ST EDMUND HALL COMMUNITY & GIVING WEEK

Poppy Buckley (2021, Biomedical Sciences) & Elsa Giles (2021, History and French) completed a “13.17km run around Oxford in the sun as a break from finals revision!”

Lydia Smith (Regular Giving Officer) “I recently got a new puppy, Lemon, who we cannot yet take out for walks as we wait for her to get her final vaccinations. This week, I will do the walking for her, taking my puppy in a bag for a daily walk of 1.317 miles or more and writing a daily summary using 13 or 17 words.”

Day Three in 13 words: Sticking to the shade, keeping a keen eye out for those pesky cars.

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Emily Bruce (Head of Alumni Relations) “My contribution to the 1317 challenge – blondies with mini eggs with the date written (harder than I thought!). Was then eaten rather promptly (the cat did not get any despite his keen interest)”

Lydia Smith (Regular Giving Officer) “I recently got a new puppy, Lemon, who we cannot yet take out for walks as we wait for her to get her final vaccinations. This week, I will do the walking for her, taking my puppy in a bag for a daily walk of 1.317 miles or more and writing a daily summary using 13 or 17 words.”

Day Two in 17 words: Another day of sun, flowers and pretending we are abroad. Kept the walk short – for ginger skin.

Lydia Smith (Regular Giving Officer) “I recently got a new puppy, Lemon, who we cannot yet take out for walks as we wait for her to get her final vaccinations. This week, I will do the walking for her, taking my puppy in a bag for a daily walk of 1.317 miles or more and writing a daily summary using 13 or 17 words.”

Day One in 13 words: First trip on the train, visit to Christchurch Meadow and Medieval Mystery Play!

The Choir of St Edmund Hall “Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300–1377) was one of the most important composers and poets of the Middle Ages. His virelai ‘Douce dame jolie’ is a delicate and heartfelt song in which a lover pleads for mercy from an unattainable lady. It is one of the most celebrated examples of the ars nova style, combining lyrical poetry with elegant, flowing melody.
This performance of Douce dame jolie by the choir of St Edmund Hall marks a small tribute to the music of Machaut’s time. The earliest surviving record of St Edmund Hall dates to 1317—just around the time Machaut may have been born. Though Douce dame jolie was likely composed some decades later, it evokes the courtly world of the early 14th century, a world not so far removed from the one in which our Hall began.”

Performed by Director of Music, Carlos Rodriguez Otero, and Choir members Tiffany You (2023, Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Harriet Humfress (2023, Fine Art), Henrike Lähnemann (Professor of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics), Riya Bhattacharjee (2025, Visiting Student in Biomedical Sciences), Catherine Gower (2021, Earth Sciences), Oliver Riordan (Professor of Discrete Mathematics) & Alyssa Chan (2021, Engineering Science).

Text and translation

Old French:
Douce dame jolie,
Pour Dieu ne pensés mie
Que nulle ait signorie
Sur moy fors vous seulement.
Qu’adès sans tricherie
Chierie
Vous ay, et humblement
Tous les jours de ma vie
Servie
Sans villain pensement.
Helas! et je mendie
D’esperance et d’aïe,
Dont ma joie est finie,
Si vous n’avez pitié
De moy, pauvre amoureux.

English translation:
Sweet, lovely lady,
For God’s sake, do not think
That anyone has any power
Over me but you alone.
For always, without deceit,
I have cherished you
And humbly,
All the days of my life,
Served you
Without base thoughts.
Alas, and I beg
For hope and help,
Without which my joy is lost,
Unless you have pity
On me, poor lover.

Basil Lewis (1952, Geography) has written a poem with memories of the Hall and its impact using exactly 1317 letters and figures.

“Bedridden now 24/7
Teddy hall seems a far distant heaven.
69 years now will have passed
Since I left the hall, class teacher at last.
From class 2 to deputy. Then onto head
I gave up teaching. Inspector instead.
To a BBC local, the last move I went
And thirty-five years was the time there I spent.

Oxford itself was nothing too new
I ‘d been at school there since one nine four two
Going to college was normal for all
Most went to Oxford as I now recall
National service meant a two-year delay
But an illness at school stopped me going that way
So back to the hall, my thoughts now must turn
Back to my memories still hard and firm.

Kelly was Principal a canon of note
The Hall was the college which took my first vote
My memories still of the Besse block remain
One of the earliest occupants. That I can claim.
Mindful of people and events often come
Like Cudmore, and Kempster, and soccer man Lunn.
I could name many more, but it would not be right
So more of my memories now fill this site.

One of my hobbies I now ought to tell
Soccer referee; and linesman as well.
I also attended the union debates
And helped give their cellars a new type of fate
Our junior common room. Was a site to relax
Twixt chapel and Hall if I remember my facts
Scouts I don’t mention to avoid any errors
They served us so well; none of them terrors

A gift that I made to the hall long ago
Numbered fifty nine sixty a fine model loco
The railway had named it ‘Saint Edmund Hall’
To go with a name plate once placed on our wall.
Based here in Oxford, it would often appear
Taking a train a long way from here.

As I lie now awake, that ends my thoughts
Teddy Hall gave me pleasure and a degree of some sorts”

David Picksley (1953, Modern Languages – French and Russian) “Between 25 Apr and 2 May I undertake to walk 8.23 miles (13.17km). I hope that we get suitable weather then, but a drop of rain won’t stop me anyway.”

James Harpham (1959, History) “A carefully swung boogie piano piece based on the notational sequence: 1317 !!”

David Picksley (1953, Modern Languages – French and Russian) “I have been preparing a talk to be given to a local history society at the end of June. It is on the subject of the two Edmunds who are painted on the wall of our local All Saints Church in Sanderstead. They are the Martyr King and the Archbishop who was appointed while the church was being built from about 1230, namely Edmund of Abingdon. I have managed to tell the stories in 1317 words.”:

1317 Challenge

Edmund, (Eadmund) (841-869) was King of East Anglia. He was a Saxon, who was brought up as a Christian and became king before 865. One report says it was in 855, when he was 14. In 869 and 870 the Great Army of the Vikings invaded East Anglia, and Edmund led his troops against them. Much of the detail of this period is lost, destroyed by the invaders, so we are missing registers, charters or correspondence from the time. What we have comes from non-contemporary chronicles by hagiographers. One such was Abbo of Fleury who was a French monk who died in 1004, over 130 years after Edmund. There are coins of the period bearing his name. Because those contemporary documents from his reign were destroyed during this momentous event, few historical facts are known about the crucial battle. The traditional account is that he was defeated and captured. He refused to deny his Christian faith or to rule as the vassal of their leader Ingwar. Consequently, he was whipped, shot with arrows and beheaded. It is claimed that this all took place at Hellesdon in Norfolk, (Haegelsdun); perhaps elsewhere but at least the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does confirm 869 as the date of his death.

He was buried there, and a popular cult emerged after his death, he was seen as a martyr and was canonized by the Church. It seems to have become a norm in the Christian Saxon kingdoms that if a king was killed in a battle with a pagan, he became a martyr and thus a saint. A cult was usually established and would benefit from this. Other examples were Oswald in 642 and Ethelbert in 794. Today canonization is a declaration made by the Pope that the Catholic faithful may venerate a saint. Only since the tenth century is this the case. Later, in 915, Edmund’s body was found to be incorrupt a further indication of sainthood. It was moved to Bedwicksworth, which soon became St.Edmundsbury and later Bury St. Edmunds. A community was set up there to take care of the shrine. In the face of yet another Viking invasion, in 1010, the shrine was moved to London for three years. But the people of Bury wanted it back after that new peril ended. The Danish king Canute (Knut) who ruled England from 1016, and then converted to Christianity, founded the Benedictine Abbey of St.Edmundsbury, in which he placed monks from nearby St.Benet’s Abbey. This was completed in 1032. Edmund’s shrine thus became one of the most famous and wealthy pilgrimage locations in England. An even larger church was built in 1095, into which Edmund’s relics were translated. Almost nothing of this remains other than two entry towers. Two parish churches that were within the precinct of the Abbey did survive, one of them, St James became St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, much rebuilt in the 12th, 16th, and 20th centuries. In 1539 Edmund’s shrine was defaced during the dissolution of the monasteries, and silver and gold was taken away by Thomas Cromwell for Henry VIII. The abbot and his monks were expelled, and the abbey was dissolved. The body remained at Bury, where it is said still to be, but its actual site at the present day is not known.

