Saint Fremund

Last updated July 09, 2024

Saint Fremund, also known as Freomund, was a ninth-century saint, hermit and martyr in Anglo-Saxon England.^[1] He is venerated at both the village of Prescote in Oxfordshire, where he is patron saint, and at Dunstable Priory in Bedfordshire.

Legend and life

The following summary of the legend as it runs in John of Tynemouth's version is given by Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy.^[2]

Fremund was the son of a pagan king who reigned in England, named Offa, and his queen Botilda, his birth being foretold by a child, who died when three days old. He is baptized by Bishop Heswi, performs many miracles, and converts his parents. Offa resigns his kingdom to his son, who, after governing a year and a half, forsakes the throne to serve God in a desert place, accompanied by Burchard (who afterwards wrote his life) and another attendant. He then embarks in a vessel, sailing from Caerleon-on-Usk, and is driven to a small island called Ylefage, sometimes identified with Lundy,^[3] which is infested by demons. Here he lives seven years on fruits and roots. Hinguar and his brother, Hubba ravage England and put King Edmund to death.^[4] Offa sends twenty nobles to seek his son throughout England, and, finding him, they implore his aid, and he assents in consequence of a vision in which it is revealed that each of his companions shall appear a thousand to his enemies. He attacks and defeats 40,000 of the enemy with the twenty who have come to seek him, in addition to his two companions; in a great battle at Radford Semele and, while he is prostrate in thanksgiving for the victory, Oswi, formerly one of Offa's commanders, but who had apostatized and joined the pagans, cuts off his head. Blood spurts over Oswi, who implores absolution and forgiveness, which the head pronounces. Fremund rises and carries his head some distance, when, a spring bursting forth, he washes his wound, falls prostrate and expires.

The legend has a number of historical inconsistencies. Offa's wife was called Cynethryth not Botilda and the name is not mentioned in any charter or by any chronicler. Bishop Heswi, or Oswy as the name is written in John Lydgate's Metrical Legend, cannot be identified. Offa died on 29 July 796 and was succeeded by his son Ecgfrith, "Who had been anointed king in his lifetime" according to William of Malmsbury ^[5] and Æthelweard.^[6] Egferth died the same year as Offa and so none of the legend fits the history on these points.^[7] King Edmund was martyred in November 870, 74 years after Offa's death.^[4] And therefore the connection with the Danish invasion seems more probable than that with Offa, and so Fremund, if he existed, should be dated to the mid 9th century.^[8]

Veneration

After his death Fremund's body was taken to Offchurch in Warwickshire where his tomb became a place of pilgrimage for those seeking healing.^[7] In about AD 931 his remains were taken to Cropredy in Oxfordshire. Later, around 1207-1210, some of his relics were removed from Cropredy to a new shrine at Dunstable Priory in Bedfordshire, but his shrine at Cropredy continued to be venerated until early in the 16th century.^[8] His shrines at both Cropredy and Dunstable were destroyed in the 1530s during the English Reformation.

St. Fremund's feast day in May continued to be celebrated as a fair in Dunstable until early in the 20th century.^[3] A parish church of St. Fremund the Martyr was built in 1967-68 to serve a new housing estate in Dunstable (grid reference TL22052375 ).^[9]

Historical sources

The earliest known author to record the legend appears to be William of Ramsey, a compiler of lives of saints and others, and who seems to have been a monk of Croyland. Writing around 1220, his account is a version, in Latin verse, of a legend which probably belonged to the twelfth century. However, none of the earlier chroniclers, such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, Matthew Paris, mention Fremund at all, though all deal with aspects of the reign of Offa. Further, though Offa's children and relations sign charters, the name of Fremund does not occur anywhere. Besides this, there is a prose version of the fourteenth century, which may well include much of the original twelfth-century version, though probably simplified. It occurs in the collection Sanctilogium Angliae Walliae Scotiae et Hiberniae compiled by John of Tynemouth in 1366 and summarised by Hardy above.^[7]

