What did Edward the Confessor Have to Confess?
Some Objects appear Holier in the Rear View Mirror
Who is your favourite cartoon villain?
Mr Burns from The Simpsons? Syndrome from The Incredibles? Scar from Lion King?
Over on Seen&Unseen, I write about what makes a villain, and how Dr Popp - the villain in Jazz Cow - isn’t just a villain for our age, but really the worst kind of villain. Why not go and find out why? And then please consider backing Jazz Cow as he fights against Dr Popp and his algorithm.
At the bottom of this post, there’s a conversation with Jazz Cow creator, John Lumgair. We talk about how Jazz Cow started and how to run a Kickstarter.
Okay, let’s wind back the clock a thousand years to Edward the Confessor - the goodie? - and William the Conqueror - the villain? Depends who you ask. And is history really written by the winners?
One longstanding gripe of modern life in the United Kingdom is the “Westminster Bubble”, an inward-looking, power-hogging group of self-interested politicians, officials and journalists, carefully maintaining entrenched systems of patronage whilst carefully managing reputations.
We like to think this is a modern invention, grandly assuming the problems we face are either new, or way harder than previous problems. Given we’re not likely to get cholera and are expecting hundreds of Vikings to rise up out of the sea and lay waste to the nearest monastery and town, I’d say our problems are fairly minor compared to those faced by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors.
Why I Write This Almanac
This is why I’m so interested in the past, and why I write this weekly almanac. It helps put our own problems into context. If you live on social media, consume a lot of news or ‘modern content’, you will convince yourself that everything is terrible, and end up furious, anxious or hopeless. So let me encourage you with this:
The Westminster Bubble is as old as Westminster Abbey itself. That’s getting on for a thousand years. The Abbey was completed in around 1060, but not consecrated until 28 December 1065, about a week before Edward's death on 5 January 1066.
Since that date, Edward the Confessor’s image has been carefully managed by the monks of Westminster Abbey. After all, on 13th October, the Church of England still remembers the only King of England to be canonised.
Today, Edward the Confessor, King of England (1042–66), is famous for three things: building Westminster Abbey – although one suspects he had help; being pious and holy – hence the Abbey; and dying without an heir, leading to the invasion of William the Conqueror – although William wasn’t called that when he invaded, obviously. (Maybe he was, being a positive thinker.)
Edward the Confessor may have been unable to produce an heir to appease the “Keep Britain Saxon” campaign, but he died with the reputation of being a holy man, hence the epithet ‘Confessor’. His uncle Edmund ‘the martyr’ had been killed by Vikings, and Edward couldn’t compete with that. The Vikings had become Christians. But Edward could build an abbey.
The abbey was key to Edward’s future reputation because where there’s an abbey, there are monks. And where there are monks, there are books: history books.
They say history is written by winners. Sometimes, it is woven by the winners. William the Conqueror commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry – although my daughter likes to point out that it is not a tapestry at all, but a work of embroidery. I don’t think William was too bothered either way. This astonishing work of embroidery – some would call it a stitch up – survives to this day. It tells one version of events.
History is not necessarily written by the winners. It is written by people who can actually write. That would be monks. Because of those clever monks at Westminster Abbey, Edward is not remembered for failing to produce an heir or nominate a clear successor. He is esteemed for his piety. He still is.
Some say Edward’s childlessness was a result of his holy chastity. He was married to Edith, from the powerful Godwin family which Edward apparently loathed. Some modern historians speculated this loathing made him determined not to see a son of a Godwin sit on the throne of England. Therefore, he abstained from the marital bed for dynastic reasons. Whatever the truth, Edward would become a patron saint of difficult marriages.
Such petty motives would never be ascribed to this pious king by the monks of Westminster. They continued their founder’s legacy long after William the Conqueror and his sons had passed away. Edward was credited with prophecies and miracles. In the 1130s, Osbert wrote “The Life of the Blessed Edward, King of the English”. It appeared that Edward was on a fast track for sainthood.
The Appeal of Edward
What was the appeal of the cult of Edward? Did he represent the Anglo-Saxon way of life before the Normans took over? Was the veneration of Edward a way of ‘sticking it to the Norman’? It appears the monks amplified Edward’s devoutness in order to achieve greater influence as an abbey. Even by 1066, Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset had been thriving for three hundred years. Canterbury for even longer. Westminster had to make up lot of ground.
In the end, Edward the Confessor was canonised in a classic piece of realpolitik. In 1161, Pope Alexander III, struggling for legitimacy against a rival ‘antipope’ Victor IV, supported by Frederick Barbarossa, granted Henry II his request in exchange for recognising his papal authority. The deal was done. Two years later, St Edward’s relics were moved – or translated – within the Abbey on 13th October 1163. In attendance was Henry II and his recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket.
Edward the Confessor, held to be a patron saint of England, was cast aside by Edward III when he established the Order of the Garter with St George as its patron. In 1351, the royal chapel at Windsor Castle dedicated to St Edward the Confessor was re-dedicated to St George. Ouch. St Edward did not just turn in his grave but had to roll over to make way for a Roman soldier, born in Cappadocia.
Westminster Always Wins
One might argue that both Edward and George were overshadowed by the man who watched the translation of Edward’s relics back in 1163: Thomas Becket. Even the Westminster Bubble could not diminish the cult of St Thomas of Canterbury, whose shrine drew pilgrims from all over Europe, including fictional pilgrims immortalised in the Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer.
And where is Chaucer buried? Along with Dickens, Hardy, Handel, CS Lewis, Dr Johnson and Rudyard Kipling?
That would be Westminster Abbey, final resting place of its first occupant, St Edward the Confessor.
Did you enjoy that? Why not forward this on to someone who might appreciate it? Or put it on social media or help fight the anxiety with history.
Here’s my conversation with John Lumgair about Jazz Cow and Kickstarter: