Monthly Talk – Remembering (and forgetting) St Edmund after the Reformation.

by Guest Speaker, Francis Young

The cult of St Edmund did not disappear after the destruction of his shrine in Bury St Edmunds in November 1539, and St Edmund continued to be remembered (although at times rather hazily) in Suffolk after the Reformation, as well as by exiled communities of English Catholics abroad. This talk looks at how the memory of St Edmund was retained after the Reformation and the 19th-century revival of interest in the saint that led to the awareness of St Edmund we have today.

Canon Dr Francis Young was born and brought up in Bury St Edmunds and is the author of over 20 books, several of which are about St Edmund, including Edmund: In Search of England’s Lost King (2018). He is a historian of religion and belief, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and an honorary canon of St Edmundsbury Cathedral.