Saint Joseph
Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, married to Mary, Jesus' mother, was Jesus' legal father. Joseph is venerated as Saint Joseph in the Catholic Church, Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, Anglicanism and Methodism, is known as Joseph the carpenter; some differing views are due to theological interpretations versus historical views. In both Catholic and Protestant traditions, Joseph is regarded as the patron saint of workers and is associated with various feast days. Pope Pius IX declared him to be both the patron and the protector of the Catholic Church, in addition to his patronages of the sick and of a happy death, due to the belief that he died in the presence of Jesus and Mary. In popular piety, Joseph is regarded as a model for fathers and has become patron of various dioceses and places. Several venerated images of Saint Joseph have been granted a canonical coronation by a Pope. In popular religious iconography he is associated with a spikenard. With the present-day growth of Mariology, the theological field of Josephology has grown and since the 1950s centers for studying it have been formed.
In the Apocrypha, Joseph was the father of James, Jude, at least two daughters. According to Epiphanius and the apocryphal History of Joseph the Carpenter, these children were from a marriage which predated the one with Mary, a belief, accepted by some select Christian denominations; the Pauline epistles make no reference to Jesus' father. The first appearance of Joseph is in the gospels of Luke; each contains a genealogy of Jesus showing ancestry from King David, but through different sons. All the names between David and Joseph are different; some scholars such as Harry A. Ironside reconcile the genealogies by viewing the Solomonic lineage in Matthew as Joseph's major royal line, the Nathanic lineage in Luke to be Mary's minor line; the epistles of Paul are regarded as the oldest extant Christian writings. These do not refer to his father; the Book of Mark, believed to be the first gospel to be written and with a date about two decades after Paul does not mention Jesus' father. Joseph first appears in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, both dating from around 80–90 AD.
The issue of reconciling the two accounts has been the subject of debate. Like the two differing genealogies, the infancy narratives appear only in Matthew and Luke and take different approaches to reconciling the requirement that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem with the tradition that Jesus in fact came from Nazareth. In Matthew, Joseph obeys the direction of an angel to marry Mary. Following the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, Joseph is told by an angel in a dream to take the family to Egypt to escape the massacre of the children of Bethlehem planned by Herod, the ruler of the Roman province of Judea. Once Herod has died, an angel tells Joseph to return, but to avoid Herod's son he takes his wife and the child to Nazareth in Galilee and settles there, thus in Matthew, the infant Jesus, like Moses, is in peril from a cruel king, like Moses he has a father named Joseph who goes down to Egypt, like the Old Testament Joseph this Joseph has a father named Jacob, both Josephs receive important dreams foretelling their future.
In the Gospel book of Luke, Joseph lives in Nazareth, Jesus is born in Bethlehem because Joseph and Mary have to travel there to be counted in a census. Subsequently, Jesus was born there. Luke's account makes no mention of him being visited by angels, the Massacre of the Innocents, or of a visit to Egypt; the last time Joseph appears in person in any Gospel book is in the story of the Passover visit to the Temple in Jerusalem when Jesus is 12 years old, found only in Luke. No mention is made of him thereafter; the story emphasizes Jesus' awareness of his coming mission: here Jesus speaks to his parents of "my father," meaning God, but they fail to understand.. Christian tradition represents Mary as a widow during the adult ministry of her son. Joseph is not mentioned as being present at the Wedding at Cana at the beginning of Jesus' mission, nor at the Passion at the end. If he had been present at the Crucifixion, he would under Jewish custom have been expected to take charge of Jesus' body, but this role is instead performed by Joseph of Arimathea.
Nor would Jesus have entrusted his mother to the care of John the Apostle if her husband had been alive. While none of the Gospels mentions Joseph as present at any event during Jesus' adult ministry, the synoptic Gospels share a scene in which the people of Nazareth, Jesus' hometown, doubt Jesus' status as a prophet because they know his family. In Mark 6:3, they call Jesus "Mary's son" instead of naming his father. In Matthew, the townspeople call Jesus "the carpenter's son," again without naming his father. In Luke 3:23 "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being the son of Joseph, of Heli." In Luke the tone is positive, whereas in Matthew it is disparaging. This incident does not appear at all in John, but in a parallel story the disbelieving neighbors refer to "Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know". Joseph appears in Luke as the father of Jesus and in a "variant reading in Matthew". Matthew and Luke both contain a genealogy of Jesus showing his ancestry from David, but through different sons.
