Passion of St Edmund

Passio sancti Eadmundi · Abbo of Fleury (c. 945-1004) · c. 985-988 · hagiography

Latin · domain: latin-tenth-eleventh · researched 2026-11-14

no English translation located. No published English translation of this text was located in the catalogues and series checked. Where only a non-English rendering or a translation of a daughter version exists, it is recorded below and does not close the gap. Treat this as a gap candidate, not as proof that no translation exists; the evidence names every source checked.

Why this is in the register

HOLLIS on 'Abbo Passio sancti Eadmundi' returns four records: two editions of the Old French verse 'La passiun de Seint Edmund' (Nabert, 1915), the Rolls Series 'Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey' (1890-96, Latin texts), and a 2015 English monograph (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Abbo%20Passio%20sancti%20Eadmundi&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 4 records). A second query on the English title returns three records, among them 'Three lives of English saints' (Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 1, 1972), which prints the Life of Edmund from MS Cotton Tiberius B. ii inside a Latin-text series for students, not a translation, and the 2015 study, whose contents include a section on Abbo's Passio (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Abbo%20Fleury%20Life%20of%20St%20Edmund&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 3 records). Migne PL 139 prints the 'Vita S. Eadmundi' at col. 507 (https://archive.org/details/patrologiaecursu0139mign). Abbo wrote the passion after learning of Edmund's martyrdom during his stay in England (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbo_of_Fleury). No English translation was located.

Abbo's Passio is the founding text of the St Edmund legend and of the whole Bury St Edmunds tradition; it is also a rare case of a French monk writing English history on English soil, and its preface on the transmission of the story by an old man to Abbo is a famous passage in the history of oral testimony. English readers reach Edmund through Old French and Middle English retellings, not through the Latin original.

Existing translations recorded

None recorded in English. Non-English versions, where they exist, are named in the evidence above.

Electronic text

Source and licence
archive.org · PDF scan · public domain (Migne, 1880) patrologiaecursu0139mign

Scanned witnesses

Scan search: not checked. Not searched in the scan pass: this dossier was outside the 121-work scan target set.

Harvard Hollis

Hollis query: "Passion of St Edmund" — 3 record(s); match basis title_only.

Record	Citation
The Anglo-Saxon world · 2002 · eng	"The Anglo-Saxon world." Woodbridge : Boydell, c2002. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990096156020203941
Private acts : short stories Pope, Robert · 1990 · eng	Pope, Robert. "Private acts : short stories." Chicago, IL : Another Chicago Press ; Oak Park, IL : Distributed by the Independent Literary Publishers Association, c1990. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/99159241303303941
The Anglo-Saxon world : an anthology · 1984 · eng	"The Anglo-Saxon world : an anthology." Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1984. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990023942170203941

Sources checked

Cite: Tergwame, “Passion of St Edmund” (latin gap dossier), 2026. https://naxiai.com/christian/gaps/latin-abbo-passio-eadmundi