesworth, now modern Bury St Edmunds. In 925 Æthelstan founded Beodricesworth monastery to take care of Edmund's shrine.
Following the death of the Danish Guthrum, king of East Anglia, in around 890, the same moneyers who had minted his coins started to produce money in commemoration of Edmund. The coins, whose design was based upon those produced during Edmund's reign, provide the earliest evidence that he was venerated as a saint. All the pennies and (more rarely) half-pennies that were produced read SCE EADMVND REX—'O St Edmund the king!'. Some of them have a legend that provides evidence that the Vikings experimented with their initial design.
The St Edmund memorial coins were minted in great quantities by a group of more than 70 moneyers, many of whom appear to have originated from continental Europe; over 1800 specimens were found when the Cuerdale Hoard was discovered in Lancashire in 1840. The coins were widely used within the Danelaw. They have mainly been found in the east of England, but the exact location of any of the mints they came from is not known with certainty, although scholars have assumed that they were made in East Anglia.
Edmund's cult was promoted and flourished, but it declined, with the production of St Edmund coins ceasing after around 910. The saint did not reappear in liturgical calendars from the 9th century until the appearance of Abbo of Fleury's Passio Sancti Eadmundi three centuries later. In 1010, Edmund's remains were translated to London to protect them from the Vikings, where they were kept for three years before being returned to Bury.
The Danish king Canute, who ruled England from 1016, converted to Christianity and was instrumental in founding the abbey at Bury St Edmunds. The new stone abbey church was completed in 1032, having possibly been commissioned by Canute in time to be consecrated on the 16th anniversary of the Battle of Assandun, which took place on 18 October 1016. Edmund's shrine became one of the most famous and wealthy pilgrimage locations in England. The abbey's power grew upon being given jurisdiction over the western half of the county of Suffolk by the creation in 1044 of the Liberty of Saint Edmund, established by Edward the Confessor, and a larger church was built in 1095, into which Edmund's relics were translated. After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the abbot planned out over 300 new houses within a grid-iron pattern at a location that was close to the abbey precincts, a development which caused the town to more than double in size. King John is said to have given a great sapphire and a precious stone set in gold to the shrine, which he was permitted to keep upon the condition that it was returned to the abbey when he died.
Edmund's shrine was destroyed in 1539, during the dissolution of the monasteries. According to a letter (now in the British Library's Cotton Collection), the shrine was defaced, and silver and gold to the value of over 5,000 marks was taken away. The abbot and his monks were expelled and the abbey was dissolved.