So the uncorrupted body of the saint remained to the glory of the monks (and their profit) at St Edmundsbury. It is said that they allowed a woman by the name of Oswin to view the corpse every Maundy Thursday, to comb its hair and trim its nails, both of which continued to grow.
The last to be heard of it is the account given at the end of the thirteenth century by a monk of St Edmundsbury, Jocelyn of Brakeland, who had been born in the town and become an inmate of the abbey.
The abbot of the time was one Sampson, who, on ‘the fourth day of the Festival of St Edmund’ called together a few of his most important brethren and confided to them his overpowering wish to look with his own eyes upon the glorious body of the martyred king. So at midnight, when all the lesser brothers were safely asleep, the little band opened the shrine, and removed the coffin lid. The head was still joined firmly to the body, and rested on a little white pillow, quite unstained. The silken shroud which clothed the body was ‘of wondrous whiteness’, and covered equally white linen bindings. These the abbot forebore to have removed; but he took the head between loving hands and prayed for forgiveness for having dared to profane so holy a thing by his mean and sinful touch. Feeling emboldened, he laid his finger on the dead eyes, on the strikingly firm and beautiful nose; then he rested his hands upon the chest, and felt down the arms, and finally placed his own hand between the palms of the sacred ones folded in death. He noted that the feet still pointed stiffly upward, like those of a man newly dead, and when he had looked his fill, he called to all the other brothers with him to come closer and bear witness, so that they might testify to what they had actually observed.
All this the abbot related to the monks (among whom was Jocelyn, of course) next morning at matins, explaining to them that it would not have been fitting or decent for them all to have seen what he and the privileged few had witnessed. Then the monks sang the Te Deum, weeping copiously at the same time.
And perhaps there could have been those, even among the Abbot Sampson’s own following, who might have thought that he had stretched the tale a bit – if it had not been for an independent witness to corroborate. It so happened that a bold outsider, one John of Diss, sensing something afoot, had climbed to the roof of the church and peered down through a window to see it all exactly as the abbot described it.
Thanks be to God for the sharp eyes of John of Diss, and the sharp pen of Jocelyn of Brakeland, said many a holy brother thereafter! And certainly, to them we owe the rounding-off of the tale of East Anglia’s unlucky, saintly king, whose kindness to the man he saved from drowning did indeed cause him much mischief.
St Eustace’s Well
An example, perhaps, of just how far credulity could be stretched!
In the days of miracles, there came to Kent an abbot called Eustace, brought from Normandy to preach and to reprove the people of Kent for their heathen ways, particularly with regard to their sad lack of diligence in keeping holy the sabbath day.
After a rough sea passage, Eustace landed near Dover, and set about preaching immediately, holding his first meeting at the village then called Wi. Being thirsty after his landing he looked for some way of assuaging the thirst, and came upon a little spring gushing forth sweet, cool water, which so pleased his saintly palate that he there and then bestowed his blessing on it, that it might do good to mankind ever after.
It was soon found that the holy monk’s words had had great effect, for it began to be noised abroad that a drink of water from the spring was all that was needed to cure many of the ills that afflict mortal men. To the well came the blind, led by their friends; at the first sip from the spring, their eyes were healed and their sight restored. Those who came crippled, carried on the backs of others, left walking on their own two feet. The deaf heard, and the dumb spoke; pain was banished and wasting sickness exchanged for robust health. The fame of his well spread far and wide, and no one was more gratified than Eustace himself as the number of beneficiaries of his simple blessing of the spring grew larger and larger.
So it was that wherever he journeyed, the blind, the halt, the deaf, the dumb, the weak of body or mind and those tormented with madness flocked round him, and begged for his blessing. St Eustace was a humble man, and did not seek to emulate his Master, only to work through Him; but his faith helped him to help others, and to choose in what way he could best ensure such help.
One day, there came to him where he was preaching a poor woman said by her neighbours to have been attacked by devils, for she had begun to swell up till her body was of a huge and grotesque size, so that she could breathe only with difficulty, and found walking almost impossible. Nevertheless, to Eustace she came, and seeing him, implored him to cure her, and restore her to her normal, active life.
Eustace spoke comfortingly to her, and told her to cling fast to her faith and that through such faith she could regain her health.
‘Have confidence, my daughter.’ said Eustace. ‘Go to the spring at Wi, for surely the Lord hath blessed it. Drink of the spring, and with faith you shall be healed.’
Now by this time the concourse of people who gathered daily at the well was so great that a priest had been appointed to take charge of the fountain, and to give the pilgrims the water to drink. When the poor woman at length arrived at Wi, there were many people present already, who were there either to be cured themselves, or to witness the miracles that happened all the time. The priest drew water for her in a cup, and she drank; but no sooner had she done so than she was attacked by a great nausea, and began violently to retch, and then to vomit. After the first one or two violent spasms, there shot out of her mouth two black toads, which in the sight of all landed on the ground before her, and at once began to grow.
They grew, and they grew, and they grew – until suddenly, instead of toads, there sat before the woman two huge black dogs with horrid, protruding eyes as big as saucers; and while the people all round crossed themselves but continued to watch, the dogs in their turn began to grow. They grew, and they grew, and they grew, until, in the wink of an eye they were gone, and in their place stood two enormous black asses.