Gabriel
Gabriel, in the Abrahamic religions, is an archangel. He was subsequently developed by other traditions. In the Hebrew Bible, Gabriel appears to the prophet Daniel. Gabriel the archangel is a character in other ancient Jewish writings such as the Book of Enoch. Alongside archangel Michael, Gabriel is described as the guardian angel of Israel, defending this people against the angels of the other nations. In the Gospel of Luke, there is the story of the Annunciation, where the angel Gabriel appears to Zechariah and the Virgin Mary, foretelling the births of John the Baptist and Jesus, respectively. In many Christian traditions including Anglican, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic, Gabriel is referred to as a saint. In Islam, Gabriel is an archangel whom God sent with revelation to various prophets, including Muhammad; the first five verses of the 96th chapter of the Quran, the Clot, is believed by Muslims to have been the first verses revealed by Gabriel to Muhammad. In the Latter Day Saint movement, the angel Gabriel is the same individual as the prophet Noah in his mortal ministry.
In Yazidism, Gabriel is one of the Seven Mysteries, the Heptad to which God entrusted the world and sometimes identified with Melek Taus. Jewish rabbis interpreted the "man in linen" as Gabriel in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Ezekiel. In the Book of Daniel, Gabriel is responsible for interpreting Daniel's visions. Gabriel's main function in Daniel is that of revealer, a role he continues in literature. In the Book of Ezekiel, Gabriel is understood to be the angel, sent to destroy Jerusalem. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Gabriel takes the form of a man, stands at the left hand of God. Shimon ben Lakish concluded that the angelic names of Michael and Gabriel came out of the Babylonian exile. Alongside archangel Michael, Gabriel is described as the guardian angel of Israel, defending this people against the angels of the other nations. In Kabbalah, Gabriel is identified with the sephirah of Yesod. Gabriel has a prominent role as one of God's archangels in the Kabbalah literature. There, Gabriel is portrayed as working in concert with Michael as part of God's court.
Gabriel is not to be prayed to because only God sends Gabriel as his agent. According to Jewish mythology, in the Garden of Eden there is a tree of life or the "tree of souls" that blossoms and produces new souls, which fall into the Guf, the Treasury of Souls. Gabriel takes out the first soul that comes into his hand. Lailah, the Angel of Conception, watches over the embryo until it is born; the intertestamental period produced a wealth of literature, much of it having an apocalyptic orientation. The names and ranks of angels and devils were expanded, each had particular duties and status before God. In 1 Enoch 9:1–3, along with Michael and Suriel, "saw much blood being shed upon the earth" and heard the souls of men cry, "Bring our cause before the Most High." In 1 Enoch 10:1, the reply came from "the Most High, the Holy and Great One" who sent forth agents, including Gabriel— And the Lord said to Gabriel: "'Proceed against the bastards and the reprobates, against the children of fornication: and destroy the children of the Watchers from amongst men: send them one against the other that they may destroy each other in battle: for length of days shall they not have."
—1 Enoch 10:9 Gabriel is the fifth of the five angels who keep watch: "Gabriel, one of the holy angels, over Paradise and the serpents and the Cherubim." When Enoch asked who the four figures were that he had seen: "And he said to me:'This first is Michael, the merciful and long-suffering: and the second, set over all the diseases and all the wounds of the children of men, is Raphael: and the third, set over all the powers, is Gabriel: and the fourth, set over the repentance unto hope of those who inherit eternal life, is named Phanuel.' And these are the four angels of the Lord of Spirits and the four voices I heard in those days." First, concerning John the Baptist, an angel appeared to his father Zacharias, a priest of the course of Abia, whose barren wife Elisabeth was of the daughters of Aaron, while he ministered in the temple: After completing his week of ministry, Zacharias returned to his house and his wife Elizabeth conceived. After she completed "five months" of her pregnancy, Gabriel is mentioned again: Gabriel only appears by name in those two passages in Luke.
In the first passage the angel identified himself as Gabriel, but in the second it is Luke who identified him as Gabriel. The only other named angels in the New Testament are Abaddon. Gabriel is not called an archangel in the Bible. Believers are expressly warned not to worship angels; the trope of Gabriel blowing a trumpet blast to indicate the Lord's return to Earth is familiar in Negro spirituals. However, though the Bible mentions a trumpet blast preceding the resurrection of the dead, it never specifies Gabriel as the trumpeter. Different passages state different things: the angels of the Son of Man.
