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Posted by Geoff Banks, 27th Apr 2006
Saint Eadmund of East Anglia and his Abbey. Edited by Lord Francis Hervey, 1929, Oxford University Press
Excursus
Section 1
The life and the reign of Saint Eadmund, King of East Anglia, were short and stripped of legend and fiction, the mistaken or fanciful accretions of ages, may be shortly told.
He was born in or about the year AD 841, perhaps at Norbury, near Croydon in Surrey, and belonged to a family of distinction in the western part of Kent. His father was Ealhhere, a Dux or Ealdorman who at one time was styled even King of Kent. His mother was Eadith, daughter to Ecgberht, the great King under whom the whole of England was for the first time united as a single realm. Eadith was sister to Aethelstan, who during Ecgberht’s lifetime was Sub-King of East Anglia, and after Ecgberht’s death became King of Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex, whilst Aethelwulf probably half-brother to Aethelstan, succeeded to the West Saxon throne.
Ealhhere seems to have had an elder son named Eadwald, and a daughter named Ealawyn, perhaps also other children. He had two brothers, Abba who was a reeve in Kent and Aethelweald. There is also mention of one Freothmund (Fremund) who was related to Abba as son or nephew. There is a metrical legendary life of Fremund in Latin by William of Ramsey, and there is another in English by the poet Lydgate, a monk of St. Eadmundsbury Abbey.
From Eadmund’s infancy England was harassed by incursions of the Danes, and in the fighting which ensued the home forces were often worsted. But in 851 Aethelwulf, a melancholy and ambiguous figure who seems to have wavered between war service with Ealhhere the martial Bishop of Sherbourne and church service with St. Swithun the pious Bishop of Winchester, gained a signal success over the Danish raiders in Surrey, and Aethelstan in conjunction with Ealhhere routed the enemy as Sandwich. In a fresh conflict, however, two years later Ealhhere with the men of Kent, and Huda with the men of Surrey, were defeated in the Isle of Thanet, and both Ealhhere and Huda were killed in the battle. Aethelstan does not appear in history under that name after the battle of Sandwich, but there are strong reasons for identifying him with that East Anglian King to whom the name of Offa is given by Geoffrey of Wells, a writer of the twelfth century who compiled a memoir of Eadmund’s early years. Old English names were a puzzle and stumbling block to post-Conquest scribes and the letters “th” were especially baffling to them. A popular nickname for Aethelstan would be Aetha, and this by a Norman might very likely to be spelt Aeffa. Confusion of Offa with Aeffa would then be easy. If this be granted, we become acquainted with Aethelstan’s last days. With the intention of visiting the holy places in Palestine, he quit East Anglia, of which he had been King for some five and twenty years or more, and on his way called on his brother-in-law Ealhere, the holding the title of King of Kent. During his stay he was so impressed by the grace and charm of young Eadmund that, having no male heir of his own, he designated the boy as successor to the Crown of East Anglia. Aethelstan did not live to return to England, and Eadmund, still a stripling, was chosen King by the nobles and people of Norfolk and Suffolk. A year is said to have been spent by the young King at Attleborough in preparation for the duties of sovereignty, and on Christmas Day, 856 Eadmund was crowned King by Humbert, one of the two East Anglian bishops at Bures, then a royal town, but now a not very considerable village on the banks of the River Stour which forms the boundary between Suffolk and Essex.
Ten years followed during which, so far as extant records serve us, East Anglia appears to have enjoyed peace, and during those years Eadmund established that character for just and beneficent rule, and for integrity of life, upon which his biographers in succeeding ages delighted to dwell. But in 866 the unwelcome pirates from Denmark appeared again and in great numbers. They landed at Lynn in Norfolk and spent the winter in that district. The next year, having bargained with the inhabitants for a supply of horses, they rode away northwards. In the autumn of 870 they returned, not peacefully but as ferocious marauders. While Hubba, one of their chieftains, marched from Yorkshire with part of the Danish host, Inguar, the brother of Hubba, brought the remainder by sea. His fleet approaching from the north east ‘a boreali parte orientali’ as Abbo of Fleury attests, came to shore near the mouth of the river now known as the Alde, at a spot then probably called Ora, that is bank of shore, but in later times named Orford.
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