At this the woman, who ‘stood astonished’ (and no wonder!) broke into a furious rage at them, for they had proved beyond doubt that they were devils, and had been the cause of her misery. Moreover, as they had swollen from toad to dog, and from dog to ass, she had diminished in body till she was her own normal size again, and feeling health and strength returning to her, she ran at the asses, to come at them and beat them in revenge for the harm that they had done her.
The asses ran away from her rage, but she began to run after them, trying to catch them; and there is no telling what the end of the story might have been, had not the priest-in-charge of the well acted with such commendable alacrity. Having a cup of the blessed water in his hands, he sprinkled it quickly on the ground between the woman and the devilish beasts – whereupon the two asses rose straight up into the air and vanished from sight, though not before leaving with the crowd as they flew extremely disagreeable ‘traces of their foulness’.
Ednoth’s Relics, and Thurkill’s Beard
The two stories combined here are so intertwined with regard to location and detail that it seemed a pity to separate them, especially as they illustrate so clearly the prevailing Zeitgeist – political and social, as well as religious.
In the days when the fenlands of England were overwhelmed with water, ‘a hideous fen of huge bigness often times covered with moist and dark vapours’, where ‘no countryman could endure to dwell by reason that such apparitions of devils were so frequently seen there’, there came into the region a monk seeking seclusion, the better to worship his god.
The monk’s name was Guthlac, and in the seventh century ad he left his brotherhood at the Monastery of Repton, in Derbyshire, and defying water, fog, ague and devils alike, set up the first religious house in what was later to be known as ‘the holy land of the English’. Within a short space of time, there were five great monastic
foundations there, at Ely, Ramsey, Crowland, Thorney and Peterborough, to say nothing of other outlying cells attached to one or the other. And as they grew, so rivalry between them grew, especially in the matter of holy relics, and many are the tales that still abound of fights (usually from boats) and deceptions between one house and another as they struggled against each other for possession of the dead bodies of saints to add to their collection.
When Edmund Ironside fought Cnut the Dane, he took with him into battle Bishop Ednoth of Dorchester (who had previously been Abbot of Ramsey) and Wlfsius, who had succeeded Ednoth to the abbacy. Their duty was to pray for victory, but the heathen Danes were no respecters of persons, and both bishop and abbot fell on the field of battle. Cnut was victorious, and created his faithful friend Thurkill to be jarl (earl) of the whole district.
In this same battle also died Aylward, another noble son of Ramsey, and the monks of Ramsey set out to recover the bodies of Aylward and Wlfsius, to bring them safely home for burial. That being so, they decided to annex also the body of Bishop Ednoth, for after all, had not he, too, been abbot for many years? Besides, Ednoth was a character well known, and likely to be a miracle worker, especially to those who suffered from sore feet. It had happened that some years before, a ploughman had unearthed at Slepe (now St Ives) the remains of a man. While nobody then knew whose bones they were, a certain ‘worthy’ of the town claimed to have had a vision. At his side in the night had appeared the blessed St Ivo, a Persian archbishop who had travelled widely around AD 600, preaching the gospel with untiring energy and diligence. The vision informed ‘the worthy of Slepe’ that the bones recently unearthed were none other than his own, and bade the man make his vision known at Ramsey, where he would thereafter wish them to lie.
All this was done, but strange to say, Ednoth, who was then abbot, was not at all convinced by the vision. He contended that the bones might be those of anybody, a ploughman or a cobbler. Indeed, he went so far one day as to refer to the remains as those of St Cobbler! Neverthless, he was prevailed upon to fetch the grisly relics home, sharing the burden on his own shoulders with one Germanus; and it was noticed that ever afterwards, the Lord Abbot Ednoth had trouble with his boots, which caused him much pain and unease from sore feet. This was St Ivo’s vengeance upon Ednoth for his scepticism, people said. Now he was dead, and the monks of Ramsey desired to add his remains to those of St Ivo and their other treasures.
At this time, both Ely and Ramsey were in the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Dorchester, so Ramsey was not the only place to feel it had claims upon his corpse.
First come, first served, however. The monks of Ramsey were there on the battlefield first, and appropriated him. They then set out on their long journey home, and once reaching the edge of the fens, they transferred all the bodies to flat-bottomed boats. Night fell as they approached the isle of Ely, and after some discussion, it was resolved to ask shelter from the brothers there, and proceed again next day.
Now between the monks of Ely and of Ramsey there was no love lost, as the saying goes. A few years before this incident, the famous Earl Brithnoth, being on his way to fight the Danes, had come to Ramsey with a large force of men, and had asked hospitality for them. Wlfsius, being of a stingy nature, had declared his abbey too poor and unprepared to feed such a host; and had added insult to injury by saying he would, and could, accommodate the earl and half a dozen of his noble followers, if they were prepared to let their men take their chance, fasting, in the night vapours of the fens. The good earl was affronted, and marched on with his men to Ely, where they were all fed and bedded down, and made much of. As a result of this, Ely received several manors and large tracts of land from Brithnoth, which he had formerly promised to Ramsey. Normal rivalry between the monks had henceforth become very embittered.
