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ST EDMUND’S NORFOLK

A STUDY IN HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY

Joseph Mason

© Joseph Mason

DIGITAL COPY

Here are some historians' opinions of my recent writings on St Edmund:

"Your paper seems to me a brilliant one...Your argument, if I may say so,

is conpletely convincing." Henry Mayr-Harting, Emeritus Professor of

Ecclesiastical History, Oxford University.

"I read with great interest your article...your account is full of St

Edmund lore I was unaware of." Professor Oliver Rackham, Cambridge

University.

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GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY, LEGEND

Saint Edmund’s name is generally connected with the county of Suffolk.

Bury St Edmunds, the site of his shrine until the Reformation, is the main

town of West Suffolk which is itself the district once known as the Liberty

of St Edmund. It is an area rich in associations with the saint, but one

thing that we may say with complete certainty is that he was not killed at

Bury St Edmunds. His body was removed there some 50 years after his

death. He was killed elsewhere. In recent years St Edmund was

recognised as the Patron Saint of Suffolk. (What campaigners had really

wanted was the restoration of him as the Patron Saint of England, but that

is another story.) He is not thought of in relation to Norfolk, but this

cannot always have been the case. There were at least 25 medieval

churches or chapels dedicated to his name in Norfolk, while there are

barely a quarter of that number in Suffolk (see map p. 8). At some point in

the middle ages St Edmund was definitely a Norfolk saint.

This is the story of St Edmund’s martyrdom as told by the geography

of East Anglia. We must take due notice of the written history, but where

the documents are contradictory, obscure or silent we will turn to the

maps of Norfolk and Suffolk to seek clues. We will be looking at church

dedications, ancient trackways, a standing stone and place-names. River

systems will particularly interest us. We will even consider traditional

legends of the landscape. These topographical features individually would

not constitute firm evidence, but taken together a fascinating picture

begins to emerge.

The death of King Edmund at the hands of the Vikings came at the

moment in history when they were changing their war aims. When they

first attacked East Anglia three or four years earlier, they had been

content just to take things like horses. In 869 they had more ambitious

plans. This date comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that great work

of history of the English people, first written down in Old English within a

generation of Edmund’s death. At the time the New Year was taken to be

September, and because Edmund’s death occurred in November they

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wrote the date as 870. By modern chronology it was still the previous

year. Nearly all the events related in this book took place in the autumn of

869. Here is what the Chronicle says about the Vikings and East Anglia’s

king:

The raiding-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...

Perhaps you can see why many people think that Edmund was killed at

Thetford or nearby. The Chronicler does not say it in so many words, but

he gives us the clear impression that this was where it happened.

We have a very different account of Edmund’s death in a book

written over one hundred years later. It deals not with the death of a king,

but the passion (or martyrdom) of a saint. It is a long and detailed story,

not a brief statement of facts. And it has a completely different version of

the arrival of the Danes. Where the Chronicle says they rode across

Lincolnshire from York, the Passion of St Edmund has the Vikings who

killed Edmund coming from York by sea.

We know quite a lot about the person who wrote the Passion of St

Edmund. He was a monk from the Loire valley in what is now France. He

had been invited to England to be Abbot of Ramsey, and it was while he

was living there that he was asked to write about St Edmund. He had

heard the story of Edmund’s death from the Archbishop of Canterbury (St

Dunstan), who had it direct from an old man who had been an eye witness

to the events. The name of the monk was Abbo.

These are the two written sources that we shall rely on. A lot of other

stories were written about St Edmund in later centuries, and although

they may contain a grain of truth here and there, they are for the most

part complete fabrications. These two sources I am going to use provide

us with quite enough problems of truth and interpretation on their own.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is normally a reliable document, largely

devoid of the supernatural accounts of events that were so popular in the

middle ages. Abbo’s Passion is by contrast full of miracle stories that

nobody would take seriously today. It seems as if the Chronicle has the

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better claim to represent the truth, being not only written much closer in

time to the Danish attack on East Anglia, but also as a work of genuine

history, not a saint’s tale full of preposterous happenings.

The only trouble with this approach is that wherever we can check

the facts (not the miracle stories) in Abbo with the geographical record it

is Abbo, not the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which appears to be telling the

truth. I am not suggesting that the Chronicler is deliberately lying about

events, but that the story he is telling us is partial and gives a wrong

impression by being so brief. I fully accept the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

when it says that the Danes rode across Lincolnshire to Thetford. What I

also believe however is something the Chronicler leaves out – that the

Danes who killed Edmund came by longship, not on horseback.

