The life of St Edmund

On Christmas Eve 1433, the young King Henry VI arrived at the abbey at Bury St Edmunds, one of the largest religious foundations in fifteenth-century England. He remained there until Easter and at the end of his stay was admitted to the abbey’s confraternity. To cement the abbey’s relationship with the king, abbot William Curteys conceived the idea of commemorating Henry’s visit with a ‘life’ of the Anglo-Saxon king, St Edmond, the patron saint of the abbey. The man charged with the task of translating the ‘life’ of St Edmond was John Lydgate, a monk at the abbey and the pre-eminent poet of the fifteenth century.