The Curse of Saint Edmund

In an attempt to prevent the desecration of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, one of England's most historic towns, the Knights of St Edmund have decided to unleash a 1,000 year old curse against Centros Miller Ltd., Miller group and Debenhams. These companies, in the face of overwhelming local opposition, want to construct a huge �80 million shopping development in the town which will fundamentally alter the character and lay-out of the town. The curse of St Edmund and St Edmund's reputation for extremely supernatural violence against those who threaten his Liberty, abbey, town or shrine, was familiar to everyone in medieval England.

On St Edmund's day, the 20th November 2005, a formal and public cursing ceremony will take place at Bury St Edmunds to once again summon the avenging saint and dread King to punish his 21st century enemies. The ancient curse of St Edmund has not been used for over 500 years, but with the determination of developers to destroy the whole character of a town laid-out almost 1,000 years ago, leaves the good people of Bury St Edmunds with no other option. They will have to summon divine vengeance down upon those hell-bent on wrecking their town, unless Centros Miller Ltd., Miller Group and Debenhams unconditionally withdraw all their plans for redeveloping the cattle-market site by close of business on Friday 18th November 2005.

St Edmund's martyrdom

St Edmund was the last Anglo-Saxon King of East Anglia who fought against the Viking invaders but was captured by them c.869. The Viking's offered Edmund the chance to live if he ruled as their puppet and abandoned his Christian faith. St Edmund refused to do either and so the Viking's tied him to a tree and used him for archery practice before cutting off his head and throwing it into the undergrowth of Hellesdon Wood near Norwich. After the Viking's left St Edmund's people found his head guarded by a Wolf who had protected the saint's head until his followers recovered it. When the head was placed in a coffin with the body it was reported that the head and the body join together miraculously, leaving only a thin red-line as a mark where Edmund had been beheaded.

The body was removed to a small chapel near by before being moved c.918-52 to the town of Bedericsworth where a new timber church was constructed by the people of East Anglia for the shrine of their martyred King. This church was later replaced by a small octagonal stone church by King Cnut c.1020, who staffed it with Benedictine monks and changing the town's name to Bury St Edmunds. Cnut's church was in turn replaced by a massive new St Edmund's Abbey church c.1097 whose ruins can still be seen today. By the end of the 12th century St Edmunds Abbey was one of the most important pilgrimage centres in Europe and thousands flocked to the shrine to of this patron saint of England seeking cures for illnesses or asking for the saint's help. The saint's body was at times of emergency was processed around the town and occasionally displayed so that people could wonder at its miraculous state of preservation.

The origins of the curse

The first version of St Edmund's martyrdom was written down by Abbo of Fleury as the Passio sancti Eadmundi Regis et Martyris c.985-7 at Ramsey Abbey (Arnold I 1890: 3-25). This was based on the eye-witness account of St Edmund's armour bearer, who had been with him on the day of his martyrdom. Abbo records two of the earliest examples of St Edmunds capacity for revenge; the capture and punishment of thieves robbing his tomb and the sending insane of the young and impious Thane Leofstan. In c.1094 Herman the Deacon produced Liber de miraculis sancti Edmundi to celebrate the transfer of the saint's body from Cnut's church to the new Abbey church (Arnold I 1890: 29-92) . This updated and included many new stories about the saint and the miracles that occurred at his shrine. In Herman's work the tradition of the vengeful St Edmund is explicit and repeatedly made, from then on more and more stories of the curse of St Edmund started to circulate.

St Edmund's top-ten hits

1. Sheriff Leofstan violated the sanctuary of St Edmund's shrine, to arrest a woman who had taken sanctuary there, and was he was sent mad (Arnold I 1890: 30-32).
2. Svein Forkbeard was killed c.1014, while surrounded by all his men, stuck by a spear cast by St Edmund for demanding half the Abbey's treasure and threatening to torture the monks if he did not get his loot (Arnold I 1890: 32-39, 47, 361).
3. The Essex priest Eadbriht refused to help those taking St Edmund's body to London to avoid marauding Vikings and had his house was burnt down for his failure to assist the Saint (Arnold I 1890: 40-41).
4. A Dane living in London mocked the martyrdom of St Edmund and was struck blind until he repented (Arnold I 1890: 44).
5. Abbot Leofstan tried to test to see if the story about St Edmund's head being miraculously reattached to the body was true by trying to pull the Saint's head off and ended up with paralysis in the hand for his lack of faith (Arnold I 1890: 54).
6. Osgod Clapa insisted on wearing his sword, against custom in St Edmund's church, he was struck with madness until he repented and sort healing at the shrine (Arnold I 1890: 54-6).
7. Turolf the steward and Gyreneu de Mouneyn, a knight, were sent to seize the manor Southwold that belonged to St Edmund's Abbey were driven mad (Arnold I 1890: 79-80).
8. Eustace the son of King Stephen attacked the Abbey lands c.1153 and died a terrible death eaten up inside by worms and begging forgiveness at Cambridge castle (Arnold I 1890: 357-8; Arnold III 1892: 6, 326; Howlett 1884: 90; Howlett 1889: 176; Potter & Davis 1976: 238; Greenaway 1996: 769; Stubbs 1879: 155).
9. At the battle of Fornham c.1173 Robert Beaumont, the Earl of Leicester and an army of Flemish mercenaries were destroyed by the Knight's of St Edmund for attacking the saint's property (Johnston 1981: 172 n100).
10. Henry VIII was responsible for closing down St Edmunds Abbey c.1539 only to die c.1547 raving mad and eaten away by syphilis, allegedly screaming his dying words; "The monks! The monks!" (Local oral folk-tradition).

