The Alleged Exile of archbishop Edmund
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...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1956
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| In: |
The journal of ecclesiastical history
Year: 1956, Volume: 7, Issue: 2, Pages: 160-173 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | 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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| ISSN: | 1469-7637 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of ecclesiastical history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900072559 |