The Afterlife of St Osmund: From Bishop to Saint, and from Old to New Sarum

Abstract

AbstractBishop Osmund of Salisbury died in 1099, after building a fine new cathedral in the late Anglo‐Saxon burh beside William I's new castle on top of the hill at ‘Old Sarum’. Only in the late twelfth century did St Osmund's cult get under way. This article follows the long drawn out story of his canonisation (finally achieved in 1457) and shrine construction in the magnificent new Salisbury cathedral. Although this shrine was destroyed in 1539, the original late twelfth‐century ‘foramina’ shrine, which was similar to Thomas Becket's first shrine in the crypt of Canterbury cathedral, still survives.