Related Research Articles

Ælfheah, more commonly known today as Alphege, was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester, later Archbishop of Canterbury. He became an anchorite before being elected abbot of Bath Abbey. His reputation for piety and sanctity led to his promotion to the episcopate and, eventually, to his becoming archbishop. Ælfheah furthered the cult of Dunstan and also encouraged learning. He was captured by Viking raiders in 1011 during the siege of Canterbury and killed by them the following year after refusing to allow himself to be ransomed. Ælfheah was canonised as a saint in 1078. Thomas Becket, a later Archbishop of Canterbury, prayed to Ælfheah just before his murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund the Martyr</span> King of East Anglia from about 855 until 869

Edmund the Martyr was king of East Anglia from about 855 until his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oswine of Deira</span> 7th-century English monarch and Christian saint

Oswine, Oswin or Osuine was a King of Deira in northern England.

Repton is a village and civil parish in the South Derbyshire district of Derbyshire, England, located on the edge of the River Trent floodplain, about 5 miles (8 km) north of Swadlincote. The population taken at the 2001 census was 2,707, increasing to 2,867 at the 2011 census. Repton is close to the county boundary with neighbouring Staffordshire and about 5 miles (8 km) northeast of Burton upon Trent.

Coenred was king of Mercia from 704 to 709. Mercia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the English Midlands. He was a son of the Mercian king Wulfhere, whose brother Æthelred succeeded to the throne in 675 on Wulfhere's death. In 704, Æthelred abdicated in favour of Coenred to become a monk.

Frithuswith, commonly Frideswide, was an English princess and abbess. She is credited as the foundress of a monastery later incorporated into Christ Church, Oxford. She was the daughter of a sub-king of a Mercia named Dida of Eynsham whose lands occupied western Oxfordshire and the upper reaches of the River Thames.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osgyth</span>

Osgyth was a Mercian noblewoman and prioress, venerated as an English saint since the 8th century, from soon after her death. She is primarily commemorated in the village of St Osyth, in Essex, near Colchester. Alternative spellings of her name include Sythe, Othith and Ositha. Born of a noble family, she became a nun and founded a priory near Chich which was later named after her.

Cropredy is a village and civil parish on the River Cherwell, 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Banbury in Oxfordshire.

Saint Kenelm was an Anglo-Saxon saint, venerated throughout medieval England, and mentioned in the Canterbury Tales. William of Malmesbury, writing in the 12th century, recounted that "there was no place in England to which more pilgrims travelled than to Winchcombe on Kenelm's feast day".

Æthelberht, also called Saint Ethelbert the King was an 8th-century saint and a king of East Anglia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Little is known of his reign, which may have begun in 779, according to later sources, and very few of the coins he issued have been discovered. It is known from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that he was killed on the orders of Offa of Mercia in 794.

Wihtburh was an East Anglian saint, princess and abbess. According to tradition, she was the youngest daughter of Anna, king of the East Angles, but Virginia Blanton has suggested that the royal connection was probably a fabrication. One story says that the Virgin Mary sent a pair of female deer to provide milk for Wihtburh's workers during the construction of her convent at Dereham, in Norfolk. When a local official attempted to hunt down the does, he was thrown from his horse and killed.

Offchurch is a village and civil parish on the River Leam, 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 250.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ubba</span> 9th-century Viking leader of the Great Heathen Army

Ubba was a 9th-century Viking and one of the commanders of the Great Heathen Army that invaded Anglo-Saxon England in the 860s. The Great Army appears to have been a coalition of warbands drawn from Scandinavia, Ireland, the Irish Sea region and Continental Europe. There is reason to suspect that a proportion of the Viking forces specifically originated in Frisia, where some Viking commanders are known to have held fiefdoms on behalf of the Franks. Some sources describe Ubba as dux of the Frisians, which could be evidence that he also associated with a Frisian benefice.

