Saint of the Day Online - St Edmund of Abingdon
Saint of the day online, Monday, November 20, 2017
20-11-2017
St Edmund of Abingdon who was born at circa in 1174 was a 13th-century Archbishop of Canterbury in England. He became a respected lecturer in mathematics, dialectics and theology at the Universities of Paris and Oxford, promoting the study of Aristotle.
Obliged to accept an appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Gregory IX, he combined a gentle personal temperament with a strong public stature and severity towards King Henry III in defence of Magna Carta and in general of good civil and Church government and justice. He also worked for strict observance in monastic life and negotiated peace with Llywelyn the Great. His policies earned him hostility and jealousy from the king, and opposition from several monasteries and from the clergy of Canterbury Cathedral. He died in France at the beginning of a journey to Rome in 1240. He was canonised in 1246.