Map showing the St Edmund churches on rivers leading into The Wash.

Ely cathedral has a chapel dedicated to the saint, and Peterborough is

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mentioned as being burnt by the Danes in a version of the Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle.

Suppose that the Danish fleet had travelled down the English coast,

burning villages along the shores and rivers as they went. (Several

medieval writers say they burnt churches.) They would have come to Lynn

(now Kings Lynn). They would earlier have approached Emneth along the

Well Stream (the courses of the rivers have been much altered by

drainage). If they pushed their way down the river Great Ouse they would

have passed Downham Market. Just to the south the river Wissey would

have given them access to Foulden. Bearing in mind their colleagues on

horseback who were established at Thetford perhaps they would have

made their way there along the Little Ouse. Continuing their way around

the coast they would pass Hunstanton and the Burnhams on the North

Norfolk coast. Caister to the north of the mouth of the Yare - Yarmouth

did not then exist – and into Suffolk to Kessingland just south of

Lowestoft. Also in Suffolk by the sea lies Southwold and beside a wide

river estuary lies Bromeswell by Woodbridge.

That completes your first nautical cruise round the rivers and coasts

of East Anglia, but the names I have given you have not been picked at

random. Each place I have mentioned had a St Edmund church except the

site of the Danes’ winter quarters (Thetford) and that had two. There are a

dozen churches (so far), which I suggest were built to replace churches

destroyed by the Danes and dedicated in celebration of the miraculous

doings of the East Anglian’s dead king. (What that miracle consisted of

will be dealt with in due course.) This explanation may not account for

every St Edmund church, but surely it would be an incredible coincidence

if they all had some other explanation. Moreover, we have by no means

finished with the extraordinary distribution of East Anglia’s St Edmund

churches; indeed we have by no means reached the most interesting part.

Before returning to St Edmund’s churches however, I wish to

examine some legends of battles against the Danes. These legends have

been kept alive by word of mouth for many hundreds of years before

eventually being written down. It would seem that they are just

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picturesque stories with no basis in fact, were it not for a strange identity

in the place-names involved. Nor is it just any names we are talking about,

but ones beginning with the ominous and emotive syllable; Blood. These

places each have a legend attached; some mention St Edmund, but they

all mention the Saxons and their enemies the Danes. Thus we have Bloody

Field on the river Deben at Martlesham. Bloodmoor Hills may be found at

Carlton Colville near Lowestoft, and Blood Hill in Somerton in the district

known as Flegg. Note how all these places also lie near the coast where we

have already suggested Danish raiders were at work. Bloody Field is near

the church dedicated to St Edmund at Bromeswell. Carlton Colville is near

the church at Kessingland and Somerton is not far from West Caister, the

site of another (now ruinous) St Edmund church.

Example of the watery nature of many St Edmund sites in Norfolk

Nor are legends connected with the word Blood the only ones we

should consider. There are two more that concern battles and include the

almost equally emotive word Dane. Thus have Danes Field (Glemsford

Suffolk) and Danes Croft (Stowmarket), and at Barnby near Kessingland

there is the legend of Edmund fording the river Waveney to avoid the

Danes. We do not have to believe any of these legends. They do not have

the undoubted historical certainty that the St Edmund churches

unequivocally do, although we cannot know their dates.

I will now return as promised to those St Edmund churches of

Norfolk. Caister church has already been mentioned, and Fritton church

is in Suffolk, but both belong to the next dozen dedications to be

considered. At first glance these two churches together with those at

Thurne, Acle, Southwood, South Buringham, Markshall, Caistor,

Norwich, Costessey, Taverham and Lyng (a medieval nunnery chapel

dedicated to St Edmund) might appear to have nothing in common.

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However, just as Lynn, Downham Market, Foulden, Snarehill and

Thetford are all linked by rivers flowing out to the sea in the Wash, so

these east Norfolk villages are all linked by rivers flowing out to the sea at

Great Yarmouth. Apart from these Broadland churches bearing his name

there are other references to St Edmund. The road now called

Bullockshed Lane in Rockland St Mary on the Yare was in ancient times

known as St Edmund’s Way. This is more than just another river system

however. It is a river system leading to the place where Abbo says that

Edmund was murdered. This place was Hellesdon. In the next chapter we

will continue this story of St Edmund’s fate as told by Abbo, and

confirmed by the maps.

