Dr Francis Young

The existence of Netizens implies the existence of Dotcomrades

I’m especially keen to see a story by A.N.L. Munby back in print, NB @liamsims.bsky.social

A film about folklore

Just got this from @blpublishing.bsky.social by @tanyakirk.bsky.social! 📚👻 shop.bl.uk/products/the...

Just about to do some filming 🎥

There's plenty happening at St Edmundsbury Cathedral this Christmas! As well as our advent services, we have a full roster of Christmas concerts! Find out more at stedscathedral.org/whats-on

If the award was conditional on the winning book being a scholar’s last book, it would also be a great way of getting senior scholars to finally pipe down

So many academic book prizes are awarded for first books, how about a prize awarded annually to the most promising last book written by a scholar? (the award would probably have to be posthumous, but still)

There’s a lot of this sort of housing left in London tho - the flats my grandparents moved into in Stoke Newington in 1938 are still there

Yes, I've done this

No-one expects sermons to be original - preaching is the one time you can subject a room of people to the most hackneyed cliches and there’s nothing they can do about it

Yes

I have Edmund: In Search of England's Lost King and can highly recommend it. A really interesting read. I would also recommend a visit to Bury St Edmunds and the Abbey Gardens.

Thanks!

There's certainly a great deal of border crossing! I also deal with the cults of other English saints in Ireland

Yes, it's a very recent development although it is of course a retconning based on the archaic spelling 'faerie'

If you're interested in learning more about St Edmund, don't forget my two books about him, both currently on special offer!

Edmund: In Search of England's Lost King bloomsbury.com/uk/edmund-97...
Athassel Priory and the Cult of St Edmund in Medieval Ireland fourcourtspress.ie/books/2020/a...

Just got this book to review 📚

Scientific research (like all proper academic research) is actually really boring, but thinktanks and the media don't like this fact

But we shouldn't forget a saint who was martyred alongside Edmund - Bishop Humbert of Elmham. An unnamed bishop advises Edmund in the earliest account of his martyrdom, but Humbert was only named later. Unlike other characters in the extended universe it's more likely he existed

But not everyone in the Edmund extended universe is a martyr - Cerne Abbey in Dorset claimed to have been founded by Edmund's brother St Eadwold, who escaped the Danes and became a hermit. The Cerne Abbas Giant may originally have depicted St Eadwold

Because martyrs are prestigious, and Edmund was England's most famous martyr of the Viking age, if you wanted a martyr saint you might want to associate him with Edmund - after all, lots of English Christians died in 869, who's going to notice another one?

We've met a fake cousin of St Edmund, so let's now meet his fake nephew: St Ragener of Northampton. Ragener is a 'found' saint, apparently invented in the c11th when a beautifully decorated grave slab was found under St Peter's church in Northampton

Fremund was venerated at Prescote and Cropredy in Oxfordshire, as well as Dunstable Priory and Offchurch. It's possible he was a real person, but the association with St Edmund may have been made in the c13th to boost this obscure saint's status

Fremund may be slightly better known than other characters in the extended universe on account of John Lydgate's poem The Lives of Ss. Edmund and Fremund, where he rolled their stories into a single work. Fremund is unknown until around 1220, however

This St Edmund's Day, let's talk about the *St Edmund Extended Universe*, the various invented relatives and associates that Edmund picked up along the way. First up, there's the obscure St Fremund (who?), allegedly a cousin of St Edmund... (thread)

Books of the Year 2025 David Abulafia In Silence of the Gods (CUP), Francis Young fills a gaping hole in knowledge about the religious beliefs of peoples living beyond the bounds of Christendom in medieval and early modern ...

Congratulations to @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social and Simon Goldhill, whose books, 'Silence of the Gods' and 'Queer Cambridge', have been selected by @thetls.bsky.social as Books of the Year 2025 🥳

Read more 🔗 (paywall): https://cup.org/4r9BMnA

In Our Time is the radio equivalent of a classic and much-lauded book that everyone pretends to have read

Today's the feast of St Edmund, King and Martyr, patron saint of East Anglia. A partial boss in St Edmund's church, Norwich, reads Velut Rosa, Vel Lilium, 'like a rose or a lily'. A sword and an arrow pierce three crowns.

www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/norwichedmun...

O invincible martyr
O unconquerable witness
O Edmund, like a rose or lily 👑🏹🐺