17th century. An arm is enshrined in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Assumption at St. Edmund's Retreat on Enders Island off the coast of Mystic, Connecticut. The retreat is operated by the Society of the Fathers and Brothers of St. Edmund. In 1853, the fibula of Edmund's left leg was presented to St Edmund's College, Ware, by Cardinal Wiseman. Many local cures of serious illnesses were attributed to the intercession of St Edmund; one of the earliest of these was of a student who nearly died after a fall in 1871. His complete healing led to the accomplishment of a vow to extend the beautiful Pugin chapel with a side chapel to honour the saint. The Islamic silk chasuble, with the main fabric probably made in Al-Andalus, that Edmund had with him at his death remains in a local church, with a stole and maniple. Character Edmund's life was one of self-sacrifice and devotion to others. From boyhood he practised asceticism; such as fasting on Saturdays on bread and water, and wearing a hair shirt. After snatching a few hours' sleep, most of the night he spent in prayer and meditation. Works Besides his "Constitutions," issued in 1236 (printed in W. Lynwood's Constitutiones Angliae, Oxford, 1679), Edmund wrote a work in the genre of the Speculum literature entitled Speculum ecclesiae (London, 1521; Eng. transl., 1527; reprinted in M. de la Bigne's Bibliotheca veterum patrum, v., Paris, 1609), which was translated into Anglo-Norman around the second half of the thirteenth century as Mirour de Seinte Eglyse ('a mirror of the holy Church'), a treatise about the Christian faith aimed at religious practitioners. (The French text was then revised in a version labelled by its editor as a 'lay version', which is attested principally in the manuscript London, British Library, MS Arundel 288). Religious Congregation of the Society of St Edmund Edmund's life inspired the formation of the Society of Saint Edmund at Pontigny, France, in 1843 by Jean Baptiste Muard and Pierre Boyer. The Society intended to keep Edmund's memory and life alive by conducting parish missions in the archdiocese of Sens, so as to revitalize the faith of the people who had become alienated from the Church. Members of the Society, based in Pontigny, fled to the United States in 1889 after widespread anticlericalism in France. The Society of Saint Edmund settled in Winooski Park, Vermont and in