Rich, Edmund, St

Rich, Edmund, St.

(French Saint-Edme), archbishop of Canterbury, was born in Abingdon, Berkshire, about 1190. Having studied at Oxford, he graduated in theology at the University of Paris, and lectured there for some time on Scripture. He taught philosophy at Oxford from 1219 to 1226, enjoying also a prebend in Salisbury. On April 2, 1234, he was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, enforcing discipline, by authority given by the king, in spite of the opposition of clergy and others. Pope Gregory IX appointing Italians to vacancies, Edmund deemed this an abuse of the papal power, and, about 1239, retired to the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny, in France. Being in feeble health, he went to Soissy, in Champagne, where he died. He was canonized in 1246 by Innocent IV. Among his works are, Constitutions, in thirty-six canons, found in Labbd's edition of the Councils: — Speculum Ecclesioe, in vol. 3 of Bibliotheca Patrum. A manuscript Life of St. Edmund, by his brother Robert, is preserved in the Bodleian library; another by Bertrand, his secretary, was published in Martene's Thesaurus Anecdotorum. See Appletons' Cyclopaedia, s.v.