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The Alleged Exile of archbishop Edmund
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
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The self-imposed exile of archbishop Edmund of Abingdon is part of the accepted account of his career. The incident provides an excellent example of the psychological gulf which separates the medieval hagiographer from the modem historian. For the historian tends to be unsympathetic towards acts of fugitive virtue, and the plain fact seems to be that the archbishop ran away from his responsibilities. Thus, in a century of great ecclesiastical leaders, St. Edmund is assigned the rôle of the gentle, pious, but ineffectual reformer, overwhelmed by forces which he was not strong enough to resist. But the thirteenth-century hagiographers had different criteria. In their view, the archbishop's exile was a flight from iniquity which vindicated the rights of the Church. It formed a splendid consummation of his career, as dramatic and meritorious as martyrdom. As St. Edmund's biographers were quick to point out, his exile and residence at Pontigny offered an obvious parallel to incidents in the lives of St. Thomas Becket and Stephen Langton. On this occasion, Pontigny, now the traditional refuge for fugitive archbishops of Canterbury, was handsomely rewarded with the bones of a saint.
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page 160 note 1 Cf. Powicke, F. M., Henry III and the Lord Edward (1947), 141Google Scholar, 262: ‘The archbishop worn out by disputes with his monks of Christ Church, and greatly distressed by the new influences at court, left England to die in the odour of sanctity near Pontigny’; and ‘his fretful and conscientious life of conflicts had come to its close in voluntary exile at Pontigny’; and Emden, A. B., An Oxford Hall in Medieval Times (1927), 97Google Scholar: ‘Unwilling to submit to claims and policies which he regarded as harmful to his church and country, and despairing of being able to offer effectual resistance, he decided to make the one impressive protest which remained open to him.’
page 160 note 2 Cf. infra, 169–71
page 161 note 1 B.M. Royal MS. 2D. vi. fol. 162: Qui, cum cure pastoralis officium libere non poterat exercere, licet manus eius ad ecclesie liberacionem fuisset extenta, cedendum tamen censuit malicie, gloriosum martirem Thomam in hoc facto uolens imitari.
page 161 note 2 Balliol Coll. MS. 226, fol. 60. A synopsis of this version of the Life of St. Edmund was given by Davies, H. W. C., ‘An unpublished Life of Edmund Rich’, E.H.R., xxii (1907).Google Scholar
page 161 note 3 Martène and Durand, Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum, iii, 1775 ff.
page 161 note 4 Cotton MS. Julius D. vi. fol. 142, printed by Wallace, W., St. Edmund of Canterbury (1893), 543–88.Google Scholar
page 161 note 5 See Ann. Mm., iv. 84–5, and the ensuing inquiry in Close Rolls, 1234–37, 47,53, 72, 133–6.
page 161 note 6 The conclusions of Williamson, Dorothy in ‘Some aspects of the legation of cardinal Otto’, E.H.R., lxiv (1949).Google Scholar
page 162 note 1 Corpus Christi Coll. Oxford MS. 154, fol. 383b.
page 162 note 2 P.R.O. Anc. Corresp., xi. 159.
page 162 note 3 Cal. Papal Lett., i. 173.
page 162 note 4 Ibid., i. 174.
page 162 note 5 Cotton MS. Claudius D., x. fol. 276v.
page 162 note 6 Gervase, ii. 133, presents a tendentious account. The facts are however clearly stated in the bull addressed to the monks in March 1241: Cal. Papal Lett., i. 194.
page 163 note 1 Cal. Papal Lett., i. 173.
page 163 note 2 Ibid., i. 180.
page 163 note 3 Ibid., i. 182.
page 163 note 4 Close Rolls, 1237–42, 234.
page 163 note 5 Gervase, ii. 160–6.
page 163 note 6 Grosseteste, who was not given to sycophancy, says that he had been delighted by the grace and humility of the legate's reply to his letter concerning the Winchester election: Epistolae, ed. Luard, H. R. (R.S. 1861), 185.Google Scholar
page 163 note 7 Miss Williamson points out his unwillingness to intervene in disputed elections until instructed by the pope to do so: art. cit., E.H.R., LXIV (1949).Google Scholar
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page 164 note 1 Cotton MS. Jul. D., vi. fol. 140.
page 164 note 2 B.M. Royal MS. 2D., vi. fol. 161v.
page 164 note 3 See the letter on the subject addressed to the legate by Grosseteste: Epistolae, 184.
page 164 note 4 Hist. Angl., ii. 426; Close Rolls, 1237–42, 158; the whole affair is described by F. M. Powicke, Henry III and the Lord Edward, 270–3.
page 164 note 5 Ann. Mon., iii. 151; Close Rolls, 1237–42, 234.
page 164 note 6 Close Rolls, 1237–42, 59, 92.
page 164 note 7 Listed among the fees of the archbishopric in The Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. H. Hall (R.S.), ii. 472, 725, 727.
page 164 note 8 Ann. Mon., iii. 150.
page 165 note 1 The sequence of events is described in detail in Gervase, ii. 139 ff.
page 165 note 2 See the protest of the townspeople: Ibid., ii. 173.
page 165 note 3 Anglia Sacra, i. 349.
page 165 note 4 Ann. Mon., iii. 156; see Cal. Papal Lett., i. 194.
page 165 note 5 Gervase, ii. 179–80.
page 166 note 1 Ann. Mon., iv. 87–8; reproduced by Wykes, Ibid., iv. 88.
page 166 note 2 Ibid., i. 116.
