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Edward the Confessor: ‘Anglorum Deeus’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2017

Bernhard W. Scholz
Bernhard W. Scholz*
Affiliation:
Seton Hall University, South Orange, N.J.
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Extract

Before his canonization in 1161 Edward the Confessor was rarely called a saint or credited with miracles. But he received from many authors epithets expressing praise, such as ‘alter Salomon,’ ‘rex pacificus,’ ‘cultor justitiae,’ ‘pater patriae,’ ‘virtutis speculum,’ or, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘ruler of heroes / lavish of riches.’ Florence of Worcester (d. 1118) calls Edward ‘Anglorum decus,’ the glory of the English, a eulogism repeated by several other chroniclers. I want to examine whether this phrase is a ‘panegyric … of the most general kind,’ as Edward A. Freeman suggests, or whether it reveals a distinct esteem for Edward some decades before he was proclaimed a saint and confessor.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 18 , 1962 , pp. 379 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © 1962 New York, Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Florentii Wigorniensis monachi chronicon ex chronicis, ed. B. Thorpe (London 1848–49) I 224; Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold (Rolls Series; London 1882–85) II 179; Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. W. Stubbs (Rolls Series; 1868–71) I 108; Liber Eliensis, ed. D. J. Stewart (Anglia Christiana Society; 1848) 221; Matlhaei Parisiensis monachi Sancti Albani chronica majora, ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls Series; 1872–84) I 535. For Edward's epithets above, see for example Turgot's (d. 1115) ‘Vita Margaretae Scoto- rum reginae,’ in Vitae antiquae sanctorum qui habitaverunt in ea parte Brilanniae nunc vocata Scotia vel in ejus insulis, ed. J. Pinkerton (London 1789) 331-32; or ‘Heremanni miracula Sancti Eadmundi,’ c. 1097, in Ungedruckte anglo-normannische Geschichtsquellen, ed. F. Liebermann (Strassburg and London 1879) 238-39; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (C, D) s.a. 1065, tr. in English Historical Documents, ed. D. G. Douglas (New York 1953) II 141; ‘virtutis speculum’ in ‘Vita iEdwardi regis qui apud Westmonasterium requiescit,’ Lives of Edward the Confessor, ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls Series; 1858) 391. For Freeman's comment quoted below, see E. A. Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England, Revised American Edition (Oxford and New York 1873) II 350-51.Google Scholar

2 Raby, F. J. E., A History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages (Oxford 1934) II 119, 117.Google Scholar

3 PL 171.1399.Google Scholar

4 PL 171.1659.Google Scholar

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6 Henrici archidiaconi Huntendunensis historia Anglorum, ed. Arnold, T. (Rolls Series; 1879) 160, 242, 254.Google Scholar

7 Chronicles and Memorials of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ed. Howlett, R. (Rolls Series; 1884–89) IV 126.Google Scholar

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12 Schramm, Herrschaftszeichen 387 n. 3.Google Scholar

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15 Aeneid 11.508; Pharsalia 7.588; Pro Flacco 75, Philippicae 2.54, Pro Caecina 28. These and similar examples can be found in ThLL s.v. ‘Decus,’ III B.Google Scholar

16 Florence I 143.Google Scholar

17 Ailred of Rievaulx, ‘Vita Sancti Edwardi regis et confessoris,’ PL 195.744; ‘Heremanni miracula Sancti Eadmundi,’ ed. cit. (η. 1 supra) 239; Ailred of Rievaulx, ‘Genealogia re- gum Anglorum/ PL 195.718.Google Scholar

18 PL 195.737-38; see also col. 726, where Ailred applies the same verse in praise of Simon, son of Onias, to Edgar.Google Scholar

19 William of Malmesbury I 270: ‘…miraculis et prophetiae spiritu … claruit.’Google Scholar

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21 Liebermann, F., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (Halle 1898–1916) II 357–59 (about the Eadwardi laga); Freeman, Norman Conquest I 147, 281-83; II 13; C. Plummer, Two of the Saxon Chronicles, Parallel (Oxford 1892–99) II 152, 202. For Edgar's epithets mentioned here, see also Florence, passim (‘pacificus’); Henry of Huntington 166; ‘La légende de Ste Édith en prose et vers par le moine Goscelin,’ ed. Wilmart, A., Analecta Bollandiana 56 (1938) 39, 43, 80, 81. Cf. also Ailred's comment on Edward: ‘… et ambulavit viis patris sui Edgari, homo mansuetus et pius, magis pace quam armis regnum protegens, habebat animum irae victorem, avaritiae contemptorem, superbiae expertem’; PL 195.734.Google Scholar

22 Freeman, Norman Conquest I 282.Google Scholar

23 Dclehaye, H., The Legends of the Saints (4th ed. tr. Attwater, D.; New York 1962) 15–16.Google Scholar

24 William of Malmesbury II 529: ‘Porro Edwardus illius progeniei ultimus, idemque et praeclarissimus ’Google Scholar

25 Kemble, J. M., Codex diplomaticus aevi Saxonici (London 1839–48) no. 824, ‘Prima carta Edwardi regis.’ This echoes probably a passage of the first Vita; see Lives of Edward (η. 1 supra) 396.Google Scholar

26 ‘Ejus adhuc leges apud nos judicia temperant,’ Bishop Gilbert Foliot writes to Pope Alexander III in support of Edward's canonization (Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, ed. J. C. Robertson and J. B. Sheppard [Rolls Series; 1875–85] V 19); for similar references by others, see F. Liverani, Spicilegium Liberianum (Florence 1863) 750, 753, 679. Already Edward's first biographer (before 1076) extolls the laws which Edward made and the peace of his reign (Lives of Edward 396); among the later hagiographers, see for example ‘La Vie de S. Édouard le Confesseur par Osbert de Clare,’ ed. M. Bloch, Analecta Bollandiana 41 (1923) 66, 73. I have dealt with the cult and with another epithet of Edward in ‘The Canonization of Edward the Confessor,’ Speculum 36 (1961) 38-60, and ‘St. Edward's Title of Confessor,’ Dublin Review No. 485 (Autumn 1960) 239-244.Google Scholar