Commontide
Proper 28
Liturgical Color: Red
The 24th Sunday after Trinity
Stir up, O Lord, the wills of your faithful people, that bringing forth in abundance the fruit of good works, they may be abundantly rewarded when our Savior Jesus Christ comes to restore all things; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
King of East Anglia and Martyr
Anglican Commemoration
Edmund was the last king of the East Angles, killed in 869 when the Danish army overran his kingdom in the east of England. The one near-contemporary notice, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, says only that he fought the Danes and fell; the martyrdom the church has kept was written a century later by Abbo of Fleury, who tells that Edmund refused to hold his people's faith under a pagan overlord, was bound to a tree and shot with arrows, and was beheaded. His body was enshrined at Beodricsworth, the place that grew into the great abbey of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, and for much of the Middle Ages he stood among the patron saints of England. His feast is November 20.
Almost nothing is known of Edmund's life before his death. He was king of East Anglia, probably from around 855. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 869 (or 870), the Danish Great Army 'rode across Mercia into East Anglia' and that 'King Edmund fought against them, and the Danes gained the victory, and killed the king.'
This bare annalistic notice is the only near-contemporary evidence for Edmund's death. Everything else comes from Abbo of Fleury's Passio Sancti Edmundi, written over a century later (c. 985–987). Abbo states that he heard the story from Archbishop Dunstan of Canterbury, who in turn had heard it as a young man from Edmund's own armor-bearer — a man then very old. This is a three-link chain spanning roughly 115 years.
According to Abbo, the Great Army demanded that Edmund share his kingdom and tribute with the Danish leaders. Edmund, counseled by his bishop, refused to submit to a pagan overlord. He was captured, bound, and shot with arrows 'as if for sport, until he bristled with them like a hedgehog or a thistle.' Finally he was beheaded. His head was thrown into a wood, where it was found guarded by a wolf who called out 'Here! Here!' to the searchers.
Edmund's body was eventually enshrined at Beodricsworth (later Bury St. Edmunds), where one of the wealthiest and most powerful abbeys in medieval England grew up around his cult.
The martyrdom narrative in Abbo's Passio is the core tradition: Edmund refusing to deny Christ, bound to a tree, shot with arrows like St. Sebastian, beheaded. The story of the wolf guarding the severed head and calling 'Here! Here!' is one of the most vivid images in English hagiography.
Edmund's cult grew rapidly. His shrine at Bury St. Edmunds became a major pilgrimage center and the abbey one of the wealthiest in England. Coins bearing his name were minted by the Danes themselves — a remarkable sign of how quickly the cult was adopted even by the conquerors.
The incorruption of Edmund's body was claimed at various translations, following standard hagiographic convention. The re-attachment of his severed head (Abbo claims the head was found joined to the body when the remains were translated) is a miraculous detail without parallel and should be treated as hagiographic elaboration.