St Edmund of Abingdon
Diocesan Co Patron
Feast Day November 16th
St Edmund was a 13th century Archbishop of Canterbury. He was born in Abingdon Oxfordshire in
about 1175 of a merchant family and may have been educated at the monastic school in
Abingdon. He completed his education in Paris and Oxford and became a teacher of Mathematics
and Dialectics. He helped to introduce the study of Aristotle. He was regarded as a somewhat
eccentric character within the university, spending long hours at night in prayer and then less
attentive in lectures. He is associated with a mediaeval academic hall which eventually became
the current St Edmund Hall Oxford.
His mother influenced the development of his faith and spirituality, and he was eventually ordained
in about 1210. He was known as a theology lecturer and preacher and at the same time was
treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral. In 1234 he was consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury after
several other candidates had not been confirmed by Pope Gregory IX. He was regarded as a
compromise appointment and had not wanted to accept the office. He became known by the
people for his teaching, preaching, his study and his prayer but his uncompromising high
standards of governance and discipline in both civil and church government brought him into
conflict with King Henry III, with several monasteries and with clerics in Canterbury Cathedral and
with the Pope.
As part of a long running dispute, he travelled to Rome and on his way a second time in 1240 he
became ill while staying at the Cistercian Pontigny Abbey in France and died at a monastery
nearby. His body was never returned to Canterbury because of opposition from the Benedictine
community there and his main relics remain at Pontigny Abbey.
He is remembered for a life of self sacrifice, of generosity and of asceticism, including much prayer
and meditation. He was canonised six years after his death. His opposition to the excess power of
government and the state reminds us of one of the roles of the church in speaking truth to power.