page 166 note 3 Cotton MS. Cleop. A. vii. fol. 36v; the foliation of the printed edition omits the first two folios of the MS. T. D. Hardy in Catalogue of Materials, iii. 160, gives a paleographical analysis of the MS. with which I do not wholly agree. He discerned a different hand at work for the years 1234 to 1238, but in this he was mistaken.
page 166 note 4 Fol. 42v.
page 166 note 5 Cf. Matthew Paris's references to Roger Niger, bishop of London, Chron. Maiora, v. 13, 195, and to Richard Wych, bishop of Chichester, immediately after his death, Ibid., v. 419.
page 166 note 6 Ann. Mon., i. 117.
page 167 note 1 The letters are printed in Martène and Durand, , Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum (1717), iii. cols. 1839 ff.Google Scholar
page 167 note 2 Ibid., iii. col. 1902; original in the archives of Sens cathedral, charter No. 4. It is addressed to Innocent IV.
page 167 note 3 See the terms of the profession in Fabre, P. and Duchesne, L., Le Liber Censuum de l'Église romaine, Paris 1910, I. 286b, 449a.Google Scholar
page 167 note 4 Potthast, No. 10927.
page 167 note 5 The Canterbury continuator states that the archbishop went without seeking the king's permission: Gervase, ii. 179.
page 167 note 6 Ann. Mon., i. 116.
page 167 note 7 Ibid., iv. 72. Wallace, W., St. Edmund of Canterbury (1893), 337, dismissed the Oseney writer's statement on the ground that it would allow only a few days between the archbishop's arrival at Pontigny and his move to Soisy and death. Like other modern scholars, Wallace was committed to the idea of the exile and a fairly long residence at Pontigny. Nevertheless Matthew Paris states that the archbishop stayed at Pontigny only a few days (per aliquot dies): Chron. Maiora, iv. 72.Google Scholar
page 167 note 8 St. Gregory's cartulary: Cambr. Univ. MS. LL, 2. 15. fol. 67.
page 168 note 1 Chron. Maiora, iv. 31; Ann. Mon., iv. 87. There is serious doubt about the consecration of Howel ap Ednevet to St. Asaph's. The cautio cited by Wallace, op. cit., 517, is probably that of bishop Hugh.
page 168 note 2 Chron. Maiora, iv. 49.
page 168 note 3 Flores Historiarum, ed. H. R. Luard (R.S.), ii. 237 note 2.
page 168 note 4 Eustace of Faversham gives Sandwich, but Gervase (ii. 179) says that the archbishop sailed from a point between Dover and Sandwich.
page 168 note 5 Becket took this route for the same reason in 1164: Gervase, i. 189–90.
page 168 note 6 P.R.O. Anc. Corresp. xi. 159; see above.
page 168 note 7 The Matthew Paris Vila: Cotton MS. Jul. D. vi. fol. 142v.
page 168 note 8 B.M. Royal MS. 14C. vii. fols. 2v–3.
page 168 note 9 Eadmeri Historia Novorum et Opuscula, ed. Rule, M. (R.S. 1884), 89, 90, 385–9.Google Scholar
page 168 note 10 Le Guide des chemins de France de 1553 par Charles Estienne, ed. Bonnerot, J., Paris 1936.Google Scholar
page 168 note 11 Now in Sens cathedral archives, No. 26.
page 169 note 1 The hagiographers suggest that he was advised to retire to Soisy from Pontigny for his health, but it is improbable that the Cistercians would have encouraged such an idea. It is also unlikely that a small Augustinian priory would have been able to accommodate the familia of an archbishop for an indefinite period.
page 169 note 2 E.H.R., lxix (July 1954). Since then a sixth manuscript has come to light in the Bibliothèque municipale of Douai, MS. 843 fols. 42–52v. See Catalogue Général des MSS. des Bibliothèques Publiques des Départements, tome VI. (1878), 589.Google Scholar
page 169 note 3 See James, M. R., Catalogue of the Western MSS. in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge (1901), II. 206–8.Google Scholar
page 170 note 1 The title of the completed Life in Royal MS. 2D. vi. shows that it was dispatched to Master Robert for his inspection.
page 170 note 2 Gervase, ii. 131, 145, 155.
page 170 note 3 Ibid., 14.5.
page 170 note 4 Inspeximus in Sens cathedral archives No. 3. St. Edmund's act is dated at Soisy, 13 November 1240.
page 171 note 1 Simon Langton remarked that Eustace ‘had laboured in this matter more than anyone': Martène and Durand, op. cit., iii. 1914.
page 171 note 2 Corpus Christi Coll. Oxford, MS. 154 fols. 381a ff. I hope to develop these points at further length in an edition of ‘The Lives of Saint Edmund’.
page 171 note 3 Martène and Durand, op. cit., iii. cols. 1899–1900; the original is in Sens cathedral archives No. 9.
page 171 note 4 See my note in E.H.R., LXIX (July 1954), 408–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 171 note 5 Martène and Durand, op. cit., iii. 1848: archbishop Albert of Armagh reports a conversation with a cardinal at Rome on the subject of St. Edmund's miracles, in which the cardinal admits that he had trouble in swallowing the story that St. Martin of Tours had resurrected three people. The Life by Eustace alone mentions these three miracles and tries to make an allegorical comparison between St. Martin and St. Edmund.
page 172 note 1 Balliol College MS. 226, fols. 60, 60.v
page 172 note 2 In five places long passages are drawn verbatim from the Life of Becket, and a sixth passage shows strong verbal reminiscence.