Abbo of Fleury (in Latin Abbo Floriacensis), also known as Abbon or Saint Abbo (c. 945 – 13 November 1004) was a monk, and later abbot, of the Benedictine monastery of Fleury sur Loire (the modern Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire) near Orléans, France.
He was born near Orléans and was educated at Paris and Reims, devoting himself to philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. He spent two years (986-987) in England, mostly in the newly founded monastery of Ramsey, assisting Archbishop Oswald of York in restoring the monastic system. He was also abbot and director of the school of this newly founded monastery from 986 to 987[citation needed].
Abbo returned to Fleury in 988, where he was selected abbot of Fleury after the death of the Abbot Oilbold. But another monk, who had secured the support of the King and his son Robert, Bishop of Orléans, contested the choice, and the matter assumed national importance. It was finally settled in favour of Abbo by the famous Gerbert of Aurillac (later Pope Sylvester II). The new abbot was active in contemporary politics: He was present at the Synod of St. Basolus (St. Basle), near Reims, at which Arnulf, Archbishop of Reims was tried for treason and deposed, to make way for Gerbert. In 996 King Robert II (Robert the Pious) sent him to Rome to ward off a threatened papal interdict over Robert's marriage to Bertha. On the way to Rome he met Pope Gregory V, who was a fugitive from the city from which the Antipope John XVI had expelled him. Between the Pontiff and the Abbot the greatest esteem and affection existed. The royal petition for a dispensation was rejected. Abbo succeeded in bringing about the restoration of Arnulf to the see of Reims. He was influential in calming the excitement and fear about the end of the world which was widespread in Europe[citation needed] in 1000.
Edmund the Martyr (Old English: Eadmund, ēad, "prosperity", "riches"; and mund, "protector"); also known as St Edmund or Edmund of East Anglia (died 20 November 869) was king of East Anglia from about 855 until his death.
Almost nothing is known of Edmund. He is thought to be of East Anglian origin and was first mentioned in an annal of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written some years after his death. His kingdom was devastated by the Vikings, who destroyed any contemporary evidence of his reign. Later writers produced fictitious accounts of his life, asserting that he was born in 841, the son of Æthelweard, an obscure East Anglian king, whom it was said he succeeded when he was fourteen (or alternatively that he was the youngest son of a Germanic king named 'Alcmund'). Later versions of his life relate that he was crowned on 25 December 855 at Burna, an unidentified location, and that he became a model king.
In 869, the Great Heathen Army advanced on East Anglia and killed Edmund. He may have been slain by the Danes in battle, but by tradition he met his death at an unidentified place known as Haegelisdun, after he refused the Danes' demand that he renounce Christ: the Danes beat him, shot him with arrows and then beheaded him, on the orders of Ivar the Boneless and his brother Ubbe Ragnarsson. According to one legend, his head was then thrown into the forest, but was found safe by searchers after following the cries of a wolf that was calling, "Hic, Hic, Hic" – 'Here, Here, Here'. Commentators have noted how Edmund's death bears resemblances to the fate suffered by Saint Sebastian, St Denis and St Mary of Egypt.