Juthwara or Jutwara was a virgin and martyr from Dorset. According to her legend, she was an eighth-century Saxon, and sister to Sidwell, though some historians have theorised she was a Briton living in the sixth century. Her relics were translated to Sherborne during the reign of Ethelred the Unready. Nothing further is known with certainty about her life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Gregory's Minster, Kirkdale</span> Church in North Yorkshire, England

St Gregory's Minster is an Anglo-Saxon church with a rare sundial, in Kirkdale near Kirkbymoorside, Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, England. It is a Grade I listed building.

Events from the 10th century in the Kingdom of England.

The Kingdom of the East Angles, informally known as the Kingdom of East Anglia, was a small independent kingdom of the Angles during the Anglo-Saxon period comprising what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the Fens, the area still known as East Anglia.

Richard de Morins, also known as Richard of Mores, Richard de Mores, Ricardus de Mores, and Ricardus Anglicus was an English Augustinian canon of Merton Priory, before becoming prior at Dunstable Priory in 1202.

Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury was the first wife of King Edmund I. She was Queen of the English from her marriage in around 939 until her death in 944. Ælfgifu and Edmund were the parents of two future English kings, Eadwig and Edgar. Like her mother Wynflaed, Ælfgifu had a close and special if unknown connection with the royal nunnery of Shaftesbury (Dorset), founded by King Alfred, where she was buried and soon revered as a saint. According to a pre-Conquest tradition from Winchester, her feast day is 18 May.

Indract or Indracht was an Irish saint who, along with his companions, was venerated at Glastonbury Abbey, a monastery in the county of Somerset in south-western England. In the High Middle Ages Glastonbury tradition held that he had been an Irish pilgrim — a king's son – on his way back from Rome who was molested and killed by a local thegn after he had stopped off to visit the shrine of St Patrick. This tradition synchronised his life with that of King Ine (688–726), though historian Michael Lapidge has argued that he is most likely to represent a 9th-century abbot of Iona named Indrechtach ua Fínnachta.

References

↑ John Blair, "Anglo Saxon Oxfordshire" (Alan Sutton Publications 1994).
↑ Descriptive Catalogue of Materials Relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland: From 1066 A. D. to 1200 A. D, Sir T. D Hardy, Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1865
1 2 "The Parish of Dunstable: Who was St. Fremund?" . Retrieved 22 October 2009.
1 2 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. M. Swanton (Dent, London 1997), s.a. 911-918.
↑ Gesta Regum Anglorum, William of Malmsbury
↑ The Chronicle of Aethelwerd
1 2 3 A Forgotten Saint, Rev. Canon Wood, D.D., The Antiquary (Volume 27), Jan & Jun 1893
1 2 'Parishes: Cropredy', A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 10: Banbury hundred (1972), pp. 157-175. URL: Date accessed: 25 January 2012.
↑ "The Parish of Dunstable: History of St Fremund's Church, Dunstable" . Retrieved 22 October 2009.

Sources

Crossley, Alan; Christina Colvin, Janet Cooper, N. H. Cooper, P. D. A. Harvey, Marjory Hollings, Judith Hook, Mary Jessup, Mary D. Lobel, J. F. A. Mason, B. S. Trinder, Hilary Turner (1972). Victoria County History: a History of the County of Oxford, Volume 10. pp. 157–175.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Lydgate, John (2004). The life of St Edmund, King and martyr. London: British Library Publishing Division. ISBN 0-7123-4871-9. OCLC: 59265769.
James Ivan Miller (1967). "John Lydgate's Saint Edmund and Saint Fremund" (Dissertation). Harvard University.
Barbara Watling (2008). "St Fremund. The Lost Patron Saint of Dunstable". Catholic Life Magazine. Archived from the original (Article) on 2011-07-17.
Winstead, K. A. (2007). John Capgrave's Fifteenth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 130–132. ISBN 978-0-8122-3977-5. OCLC: 70259035.
Rev. Canon Wood, D.D. (1893). "A Forgotten Saint" (Article). The Antiquary . 27.

Authority control databases
International	VIAF
National	Czech Republic