MEDIEVAL DEDICATIONS TO ST EDMUND IN EAST ANGLIA

KEY

1. EMNETH 2. DOWNHAM MARKET 3. NORTH LYNN (Lost to the sea in the 17th.)

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4. HUNSTANTON 5. BURNHAM WESTGATE (Abandoned c14th.) 6. EGMERE (Abandoned by 1602.) 7. HORNINGTOFT 8. SWANTON NOVERS 9. LYNG (NUNNERY CHAPEL) 10. TAVERHAM 11. COSTESSEY 12. NORWICH (FISHERGATE) 13. PRIOR’S CHAPEL, NORWICH CATHEDRAL CLOSE [Abandoned C.16th?) 14. SACKITE FRIARY (Abandoned c13th.)

15. MARKSHALL (In ruins by 1695.)

16. CAISTOR 17. SOUTH BURLINGHAM 18. THURNE 19. SOUTHWOOD (Abandoned 1818.) 20. ACLE 21. FRITTON 22. CAISTER 23. FOULDEN 24. THETFORD (Abandoned c15th.) 25. SNAREHILL (Abandoned c16th.) 26. HOXNE (c12th CHAPEL?) 27. KESSINGLAND 28. SOUTHWOLD 29. HARGRAVE 30. BURY ST EDMUNDS MONASTERY [C.10th]: BENEDICTINE ABBEY [C.11th]. 31. BROMESWELL 32. ASSINGTON

Beyond the boundaries of Norfolk and Suffolk, but within the region often regard

as East Anglia, there is the church of St Edmund in Hauxton, Cambridgshire,

and a chapel dedicated to St Edmund in Ely cathedral (north transept). During

the 13th

century there was a proprietary chapel, the property of the St Edmund

family, dedicated to St Edmund the King, which was acquired by the Gilbertine

Canons in 1291. It stood on the site later occupied by Addenbrookes Hospital.

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HELLESDON

Abbo gave us a great gift when he named the place where Edmund was killed as

Hellesdon. It was such a great gift that it is extraordinary that very few historians

believe him. In the tenth century its name was Hægelisdun, not Hellesdon it is

true, but all the place-name experts are agreed that the word is the same. It is the

historians who are anxious to identify Hoxne, which at least has a venerable

tradition behind it, Hollesley Bay or even a field called Hellesden in West

Suffolk as the site of his martyrdom. Anywhere except Hellesdon, Norfolk. This

they do because they believe that Edmund was killed by Vikings on horseback

from Thetford, and because (they say) nothing in Hellesdon has any connection

with Edmund. I hope nobody will say that after reading this chapter.

St Edmund dedications on churches in East Norfolk. All are on the Yare river

system, and all except one – South Burlingham – belong to riverside parishes.

Although Hoxne is on the river Waveney, it is very remote from the others, and

suggestions have been made that it was a comparatively late dedication,

originally being made to St Ethelbert.

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First I wish to return to the coast where the Vikings are about to explore the

river Yare and its tributaries. First they may have turned south, and ventured up

the Waveney as least as far as Fritton. Turning north perhaps they went up the

Bure to Thurne. On the remote river island Cow Holm, now called St Benet’s

Abbey, a hermit monk was living with a few companions. His name was

Suneman. The Vikings killed him. Then back they went to the river Yare, calling

at Acle (which was in those days on a wide estuary). Southwood and South

Burlingham were the next to receive the unwelcome attentions of the Viking

raiders and looters. The river Tas is today a very narrow stream, but the water

level only has to rise a few inches and immediately in the flooded valley the river

takes on a much broader aspect. It is thought that the Romans used the river to

give access to the town at Venta Icenorum. The Vikings made their way there by

some means, either by rowing up the river or else by portage with their boats.

Significantly it is now called Caistor St Edmund. There was also a St Edmund

church in the adjacent parish of Markshall, since 1695 absorbed into the parish of

Caistor St Edmund. All the villages I have mentioned in this paragraph have St

Edmund churches. Like Thetford with its two churches the settlement of Caistor

with Markshall was a particularly important objective for the Danes. We will

have more to say about Caistor in the next chapter.