Raphael (archangel)
Raphael is an archangel responsible for healing in the traditions of most Abrahamic religions. Not all branches of these religions consider the identification of Raphael to be canonical. In Christianity, Raphael is associated with an unnamed angel mentioned in the Gospel of John, who stirs the water at the healing pool of Bethesda. Raphael is an angel in Mormonism, as he is mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants. Raphael is mentioned in the Book of Tobit, accepted as canonical by Catholics and some Anglicans. Raphael is a venerated angel within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Lutheran traditions, he is given the title "Saint Raphael". In Islam, Raphael is the fourth major angel. Though unnamed in the Quran, hadith identifies Israfil with the angel of Quran 6:73. Within Islamic eschatology, Israfil is traditionally attributed to a trumpet, poised at his lips, when God so commands he shall be ready to announce the Day of Resurrection; the angels mentioned in the Torah, the older books of the Hebrew Bible, are without names.
Shimon ben Lakish of Tiberias, asserted that all the specific names for the angels were brought back by the Jews from Babylon, modern commentators would tend to agree. According to the Babylonian Talmud, Raphael is identified as one of the three angels that appeared to Abraham in the oak grove of Mamre, in the region of Hebron.. Michael, as the greatest, walked with Gabriel to his right and Raphael to his left. All three angels were commanded to carry out a specific mission. Gabriel's mission was to destroy Sodom. Rashi writes, "Although Raphael's mission included two tasks, they were considered a single mission since they were both acts that saved people." Raphael is named in several Jewish apocryphal books. The Life of Adam and Eve lists the archangels as well: Michael, Uriel and Joel. Medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides made a Jewish angelic hierarchy, which includes the archangel Raphael. Medieval French rabbi and Tanakh commentator Rashi views Raphael as being one of the three angels that appeared to Abraham in the oak grove of Mamre in the Book of Genesis.
Raphael is mentioned in the Book of Enoch alongside archangels Michael and Uriel. Raphael bound Azazel under a desert called Dudael according to Enoch 10:4–6: And again the Lord said to Raphael: "Bind Azazel hand and foot, cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, in Dudael, cast him therein, and place upon him rough and jagged rocks, cover him with darkness, let him abide there for and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgment he shall be cast into the fire." "Raphael, one of the holy angels, over the spirits of men." When Enoch asked who the four figures were that he had seen: "And he said to me:'This first is Michael, the merciful and long-suffering: and the second, set over all the diseases and all the wounds of the children of men, is Raphael: and the third, set over all the powers, is Gabriel: and the fourth, set over the repentance unto hope of those who inherit eternal life, is named Phanuel.' And these are the four angels of the Lord of Spirits and the four voices I heard in those days."
Of archangels in the angelology of post-Exilic Judaism, only Michael, mentioned as archangel, Gabriel are mentioned by name in canonical books. The identification of Raphael is not accepted as canonical by most denominations of Protestantism, as the name only appears in the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit; the name "Raphael" is recognized in church tradition as a result of Protestantism's origins in Catholicism. Raphael are not venerated in Protestantism; the Book of Tobit is considered deuterocanonical by Catholics and some Anglicans. In it, Raphael first appears disguised as the human travelling companion of Tobit's son, calling himself "Azarias the son of the great Ananias". During the course of the journey, the archangel's protective influence is shown in many ways including the binding of a demon in the desert of upper Egypt. After returning and healing the blind Tobit, Azarias makes himself known as "the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord" Tobit 12:15, he is venerated as Saint Raphael the Archangel.
Regarding the healing powers attributed to Raphael, there is his declaration to Tobit that he was sent by the Lord to heal him of his blindness and to deliver Sarah, his future daughter-in-law, from the demon Asmodeus, who kills every man she marries on their wedding night before the marriage can be consummated. In the New Testament, only the archangels Michael are mentioned by name. Manuscripts of John 5:1–4 refer to the pool of Bethesda, where the multitude of the infirm lay awaiting the moving of the water, for "an angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond, and he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he lay under". Because of the healing role assigned to Raphael, this particular angel is associated with the archangel. Due to his actions in the Book of Tobit and the Go
Münster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region, it is capital of the local government region Münsterland. Münster was the location of the Anabaptist rebellion during the Protestant Reformation and the site of the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia ending the Thirty Years' War in 1648. Today it is known as the bicycle capital of Germany. Münster gained the status of a Großstadt with more than 100,000 inhabitants in 1915; as of 2014, there are 300,000 people living in the city, with about 61,500 students, only some of whom are recorded in the official population statistics as having their primary residence in Münster. In 793, Charlemagne sent out Ludger as a missionary to evangelise the Münsterland. In 797, Ludger founded a school that became the Cathedral School. Gymnasium Paulinum traces its history back to this school. Ludger was ordained as the first bishop of Münster.