The brothers of Ely welcomed the tired travellers from Ramsey, helping them lift their sad cargoes on to biers, and placing them within the chapel of their own monastery till morning. They then fed the Ramsey monks with the best of everything they had, and the wine, too, passed round freely.
When morning came, the monks of Ramsey prepared to go on with their journey; but alas, when they came to take up the body of Bishop Ednoth, the bier was empty.
The brothers of Ely made no attempt to offer any supernatural explanation of its disappearance, beyond a half-hearted and feeble tale that during the night a heavenly glow had shone around the bier of the late bishop, which they had chosen to interpret as a sign that he wished to be left there. He was their bishop as much as he was Ramsey’s after all, so what did the monks of Ramsey propose to do about it? Ely had got him, and Ely was going to keep him, and that was that.
The monks of Ramsey out on the expedition were few, and those of Ely, at home, were many. Possession, even of a dead saint, proved to be nine points of the law. The brothers of Ramsey made a virtue of necessity, and retired disgruntled to their own island abbey.
As it turned out, Ednoth’s vacant throne at Dorchester was filled by another Ramsey brother, one Ethericus; and in the course of time this bishop brought to Ramsey Abbey other, though much more worldly treasure, as another old story tells.
Ethericus had been sent to Ramsey when he was no more than a child, for it was the custom for the monks to conduct a school for the sons of the nobility. There were, of course, other boys of his own age there, and it is reported of him that ‘he loved well the place of his education’. But boys will be boys, and most boys get into mischief. So did Ethericus. It appears that one day three boys, including the future bishop, were larking about in the church, and somehow or other managed to dislodge one of the bells, which hung from a beam in the western tower. It was one of the larger bells, and of considerable worth and price; but it fell, and it cracked. The boys were very frightened, both of spiritual and of corporal punishment, for the rod and the lash were not used sparingly for misdemeanours in such establishments.
When the abbot sent for them, they went in trembling fear to confess the crime; but the abbot was in lenient mood – or perhaps he remembered being a boy himself. However it was, he let them off with no more than a lecture and a token punishment. In their gratitude, the three boys (all of whom lived to be very important people) vowed to the abbot that if God preserved them to reach manhood, they would repay the damage they had done a hundred times over. Etheric stayed on at Ramsey, took his vows and became a monk there; and when Ednoth was killed at Assunden, Etheric was chosen as his successor in the bishopric of Dorchester. He had a great love of Ramsey, and seems to have been a frequent visitor there.
After the death of Edmund, the Danes were in control of the country, and the Danish king, following the precedent of all conquerors before him, parcelled out land taken from the vanquished English among his own noble followers. So it was that Thurkill came into possession of the Manor of Ellesworth. The Abbot of Ramsey already owned a small part of this manor, the eastern part, and had often cast covetous eyes on the larger, and much more valuable, western side of it. The Church was doing its best to remain on good terms with the Danish king, who in turn did his best to placate it, for it was both rich and influential; but the seizure of land from the English and the gift of it to the king’s Danish followers made many a churchman seethe with righteous anger. So it was at Ellesworth.
Thurkill had brought with him to Ellesworth his Danish wife and one little son, but before much time had passed his wife was stricken with illness, and died. Thurkill, still a man in the very prime of life, was not a widower for long. He very soon chose another lady, much younger than himself and in the usual way became completely besotted by his new wife. It was a great grief to him when the king’s business took him away for long spells at a time, during which his wife was left in full charge of the manor in his stead.
The real sufferer, of course, was the motherless little boy of the first marriage. He was the apple of his father’s eye, and it soon became evident to the second wife that the child was a serious rival for her husband�
��s love. Moreover, since it was the custom for land and goods to be handed down to the oldest surviving son, she saw no future as lord of the manor for her own offspring while the little boy still lived.
Her jealousy of the child turned to vitriolic hatred, and she could barely endure to watch the little boy running to his father to be picked up, played with, and made much of. At last when she could contain her feelings no longer, she sought the help of the local witch, who at that time lived in the village of Ellesworth. What she wanted of the witch was a potion to administer to her husband, that would have the effect of turning the father’s love away from his little son.
The witch was clever, and her evil brew soon had the desired effect. When the child ran to his father to escape the persecution of his stepmother he was heartbroken to find himself rebuffed, pushed aside, cursed and even struck by the man who until then had been his refuge and his idol. The wife was delighted at the result of her evil plot, especially as Thurkill grew ever more uxorious as his love for his child turned to dislike.
The child in his misery soon fell sick, and from being a happy, healthy little boy, grew into a thin and haggard one, whose very presence in her household irritated his stepmother more and more each day. She now had the love of her husband wholly to herself; but the fact remained that while the boy lived, he was his father’s heir, and her own children could therefore never inherit.
The thought drove her almost mad with anger and jealousy, and when, on the next occasion that Thurkill had to be away, the child got in her way, she gave vent to her passion and beat him till she killed him. It was then that she had to turn again to the witch, for without help she could not dispose of the body.
The Book of English Folk Tales Page 21