St. Edmund of Abingdon (1175-1240) was born in Abingdon. Edmund was the son of a wealthy merchant known locally as Reginald Rich. This surname or patronymic was not one adopted by the family; they were known as “Of Abingdon”. Edmund was educated in a grammar school. He will have learned French and Latin, the former because it was the language still spoken by the aristocracy and court since 1066. Around 1189 at the age of just 14, he and his younger brother Robert moved to Paris. Just then this was a city in transformation. After taking most of the Angevin Empire from King John, Philippe Auguste was making it a political and administrative capital with a permanent royal residence in The Louvre. Notre Dame was still to be completed. On the under-populated left bank near the church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, some masters were already hiring rooms for lecture courses in the arts. Here the arts curriculum then consisted of newly translated books of Greek and Arabic philosophy, logic, and science. After graduating as master, he returned to Oxford and lectured in Arts for six years from 1195 to 1201. Within the city, as in Paris an informal assortment of dwelling houses was coming into being in which the masters were teaching. Towards the end of the period, he is said to have had a dream in which his deceased mother said that he should no longer dally with secular learning, and so in 1202 Edmund returned to Paris to immerse himself in theology for several years, learning and lecturing. But he did return to England, and after living a year with the Austin Friars in Merton, he incepted in theology at Oxford in 1214. He lectured on that subject from.1214 to 1222, During this time, he is known to have been teaching in a house on the corner of what is now Queen’s Lane and the High Street.Through their closeness in these classrooms, masters and their pupils also formed useful social connections with each other which enabled them to meet the need to secure a living with a benefice. Edmund was given one such in a York diocese which helped to support him financially while living and teaching in Oxford.

Through another academic connection, in 1222 he became treasurer at Salisbury Cathedral. This was not a financial appointment. As treasurer he was responsible for the precious objects—the vessels, vestments and reliquaries. He had also to provide at his own expense the oil and wax for lights for altars and shrines, the bread, wine and incense, and pay staff to do all the work involved. This was not so easy for him; besides having always been an aesthete, following closely the demands his religion, he also had acquired the reputation for extreme generosity towards the poor. To meet these expenses the chapter allocated the prebend of Calme in Wiltshire to the treasurership. In 1233 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Gregory IX after three other elections to this position had been quashed by the pope. This had been on the political grounds that the other candidates had held a secular office for the king, and canon law allowed the secular power no role in the process

Although he found administration and politics distasteful, he became an effective reforming bishop. He quite soon clashed with the young King Henry III, defending church rights and criticising the king’s continental policy. The barons supported Edmund. Civil war threatened. But he forced Henry (by threat of excommunication) to expel Henry’s French wife’s relatives and allies and then made the King promise to observe English law and customs. There were a few other clashes with Henry, who in 1236 asked the pope to send a legate, and Cardinal Otho was sent in reply to this request. Henry III upheld the monks of Canterbury in opposing Edmund’s visitations and authority there. In 1240 he was called to Rome. He stopped for a while at the Cistercian Abbey of Pontigny, where the locals admired him his aestheticism and benefitted from his generosity. But he became unwell and left. As he proceeded further, probably to return home, he died at Soisy on 16 November 1240 and was returned to Pontigny where he was buried and has his shrine. Histories claim that during the three-day journey back, crowds of his admirers surrounded the bier, and miracles occurred. An early demand for his canonization, was granted in 1247 by Pope Innocent IV. His legacy is St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. The earliest documentary mention of it by name occurs in a rental of Oseney Abbey for the year 1317-18.