The first cathedral was completed by 850. The combination of ford and crossroad, market place, episcopal administrative centre and school, established Münster as an important centre. In 1040, Heinrich III became the first king of Germany to visit Münster. In the Middle Ages, the Prince-Bishopric of Münster was a leading member of the Hanseatic League. In 1534, the Anabaptists led by John of Leiden, took power in the Münster Rebellion and founded a democratic proto-socialistic state, they claimed all property, burned all books except the Bible, called it the "New Jerusalem". John of Leiden believed he would lead the elect from Münster to capture the entire world and purify it of evil with the sword in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ and the beginning of the Millennium, they went so far as to require all citizens to be naked as preparation for the Second Coming. However, the town was recaptured in 1535. Part of the signing of the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 was held in Münster; this ended the Eighty Years' War.
It guaranteed the future of the prince-bishop and the diocese. The last outstanding palace of the German baroque period was created according to plans by Johann Conrad Schlaun; the University of Münster was established in 1780. It is now a major European centre for excellence in education and research with large faculties in the arts, theology, sciences and law. There are about 40,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled. In 1802 Münster was conquered by Prussia during the Napoleonic Wars, it was part of the Grand Duchy of Berg between 1806 and 1811 and the Lippe department of the First French Empire between 1811 and 1813, before returning to Prussian rule. It became the capital of the Prussian province of Westphalia. A century in 1899 the city's harbour started operations when the city was linked to the Dortmund-Ems Canal. In the 1940s The Bishop of Münster, Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen, was one of the most prominent critics of the Nazi government. In retaliation for his success, Münster was garrisoned during World War II, five large complexes of barracks are still a feature of the city.
Münster was the headquarters for the 6th Military District of the German Wehrmacht, under the command of Infantry General Gerhard Glokke. Made up of Westphalia and the Rhineland, after the Battle of France it was expanded to include the Eupen - Malmedy district of Belgium; the headquarters controlled military operations in Münster, Essen, Düsseldorf, Bielefeld, Paderborn, Minden, Lingen, Osnabrück, Recklinghausen and Cologne. Münster was the home station for the VI and XXIII Infantry Corps, as well as the XXXIII and LVI Panzerkorps. Münster was the home of the 6th, 16th and 25th Panzer Division. A secondary target of the Oil Campaign of World War II, Münster was bombed on 25 October 1944 by 34 diverted B-24 Liberator bombers, during a mission to a nearby primary target, the Scholven/Buer synthetic oil plant at Gelsenkirchen. About 91% of the Old City and 63% of the entire city was destroyed by Allied air raids; the US 17th Airborne Division, employed in a standard infantry role and not in a parachute capacity, attacked Münster with the British 6th Guards Tank Brigade on 2 April 1945 in a ground assault and fought its way into the contested city centre, cleared in urban combat on the following day.
From 1946 to 1998, there was a Latvian secondary school in Münster, in 1947, one of the largest of about 93 Latvian libraries in the West was established in Münster. In the 1950s the Old City was rebuilt to match its pre-war state, though many of the surrounding buildings were replaced with cheaper modern structures, it was for several decades a garrison town for the British forces stationed in West Germany. In 2004, Münster won an honourable distinction: the LivCom-Award for the most livable city in the world with a population
Eduard Müller (martyr)
The Blessed Eduard Müller was a German Catholic priest and martyr. He was guillotined in a Hamburg prison by the Nazi authorities in November 1943, along with the three other Lübeck martyrs. Müller was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011. Born in Neumünster, his family were shoemakers. Müller grew up in poverty. After leaving school, he learned the trade of joiner and became a member of the Catholic youth movement. Members of Neumünster Parish assisted him to attend high school and study theology and he was ordained in Osnabrück in 1939, appointed as a minister for young people at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Lübeck; the Nazis had banned Church federation work with young people, but Müller took care of youth groups and led a discussion circle whose topics included National Socialism, political events and the military situation. Müller used information from British radio in his discussion and provided leaflets including copies of the sermons of Bishop Clemens August von Galen, which he duplicated with the prelate Hermann Lange and chaplain Johannes Prassek.