From Caistor we return to the Yare and thence onwards and upstream to the

Wensum. Norwich did not then exist, but a number of villages which later

coalesced to form Norwich already did. A Saint Edmund church stands here in

Fishergate by the river. Going on upstream the next place we come to is

Hellesdon itself. Two of the closest parishes to Hellesdon are Costessey and

Taverham, two more villages with St Edmund churches.

Between Hellesdon and Taverham lies the parish of Drayton, and sloping

down towards the river is a field with another Blood name, and also with another

tradition of a battle between Saxons and Danes. Its name is Bloods Dale,

although all reference St Edmund has been lost in the mists of time. Had it not

been lost, or had the field been in Hellesdon, not Drayton, surely somebody

would have made the connection with the murdered king. As things stand it is in

the wrong village, and it has not been considered, or when it has, it has been

rejected as a possibility.

There are a number of points to consider in favour of Bloods Dale

being the place of Edmund’s death. For a start it is very close to Hellesdon; only

yards from the modern parish boundary. It is important to recognise that in the

ninth century the parish system had not yet been introduced. Settlement

boundaries were not set in stone, and the naming villages’ local fields and

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landscape features was more fluid. Bloods Dale could well have been part of

Hellesdon in 869. Hundreds of years later that whole tongue of land from Rabbit

Hill near Hellesdon church to Lodge Breck where Drayton High Road and the

Low Road meet was known as Hellesdon Warren. That tract of land includes

Bloods Dale. The claim for Bloods Dale to be regarded as the place where

Edmund lost his life is a convincing one.

A view of Bloods Dale from Drayton Low Road.

If Bloods Dale was the place where Edmund was waiting for the Danes, its

location helps to explain what he was doing there. Just a few miles up the river

Wensum was the most important religious site in Norfolk, the cathedral at North

Elmham (see map p. 20). The king would want to protect this spiritually

significant place, and the Danes would want to attack it for the rich treasures that

the cathedral undoubtedly contained. The Anglo-Saxons would have hidden most

of it, but the Danes were experienced in seeking it out with threats. Edmund must

have reasoned that the Danes would have to pass by Hellesdon if they went by

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water. However, the river was becoming quite narrow by this point, and at some

stage the raiders might take to the land. The field now known as Bloods Dale lies

between the river and the only direct road to North Elmham from the south (now

known as the A1067). Whichever way the Vikings chose to reach the cathedral,

land or water, they would have to pass Bloods Dale. It is a strategic position, a

fact reinforced by the presence on the same hill of the ruin of Sir John Fastolf’s

fortified manor house in the grounds of Drayton Lodge.

To learn what happened next we must turn to the account written by Abbo.

He makes out that Edmund decided not to fight. I think this is unlikely

considering his apparent desire to attack the Danes as they passed. You must

realize that Abbo was writing of the death of a saint, not a mere mortal. He could

paint a more sympathetic picture of a holy man going meekly to his death than of

a defeated warrior. Whatever the truth we have confirmation that there was much

bloodshed in battle or by massacre instead. When “few people were left alive”

(in Abbo’s own words) the Danes seized Edmund and gave him this choice;

RULE AS THE DANES’ PUPPET, OR DIE.

Edmund’s answer was not a simple yes or no. He would accept the Danes

as masters he replied, but only if the pagans in return first accepted Christianity.

This was obviously the most important thing to Edmund. It was, after all, why he

was at Hellesdon in the first place, to protect the seat of Christ in Norfolk. The

bishop was with him too, and had advised him to accept the Danish offer.

Edmund’s counter offer was a clever move, and one that might have worked.

After all it was less than 10 years later that the Danes did indeed accept

Christianity from Alfred the Great in return for being granted the kingdom of

East Anglia. In 869 however, the Danish leadership were not yet ready to change

their beliefs.

The Danes refused Edmund’s offer, but they still hoped that by torture they

could get him to change his mind. He was tied to tree and stabbed, either by

arrows as tradition relates, or by the spears which were more appropriate

instruments of torture. In the end they gave up. They released Edmund from his

bonds and killed the still breathing king by cutting off his head. As they left the

scene we are told that they cast the severed head into a patch of brambles in

Hellesdon wood.

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CAISTOR ST EDMUND

The walled Roman town of VENTA ICENORUM at Caistor.

