Feast day: November 20

St. Edmund the Martyr

King, Martyr · 841–869

Patron of Kings, pandemics

A young Christian king of East Anglia captured by a Danish army who, refusing to renounce his faith or rule under heathen overlords, was tied to a tree, shot with arrows, and beheaded.

Edmund was the young king of East Anglia, in eastern England, in the ninth century — a model Christian ruler, crowned, tradition says, at about fifteen, who governed his people with justice and devotion and was so given to prayer that he is said to have learned the whole Psalter by heart.

His reign fell during the terrible onslaught of the pagan Danish 'Great Army' that overran much of England. In 869 or 870 the Danes invaded East Anglia, and Edmund led his people against them but was defeated and captured. What followed made him a martyr.

According to the early accounts, the Danish leaders offered to spare him if he would rule as their vassal and share his kingdom with heathens — in effect, betray his faith and his people. Edmund refused, unwilling to abandon Christ or set a pagan over Christians. In fury, the Danes bound him to a tree, scourged him, shot him full of arrows until, it was said, he bristled like a hedgehog, and then beheaded him.

Venerated at once as a martyr, Edmund became one of the most beloved saints of medieval England; the great abbey and town of Bury St Edmunds grew up around his shrine, and for a time he was regarded as a patron saint of England, before St. George. He remains a model of the ruler who would not save his throne at the price of his faith.

For centuries before St. George, he was a patron saint of England, and the great abbey town of Bury St Edmunds grew up around his shrine.

Image: artist unknown (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/05295a.htm