Müller, along with Prassek and Lange and the Lutheran pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, spoke publicly against the Nazis – discreetly – distributing pamphlets to friends and congregants. Following a 28 March 1942 RAF air-raid, after which Stellbrink tended wounded, he delivered a Palm Sunday sermon which attributed the bombing to divine punishment. Stellbrink was arrested, followed by the three Catholic priests each of whom were sentenced to death; the mingling of the blood of the four guillotined martyrs has become a symbol of German Ecumenism. Lübeck martyrs Kirchenkampf Catholic Church and Nazi Germany Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon. "Eduard Müller". Heiligenlexikon.de. Retrieved 10 November 2013. Archidiocese of Hamburg. "Lübeck Martyrs: Eduard Müller"
James, son of Alphaeus
James, son of Alphaeus was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, appearing under this name in all three of the Synoptic Gospels' lists of the apostles. He is identified with James the Less and known by that name in church tradition, he is labelled "the minor", "the little", "the lesser", or "the younger", according to translation. He is distinct from James, son of Zebedee and in some interpretations from James, brother of Jesus, he appears only four times in the New Testament, each time in a list of the twelve apostles. James, son of Alphaeus is identified with James the Less, only mentioned four times in the Bible, each time in connection with his mother. Refers to "Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses", while and refer to "Mary the mother of James". Since there was another James among the twelve apostles, equating James son of Alphaeus with "James the Less" made sense.. Jerome identifies James, son of Alpheus with James the Less writing in his work called The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary the following: Do you intend the comparatively unknown James the Less, called in Scripture the son of Mary, not however of Mary the mother of our Lord, to be an apostle, or not?
If he is an apostle, he must be the son of Alphæus and a believer in Jesus, "For neither did his brethren believe in him." The only conclusion is that the Mary, described as the mother of James the Less was the wife of Alphæus and sister of Mary the Lord's mother, the one, called by John the Evangelist "Mary of Clopas". Papias of Hierapolis, who lived circa 70–163 AD, in the surviving fragments of his work Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord relates that Mary, wife of Alphaeus is mother of James the Less: Mary, mother of James the Less and Joseph, wife of Alphaeus was the sister of Mary the mother of the Lord, whom John names of Cleophas, either from her father or from the family of the clan, or for some other reason. Therefore, son of Alphaeus would be the same as James the Less. Modern Biblical scholars are divided on. John Paul Meier finds it unlikely. Amongst evangelicals, the New Bible Dictionary supports the traditional identification, while Don Carson and Darrell Bock both regard the identification as possible, but not certain.
Jerome voicing the general opinion of Early Church, maintains the doctrine of perpetual virginity of Mary. He proposed that James, son of Alphaeus, was to be identified with "James, the brother of the Lord" and that the term "brother" was to be understood as "cousin." The view of Jerome, the "Hieronymian view," became accepted in the Roman Catholic Church, while Eastern Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants tend to distinguish between the two. Geike states that Hausrath and Schenkel think James the brother of Jesus was the son of Clophas-Alphaeus. In two small but important works ascribed by some to Hippolytus, On the Twelve Apostles of Christ and On the Seventy Apostles of Christ, he relates the following: And James the son of Alphaeus, when preaching in Jerusalem was stoned to death by the Jews, was buried there beside the temple, it is important to remember that the brother of Jesus had the same death. This testimony of "Hippolytus", if authentic, would increase the plausibility that James the son of Alphaeus is the same person as James the brother of Jesus.
These two works of "Hippolytus" are neglected because the manuscripts were lost during most of the church age and found in Greece in the 19th century. As most scholars consider them spurious, they are ascribed to "Pseudo-Hippolytus"; the two are included in an appendix to the works of Hippolytus in the voluminous collection of Early Church Fathers. According to the surviving fragments of the work Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord of Papias of Hierapolis Cleophas and Alphaeus are the same person, Mary wife of Cleophas or Alphaeus would be the mother of James, the brother of Jesus, of Simon and Judas, of one Joseph. Mary the mother of the Lord; these four are found in the Gospel... Thus, the brother of the Lord would be the son of Alphaeus, the husband of Mary of Cleophas or Mary the wife of Alphaeus. However, the Anglican theologian J. B. Lightfoot maintains; as reported by the Golden Legend, a collection of hagiographies, compiled by Jacobus de Varagine in the thirteenth century: James the Apostle is said the Less, how well, the elder of age than was St. James the More.