Edmund’s headless body is lying lifeless at Hellesdon awaiting developments

there, but I wish to step back a day or so to the Danes’ arrival at Caistor. Abbo

does not mention Caistor by name, but his description of what happened there

can only apply to that place as we shall see. It was the 20th

November when

Edmund was killed and it was getting stormy with winter approaching. The

Danes were anxious to find a good secure place to camp down and make their

winter quarters. As we have seen, the land based Danes on horses had already

made their winter quarters at Thetford. The obvious place for the seamen to

choose was the old Roman town of Venta Icenorum. Even today the ramparts and

walls are extensive. Over a thousand years ago the walls would have stood tall

and almost complete.

Before making their winter quarters, however, the Danes massacred the

local population. To add to the element of surprise Abbo tells how they attacked

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at night. Caistor was no longer the major centre it had been under the Romans,

but it remained a place of significance. Both Caistor and the adjoining village of

Markshall, just across the river Tas, had possessed substantial graveyards in

pagan Anglo-Saxon times, and a considerable local population must have

remained when the Danes arrived. I should remind you that both Caistor and

Markshall had churches dedicated to St Edmund, indicating Danish activity of an

unpleasant kind. Men, women and children were put the sword, and only the

most worthless scraps of humanity were left alive. They had their use however,

for they were compelled to tell the Danes where Edmund was hiding. A

messenger was sent to Edmund a few miles away at Hellesdon bearing the

Danish demands. The tables had been turned; no longer could Edmund hope to

surprise the Danes as they made their progress up river. Rather it was Edmund

himself who was surprised, because the Danish army followed their messenger

so closely that they did not even wait for an answer to their demands.

This account by Abbo is very touching, with the few scared survivors being

compelled to reveal their leader’s whereabouts, and its location in the old Roman

camp at Caistor seems likely. But is there any hard evidence for this? Fortunately

there is. It is important to remember that Abbo was writing in Latin. When his

story is translated into English, as it was by a nineteenth century scholar, the

word used for the place where all this happened is town. In a rural community

such as East Anglia towns were not common it is true, but they were widely

dispersed. “Town” could be anywhere.

In the Latin tongue used by Abbo the usual words for a town are urbs or

oppidum. The word used by Abbo is far more specialised than merely “town”. It

is civitas, which had a particular meaning in the usage of the time. It meant the

regional capital or administrative centre of the province. Thus York would be

called the civitas of Northumbria, and Canterbury the civitas of Kent. The word

may have been used in this way by the Romans, but it was also used in this sense

by contemporaries when writing in Medieval Latin. In East Anglia there was one

place, and one place only, that could be the administrative centre of East Anglia

– Venta Icenorum, or Caistor-by-Norwich. The town had fallen from the

importance it had enjoyed in Roman times, but the name remained. Abbo had

referred to the place where the Danes would make their winter quarters and

where he found out Edmund’s location as civitas, which was as good as giving it

its proper name. To recognize this fact one must return to original language. Had

more historians done so, might not the truth have been discovered long ago?

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On November 20th

, when the Danes left the field of Bloods Dale (its new

name, from the bloody events of this day) they would have returned to their boats

at Caistor. On this occasion they did not stop. Although the Danes had intended

to make their winter quarters in the secure walls of the Roman town, Abbo’s

story makes it quite clear that they left. They went, he said, to pursue their work

of destruction elsewhere. Even though it was nearly December, and the waters of

the North Sea would be dark and cold, they preferred to leave East Anglia. What

had happened?

To answer this question we must re-examine the events of 20th

November.

With his death at the hands of the invaders it was a disaster for Edmund; but was

it not also a disaster for the Danes? Their whole strategy had been based on

having Edmund as a puppet king. Now they had not only lost Edmund, they had

killed all the possible replacements. Only a burnt and desolate land remained,

with few inhabitants left to provide food and supplies for the long winter.

Abbo tells how the thanes (the Anglo-Saxon noblemen) had particularly been

picked out for slaughter. With Edmund dead the box of puppets was bare. They

cut their losses and left.

The church of Caistor St Edmund.

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Even the Danes on horseback eventually moved on to at tack Wessex. Not

least among those new churches which a grateful populace erected were those at

their now abandoned winter quarters at Thetford and Caistor – from now to be

known as Caistor St Edmund. All over East Anglia where the Danes had burnt

villages as they passed the churches were rebuilt in St Edmund’s name to

celebrate his miraculous (so it seemed) defeat of the Danish invaders in death.

LYNG

We now come to what is probably the most exciting part of the story. It is

certainly has never been told before. Because of Abbo Hellesdon has been put

forward as the place of Edmund’s death. Bloods Dale has been suggested as the

battle field where he was slain, if only tentatively. Lyng on the other hand has

never been advanced as playing any part in this story at all.

