SIXTEEN pilgrims walked 85 miles to mark the 1000th anniversary
of the translation of the relics of St Edmund, King and Martyr,
from St Paul's Cathedral to Bury St Edmunds, in 1013. The walk
commemorated the last of the saint's own journeys. St Edmund, King
of East Anglia, had been captured and was martyred by the invading
Danes in 869 for refusing to give up his Christian faith.
His bones did not rest in peace. He was first buried in a small
wooden church, close to where he was killed, and then transferred
to a larger church in Bedricsworth, that was later named Bury St
Edmunds.
When the Danes again threatened, in 1010, his bones were taken
to London for safe-keeping, only to be returned three years later -
which is what this pilgrimage commemorated. But he still did not
remain in peace. Cnut ordered a stone church to be built in Bury in
1020: the bones were translated yet again, and his shrine became a
centre of pilgrimage. Like so many, it was destroyed at the
Reformation, although there is a story that some of his bones were
taken to Toulouse, and later offered back to Westminster
Cathedral.
To mark that 11th-century return to Bury, the pilgrims, drawn
from Essex and Suffolk, started at St Paul's. They stopped at St
Andrew's, Greensted, in Essex - believed to be the oldest wooden
church in the world - where the relics rested, and then went to St
Stephen's Chapel, Bures St Mary, where it is believed St Edmund was
crowned King of East Anglia on Christmas Day 855. There, the
pilgrims were joined by about 60 other worshippers for a eucharist
presided over by the Bishop of St Edmundsbury &
Ipswich, the Rt Revd Nigel Stock, who joined them for
their next eight miles to Sudbury. The pilgrimage eventually ended
with a service in St Edmundsbury Cathedral, and prayers at St
Edmund's former shrine in the Abbey gardens.