	"Like so many of the victims of St Edmund's curse, Svein Forkbeard was surpised by St Edmund's revenge" Source: Jarman Collection

So successful was St Edmund's community in promoting the divinely vengeful aspect of St Edmund cult that when the Royal exchequer was faced with raising the enormous ransom demanded for the release of King Richard c. 1192-1194, someone (probably William de Longchamps, bishop of Ely and Chancellor) was foolish enough to suggest that by despoiling St Edmund's tomb that the ransom might be quickly raised. Jocelyn of Brakleond reports the incident as follows:-

"..whether St Edmund's shrine should be partly stripped for the king's ransom was argued before the Barons of the Exchequer, and the abbot stood up and answered the point in this way: 'Take it for a certainty, that this shall never be authorized by me, nor is there any man who would get me to agree to it. But I will open the doors of the church-let anyone enter who will, let anyone come near who dare.' Each judge replied with an oath, 'I shall not go', 'Nor I. St Edmund vents his rage on the distant and the absent: much greater will his fury be on those close at hand who seek to rob him of his clothing'. Because of what was said, the shrine was not despoiled, nor was there a loan raised on it." (Greenaway & Sawyer 1998: 86)

By the beginning of the 13th-century the reputation of St Edmund and his divine vengeance had reached such a level of public consciousness that even royal officials, such as St Edmund's arch-rivals the Bishop of Ely, had baulked at incurring the saints displeasure. St Edmund's vengeful reputation continued to grow, for example; during the capture of Damietta in Egypt in 1219, the two mosques in the captured town were converted into churches. One church was dedicated by the crusaders to St Edward the Confessor and the other to Saint Edmund. In the latter a tableau or illustrated life of St Edmund was erected in order to instruct visitors about the life of the saint. A visiting Fleming mocked the life of St Edmund only to be instantly divinely punished for his impiety, much impressing the local Muslim population. Thus by the 13th-century the myth of St Edmund had expanded to include an intercontinental strike-capacity for revenge (Arnold I 1890: 376-7; Stubbs 1879: 242-3).

The 14th century saw a series of major conflicts between the Abbey and people of the town, as the Abbey tried to increase it profits and screw more money out of the town's people. This led to the Abbey being attacked twice by the town people in c. 1327 and 1381. On the first occasion this resulted in the total destruction of the Abbey gate-house, the burning of 13 manors, the theft of animals valued at �6000 and the public burning by the rioters of all the property deeds the Abbey held. However, despite all this violence the Saint's shrine was never threatened or damaged by the town's people. Their argument was not with St Edmund but with the corrupt church officials and the abbey's greedy agents and factors. In these battles St Edmund clearly was on the side of the people of his town rather than the administration. For example, in c.1381 the corrupt Prior was fleeing from towns people who had once again rebelled against his mismanagement and reached the ferry at Mildenhall. The Prior managed to get on the ferry which the ferry-woman then pushed out to mid-stream and she then raised a hue and cry. The Prior was captured by the town's people of Bury, was tried for his crimes and beheaded on the spot, as a terrible warning to those whose maladministration of St Edmund's town causes trouble.

In 1539 Henry VIII's officials ordered the closure of the Abbey of St Edmund. The monks took the body of St Edmund and secretly hid it somewhere within the Abbey grounds. The last resting place of St Edmund, patron Saint of England remains a mystery even today. However, his intercontinental strike-capacity for divine revenge still persists and this will be unleashed by the Knights of St Edmund against those who would despoil his town and rob his people, unless they unconditionally withdraw all their plans for redeveloping the cattle-market site by close of business on Friday 18th November 2005. Furthermore, that Centros Miller Ltd., the Miller Group nor Debenhams publicly vow to never set foot in Bury St Edmunds again. Failure to comply will see the curse unleashed and may the Lord God have mercy upon their souls.

References

(These are the basic references; there were many more references and many victims not included here).

Arnold, T., (1890), Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey, Volume I, HMSO, London, Eyre & Spottiswode

Arnold, T., (1896), Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey, Volume II, HMSO, London, Eyre & Spottiswode

Arnold, T., (1892), Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey, Volume III, HMSO, London, Eyre & Spottiswode

Greenway D., (1996), Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum, the History of the English People, Clarendon Press, Oxford

Greenway D., & Sayers, J. (trans.) (1998), Jocelin of Brakelond: Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Howlett, R., (1884), Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I: Historia Rerum Anglicarium by William of Newburgh, Vol.1, Longman & Co., London

Howlett, R., (1889), Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I: Robert de Torigni, Vol. IV, HMSO, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London

Johnston, R.C., (ed. & trans.) (1981) Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle, Clarendon Press, OUP, Oxford

Potter, K.R., & Davis, R.H.C., (1976), Gesta Stephani, Clarendon Press, Oxford

Stubbs, W., (1879), The Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, Chronicle of Gervase, the monk of Canterbury, Vol. II.