Thursday, November 20, 2025

It is the 20th of November 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

I’ve got nothing against St. George… sure, maybe he’s a little overrated- super mythical with dragons and the like… he’s fine…

And, I am in no place to tell the English which patron saint they should adopt. But I’m also not the first person this century to petition the English government to reclassify and bring back their original patron saint- King Edmund- a native, most likely, King of East Anglia until his death, on this the 20th of November in 869. The story of his death, and his popularity in life, led to what seems like a very quick canonization; his title would be “Edmund the Martyr,” and he would be a saint and patron saint of the soon-to-be united people.

I came across two articles from the BBC, 2013 and 2006, echoing public sentiments and formal petitions to reconsider the patron saint. One article reads:

“One is a Roman soldier who killed a dragon, the other is a former King of East Anglia whose decapitated head was reunited with its body with the help of a talking wolf.” 

So- we need to tell that story. Unfortunately for Edmund and many others in the various Anglo-Saxon communities in the early Middle Ages, their records were demolished by the Viking hordes, and much of what we think we know is conjecture based on legend. There was a king Edmund of East Anglia in the 800s. He was hailed as a saint in coinage from around a century after his death. In 1020, the Danish, but now Christian, King Canute confirmed the site of his Burial, and the place would become Bury St. Edmunds, and the Abbey was dedicated to him there. It is from around the 11th century that the fantastical tale of his life was recorded. It is from a certain Abbo who hears the story from Archbishop Dunstan, and Dunstan heard it when he was a sword bearer as a young man, as Edmund’s sword bearer was telling the story. Got it? Good.

The story goes that the Vikings- the Danes, who did invade East Anglia and kill Edmund, are said to have offered Edmund his life if he would become a vassal to the Viking king Ivar. His counsellors told him to submit, but he refused on account of his devotion to the people and to Christ. He says he’ll only submit to Ivar if Ivar becomes a Christian, and this leads the Vikings to capture Edmund. They tie him to a tree- all of the imagery is from the flagellating of Christ- and they shoot him with arrows. They finally decide to decapitate him and steal his head. His followers go looking to recover his head- calling out his name, in Abbo’s story, Edmund’s severed head, not the wolf, is talking (this is hagiography- it’s how it goes) and starts shouting out “here! Here!” And they find his head safely in the jaw of the wolf, as you do.

His legend, as the Christ-confessing native King against the wiles of the pagan Vikings, made him a favorite, and his shrine became a central location until the Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries. It’s Medieval England… is there a Robin Hood connection? Yup, dastardly King John had “borrowed” a famous set of jewels from the shrine. The best part is when Robin Hood pretends to kiss him on the fingers and steals all the jewels…

The real downfall of our hero came when Richard the Lionheart “placed himself under George’s protection”  during the Third Crusade and marked his soldiers with the red cross of George, and the rest is history…

Edmunds' remains would become peripatetic with the dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII; his remains made their way to France, where they were then scattered with the French Revolution. His remains today are at Arundel Castle, which sounds like Middle-earth, but it’s just off the A27, West of Brighton, near the English coast. Here’s to the original patron saint- cradled safely in the mouth of a wolf: St. Edmund the Martyr.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and a picture of the true sacrifice from Hebrews 9:

23 It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 20th of November 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorite Dunstan is the monkey from the 1996 movie that lived in a hotel…  Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who has a niece called Abby, and wonders if she were a boy, would she be Abbo? I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.