This is a good introduction to Edmund the Martyr, King of East Anglia until his death in 869. Edmund was killed by the Danes, reportedly tied to a tree, shot with many arrows, then beheaded. His head was separated from his body and thrown into the woods, where it was found later, by some accounts guarded by a wolf, reunited with his body to which it became re-attached. His body was said to be incorruptible (in that it did not decompose), one of the many miracles attributed to him. Over the following decades and centuries, his body was moved several times before being housed in a shrine in Bury St. Edmund. It was later lost, possibly during the dissolution of monasteries that Henry VIII set in progress. This was a well-written account that covers the historical period leading up to Edmund's death, the various reports of the death itself, and the growth of a cult around Edmund that led to a portrayal of him as the King of all England, even though he was actually only one of many kings that controlled smaller territories at that time.. The last chapter addresses the location of Edmund's body with the author putting forward a plausible theory that it is interred in the monk's cemetery next to the Abbey ruins at Bury St. Edmund, under what is now a tennis court.
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