Overview

What buried secret lies beneath the stones of one of England's greatest former churches and shrines? The ruins of the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds are a memorial to the largest Romanesque church ever built. This Suffolk market town is now a quiet place, out of the way, eclipsed by its more famous neighbour Cambridge. But present obscurity may conceal a find as significant as the emergence from beneath a Leicester car-park of the remains of Richard III. For Bury, as Francis Young now reveals, is the probable site of the body - placed in an `iron chest' but lost during the Dissolution of the Monasteries - of Edmund: martyred monarch of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia and, well before St George, England's first patron saint. After the king was slain by marauding Vikings in the ninth century, the legend which grew up around his murder led to the foundation in Bury of one of the pre-eminent shrines of Christendom. In showing how Edmund became the pivotal figure around whom Saxons, Danes and Normans all rallied, the author points to the imminent rediscovery of the ruler who created England.

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9781788311793

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`I hope I may live long enough to witness the rediscovery of another royal body - this time also the relics of a saint! Francis Young's well-researched book looks for the real man behind the legendary martyred East Anglian king. The author's enthusiasm for his subject, and for the quest to find the mortal remains of St. Edmund, everywhere shines through. Authoritative and reliable, this volume is at the same time an enjoyable and engaging read.' - John Ashdown-Hill, MBE, Honorary Senior Lecturer in History, University of Essex and Leader of Genealogical Research and Historical Adviser, `Looking for Richard' Project

`I hope I may live long enough to witness the rediscovery of another royal body - this time also the relics of a saint! Francis Young's well-researched book looks for the real man behind the legendary martyred East Anglian king. The author's enthusiasm for his subject, and for the quest to find the mortal remains of St. Edmund, everywhere shines through. Authoritative and reliable, this volume is at the same time an enjoyable and engaging read.' - John Ashdown-Hill, MBE, Honorary Senior Lecturer in History, University of Essex and Leader of Genealogical Research and Historical Adviser, `Looking for Richard' Project, `Simultaneously a sophisticated work of history, a compelling detective story and a moving meditation on what it is to be English, this is a fascinating and wonderful book.' - Tom Holland, author of Athelstan: The Making of England and of Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom, `Brilliantly charting the history of Edmund's cult from earliest days to the present day, Francis Young shows how the East Anglian martyr-king has been central to English identity from the very start. He writes with a keen eye to present political developments, convincingly arguing that Edmund is more relevant now than ever.' - Levi Roach, Lecturer in Medieval History, University of Exeter, author of AEthelred: The Unready

Young’s meticulous investigations provide a thorough, readable study of the different interpretations of Edmund’s life, death, and posthumous cult interpreted through the existing textual, archaeological, and artistic source materials … [A] well-written and thoroughly researched book which provides a rare, long-view study of the cult of an important saint. * Early Medieval Europe *

Author Information

Born in Bury St Edmunds, and now a foremost authority on the history and culture of eastern England, Francis Young gained a PhD in history from the University of Cambridge and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. A former Head of History at the King's School, Ely, he is the author and editor of seven previous books. These include English Catholics and the Supernatural, 1553-1829 (2013), The Gages of Hengrave and Suffolk Catholicism, 1640-1767 (2015), The Abbey of Bury St Edmunds: History, Legacy and Discovery (2016), Catholic East Anglia: A History of the Catholic Faith in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (2016) and A History of Exorcism in Catholic Christianity (2016). He broadcasts regularly for the BBC on historical and religious topics.

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