Early Days

Evidence of early Anglo-Saxon settlement, Bedricesworth or Bedric’s domain, on the banks of the river Lark.

7th Century

King Sigebert, the second Christian king of the East Angles establishes a small religious community at Bedricesworth.

9^th Century

A large Danish army enters East Anglia and takes up winter-quarters at Thetford. King Edmund, the last king of the East Angles, leads his army to meet them and engages them just south of Bedricesworth. The Danes win and capture Edmund.

King Edmund refuses to bargain with the Danes unless they became Christian’s first. The King was then tied to a tree and killed by archers. As was the Danish custom they then decapitate the body and throw the head into some nearby woods. The date was the 20^th November 869.

The remnants of Edmund’s army retrieve the body and legend has it that the severed head called to them, and they found it being guarded by a wolf. The body was moved to Bedricesworth and placed in the village church. By the end of the century Edmund had been venerated as a saint.

10^th Century

The growing settlement became a site of pilgrimage to visit St Edmund’s resting place.

11^th Century

In 1020 King Canute builds a stone rotunda to contain the shrine and establishes a Benedictine community to tend it.

1065 Balwin becomes Abbot and redesigns the surrounding town based on the Roman rectangular grid. He also begins work on the Abbey church (St Edmunds). At this time the town is also renamed Bury St. Edmunds.

12^th Century

Abbot Anselm continues building St Edmund’s church, but enlarges on Abbot Balwin’s original design, requiring both the current parish churches to be demolished. St. James’ and St Mary’s were built on western side of the Abbey to replace them. During this time the saint’s body is moved from the stone rotunda and placed in St Edmund’s church.

13^th Century

On St. Edmund’s Feast Day (20^th November) the Archbishop of Canterbury and 25 of the most powerful Barons in the country meet to discuss and agree on a charter of liberties. They then took oaths on the High Alter to force King John to sign the charter. Six months later at Runnymede they succeed in getting King John to sign the charter or Magna Carta in Latin.

The Abbey continues to prosper, but townsfolk are unhappy with the Abbot’s power.

14^th Century

In January 1327 amidst the anarchy following the deposition of Edward II some 3,000 townsfolk rose up and forced the gates and ransacked the Abbey. After being subdued by the Sheriff of Norfolk the town were fined £14,000.

In 1331 the Abbot was kidnapped and held to ransom against the remission of this enormous fine.

The Black Death in 1346 provided yet another opportunity for the town’s people to rise up against the Abbey.

15^th Century

In 1430 Samson’s central tower over the west front collapsed.

Accustomed as the Abbey was to pillage and disaster, the fire which broke out on January 20^th 1465 proved to be the biggest disaster of all. Plumbers completing the restoration of the collapsed tower’s roof left a brazier burning while they took a break. The brazier was blown over and the resulting fire spread swiftly through the wooden roof of the nave. The whole church was soon ablaze including the shrine of St Edmund. As there is no mention of the shrine following this date it is thought that the saint’s body was cremated on that occasion.

The Abbey was reconstructed over the next century.

16^th Century

In 1533 the last great ceremony to be performed in the Abbey was that of the funeral of Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII and Queen of France.

In 1540 as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries the Abbey was surrendered to Henry VIII. The King ordered the body of his sister to be moved and re-interred in St Mary’s church.

The Abbey was sold on by the Crown, with the abbey precinct became a quarry for building material for the townsfolk. Today various buildings and boundary walls in the town still show evidence of this plundered stone.

17^th Century

In 1606 King James I incorporated the town.

During 1644, in the chaos of civil war, Matthew Hopkins, self appointed Witchfinder General condemned forty people as witches.

19^th Century

In 1831, after 300 years of neglect, the grounds, which were owned by the Marquis of Bristol, were laid out as a Botanic Garden.

In 1881 Queen Victoria gave St Mary’s church the “Queen’s Window” which portrays the life of Mary Tudor.

20^th Century

A new diocese of Ipswich and St Edmundsbury was created in 1913, and the Church of St James was chosen as the Cathedral.

21^st Century

Completion of St. Edmund’s Cathedral tower.