He was called the brother of our Lord, because I have resembled much well our Lord in body, in visage, of manner. He was called James the Just for his right great holiness, he was called James the son of Alpheus. He sang in Jerusalem the first mass, there, he was first bishop of Jerusalem. Alphaeus is the name of the father of the publican Levi mentioned in Mark 2:14; the publican appears as Matthew in Matthew 9:9, which has led some to conclude that James and Matthew might have been brothers. The four times that James son of Alphaeus is mentioned directly in the Bible the only family relationship stated is th
Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor known as Saint Edward the Confessor, was among the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England. Considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Emma of Normandy, he succeeded Cnut the Great's son – and his own half brother – Harthacnut. He restored the rule of the House of Wessex after the period of Danish rule since Cnut conquered England in 1016; when Edward died in 1066, he was succeeded by Harold Godwinson, defeated and killed in the same year by the Normans under William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. Edgar the Ætheling, of the House of Wessex, was proclaimed king after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, but never ruled and was deposed after about eight weeks. Historians disagree about Edward's long reign, his nickname reflects the traditional image of him as pious. Confessor reflects his reputation as a saint who did not suffer martyrdom, as opposed to King Edward the Martyr; some portray Edward the Confessor's reign as leading to the disintegration of royal power in England and the advance in power of the House of Godwin, due to the infighting that began after his heirless death.
Biographers Frank Barlow and Peter Rex, on the other hand, portray Edward as a successful king, one, energetic and sometimes ruthless. However, Richard Mortimer argues that the return of the Godwins from exile in 1052 "meant the effective end of his exercise of power", citing Edward's reduced activity as implying "a withdrawal from affairs". About a century in 1161, Pope Alexander III canonised the late king. Saint Edward was one of England's national saints until King Edward III adopted Saint George as the national patron saint in about 1350. Saint Edward's feast day is 13 October, celebrated by both the Church of England and the Catholic Church in England and Wales. Edward was the seventh son of Æthelred the Unready, the first by his second wife, Emma of Normandy. Edward was born between 1003 and 1005 in Islip, is first recorded as a'witness' to two charters in 1005, he had one full brother, a sister, Godgifu. In charters he was always listed behind his older half-brothers. During his childhood, England was the target of Viking raids and invasions under Sweyn Forkbeard and his son, Cnut.
Following Sweyn's seizure of the throne in 1013, Emma fled to Normandy, followed by Edward and Alfred, by Æthelred. Sweyn died in February 1014, leading Englishmen invited Æthelred back on condition that he promised to rule'more justly' than before. Æthelred agreed. Æthelred died in April 1016, he was succeeded by Edward's older half-brother Edmund Ironside, who carried on the fight against Sweyn's son, Cnut. According to Scandinavian tradition, Edward fought alongside Edmund. Edmund died in November 1016, Cnut became undisputed king. Edward again went into exile with his brother and sister. In the same year Cnut had Edward's last surviving elder half-brother, executed, leaving Edward as the leading Anglo-Saxon claimant to the throne. Edward spent a quarter of a century in exile mainly in Normandy, although there is no evidence of his location until the early 1030s, he received support from his sister Godgifu, who married Drogo of Mantes, count of Vexin in about 1024. In the early 1030s, Edward witnessed four charters in Normandy, signing two of them as king of England.
According to the Norman chronicler, William of Jumièges, Robert I, Duke of Normandy attempted an invasion of England to place Edward on the throne in about 1034, but it was blown off course to Jersey. He received support for his claim to the throne from a number of continental abbots Robert, abbot of the Norman abbey of Jumièges, to become Edward's Archbishop of Canterbury. Edward was said to have developed an intense personal piety during this period, but modern historians regard this as a product of the medieval campaign for his canonisation. In Frank Barlow's view "in his lifestyle would seem to have been that of a typical member of the rustic nobility", he appeared to have a slim prospect of acceding to the English throne during this period, his ambitious mother was more interested in supporting Harthacnut, her son by Cnut. Cnut died in 1035, Harthacnut succeeded him as king of Denmark, it is unclear whether he intended to keep England as well, but he was too busy defending his position in Denmark to come to England to assert his claim to the throne.
It was therefore decided that his elder half-brother Harold Harefoot should act as regent, while Emma held Wessex on Harthacnut's behalf. In 1036 Edward and his brother Alfred separately came to England. Emma claimed that they came in response to a letter forged by Harold inviting them to visit her, but historians believe that she did invite them in an effort to counter Harold's growing popularity. Alfred was captured by Earl of Wessex who turned him over to Harold Harefoot, he had Alfred blinded by forcing red-hot pokers into his eyes to make him unsuitable for kingship, Alfred died soon after as a result of his wounds. The murder is thought to be the source of much of Edward's hatred for the Earl and one of the primary reasons for Godwin's banishment in autumn 1051. Edward is said to have fought a successful skirmish near Southampton, and