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At the end of the chapter on the terrible events at Hellesdon we left

Edmund’s body lying mutilated and headless on the field at Bloods Dale. How a

band of survivors was able to organise a search for the missing head and how

they found it with the help of a wolf I will pass over without comment. (At some

other time I may discuss this at length.) What concerns us is the burial accorded

to the body, now (thanks to the wolf) properly reunited with its head.

The rivers of Norfolk have figured largely in this story so far, and we have

not done with them yet. We should imagine the body lying next to the river

Wensum at Drayton. What horses the Anglo-Saxons had been able to bring to

battle had been killed or turned loose to run away. Oxen had been scattered. The

obvious form of transport to remove the corpse to a suitable burial place was by

river (see the cover illustration of the river by Bloods Dale). The frightened and

stunned survivors would have rowed the body of their dead king upstream on

what they assumed was his final journey. They could not have foreseen his

translation to West Suffolk in the next century. They would have passed the

smouldering remains of Costessey church on their left and the charred embers of

Taverham church to the right. Where were they heading?

Abbo says that Edmund was buried in a simple chapel not far from where

he died. From an early time various places have been suggested. One name that

has never been put forward is Lyng –till now. Lyng has a number of factors in its

favour. It is near Hellesdon, and very convenient for the barge we have imagined

Edmund’s body to be removed upon. Much more important, there was a chapel

built in his name beside the river. The ruins of the chapel still stand today,

although as with all the buildings I have mentioned, what remains is of a later

date. The chapel has never been the subject of an archaeological dig, but one

piece of pottery picked up from the surface at St Edmund’s chapel dates from the

tenth century, the very time Edmund’s body would have lain there.

The connections with St Edmund continue, for at the bottom of a steep hill

lies a large boulder. Boulders are rare in Norfolk, and this one was brought here

by glacier deep in the mists of time. In less enlightened days, when all

knowledge of ice ages in past times was lacking, such a strange lump of rock

seemed magical. It has bequeathed this spot a reputation as a sacred place, and

various legends are connected with it. One of these includes St Edmund, and a

map reproduced in the Eastern Daily Press of 1939 names the boulder as St

Edmund’s Stone. It would have been acknowledged as holy ground before

Edmund’s death, and so it would have been seen as a suitable place to bury a

king who had already started to work miracles.

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A wood covers the steep hill that stands above St Edmund’s Stone. Woods

come and go over the centuries, but such a precipitous escarpment as this I

suspect has retained its primordial tree cover. The name of the wood on the hill is

The Grove, itself a name indicating a sacred stand of trees. In the nineteenth

century, however, it still retained is ancient name. On a tithe map it is marked as

Kings Grove. There is little doubt who was the King referred to. King Edmund

not only has a chapel there, he also has a stone named after him. What more

appropriate name could there be for the wood standing over the king’s tomb than

the King’s Grove?

We should remember that a Nunnery dedicated to St Edmund was attached

to the chapel. In Anglo-Saxon days it was traditional for royal saints (and such

saints were not rare) to have their bodies entrusted to nuns. For example the royal

saint Edward the Martyr had his body cared for by the nuns of Shaftesbury

Abbey. We only have details from later when monks helped nuns to look after

his shrine, but it is not unlikely that the first people to look after his body while it

still lay in its first burial place were nuns. Although the story dates from the time

when Edmund’s body had been moved to Bury St Edmunds, the first custodian

of the saint’s body whose name we know was a woman. As told by Abbo, her

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name was Olwen and her self-appointed task was to trim the hair a cut the nails

of the saint (apparently they were still growing). Thus we know that at least one

of the saint’s early guardians was a woman. According to the Domesday Book

there were still some nuns caring for his body at the time of the Norman

Conquest. Maybe Lyng Nunnery in the King’s Grove by St Edmund’s Stone was

the original site of his tomb.

There is one more ancient tradition that I should mention in respect of the

nunnery at Lyng. It is said that it was founded to pray for the souls of all those

killed in a nearby battle of Saxons and Danes. What could that nearby battle be

but Bloods Dale? If so, surely the most important person they would pray for

would be Edmund himself, as it was a nunnery dedicated to his name. The

tradition gives no clue that he was ever actually buried here. But what more

appropriate place could there possibly be?