Ælfheah of Canterbury
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| Ælfheah | |
| Archbishop of Canterbury | |
|
|
| Consecration | 1006 |
|---|---|
| Enthroned | unknown |
| Ended | 19 April 1012 |
| Predecessor | Ælfric of Abingdon |
| Successor | Lyfing |
| Birth name | Ælfheah |
| Born | 954 Weston, Somerset, England |
| Died | 19 April 1012 Greenwich, Kent, England |
| Buried | Canterbury Cathedral |
| Sainthood | |
| Feast day | 19 April |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church;[1] Anglican Communion[2] |
| Canonized | 1078 Rome |
| Canonized by | Pope Gregory VII |
| Attributes | Archbishop holding an axe[3] |
| Patronage | Greenwich; Solihull; kidnap victims[4] |
Ælfheah (954 – 19 April 1012; Old English: Ælfhēah, "elf-high"), officially remembered by the name Alphege within the Church, and sometimes called Alfege, was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester, later Archbishop of Canterbury. He became an anchorite before being elected abbot of Bath Abbey. His perceived piety and sanctity led to his promotion to the episcopate, and eventually to his becoming archbishop. Ælfheah furthered the cult of St Dunstan and also encouraged learning. He was captured by Viking raiders in 1011 and killed by them the following year, after refusing to allow himself to be ransomed. Ælfheah was canonized as a saint in 1078. Saint Thomas Becket, a later Archbishop of Canterbury, prayed to him just before his own slaying in Canterbury Cathedral.
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[edit] Life
Ælfheah became a monk early in life. He first entered the monastery of Deerhurst, but then moved to Bath, where he became an anchorite. He was noted for his piety and austerity, and rose to become abbot of Bath Abbey.[5] Probably due to the influence of Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury (959–988), Ælfheah was elected Bishop of Winchester in 984,[6][7] and was consecrated on 19 October that year.[8] While bishop he was largely responsible for the construction of a large organ in the cathedral, audible from over a mile away and said to require more than 24 men to operate it. He also built and enlarged the city's churches,[9] and promoted the cult of St Swithun and Swithun's predecessor, Æthelwold of Winchester.[8]
Following a Viking raid in 994, a peace treaty was agreed with one of the raiders, Olaf Tryggvason. Besides receiving danegeld, Olaf converted to Christianity[10] and undertook never to raid or fight the English again.[11] Ælfheah may have played a part in the treaty negotiations, and it is certain that he confirmed Olaf in his new faith.[8]
In 1006 Ælfheah succeeded Aelfric as Archbishop of Canterbury,[12][13] taking St Swithun's head with him as a relic for the new location.[8] He went to Rome in 1007 to receive his pallium—symbol of his ties to the Apostolic See—from Pope John XVIII, but was robbed during his journey.[14][15] While at Canterbury he promoted the cult of St Dunstan,[8] ordering the writing of the second Life of Dunstan, which Adelard composed between 1006 and 1011.[16] He also introduced new practices into the liturgy, and was instrumental in the Witenagemot's recognition of Wulfsige of Sherborne as a saint in about 1012.[17]
Ælfheah sent Ælfric of Eynsham to Cerne Abbey to take charge of its monastic school.[18] He was present at the council of May 1008 at which Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York, preached his Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (The Sermon of the Wolf to the English), castigating the English for their moral failings and blaming the latter for the tribulations afflicting the country.[19]
In 1011 the Danes again raided England, and from 8–29 September they laid siege to Canterbury. Aided by the treachery of Ælfmaer, whose life Ælfheah had once saved, the raiders succeeded in sacking the city.[20][notes 1] Ælfheah was taken prisoner and held captive for seven months.[21] Godwine (Bishop of Rochester), Leofrun (abbess of St Mildrith's), and the king's reeve, Ælfweard were captured also, but the abbot of St Augustine's Abbey, Ælfmaer, managed to escape.[20] Canterbury Cathedral was plundered and burned by the Danes following Ælfheah's capture.[22]
[edit] Death
Ælfheah refused to allow a ransom to be paid for his freedom, and as a result was killed on 19 April 1012 at Greenwich[21] (then in Kent, now London), reputedly on the site of St Alfege's Church.[12][13] The account of Ælfheah's death appears in the E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
... the raiding-army became much stirred up against the bishop, because he did not want to offer them any money, and forbade that anything might be granted in return for him. Also they were very drunk, because there was wine brought from the south. Then they seized the bishop, led him to their "hustings"[notes 2] on the Saturday in the octave of Easter, and then pelted him there with bones and the heads of cattle; and one of them struck him on the head with the butt of an axe, so that with the blow he sank down and his holy blood fell on the earth, and sent forth his holy soul to God's kingdom.[23]
Ælfheah was the first Archbishop of Canterbury to die a violent death.[24] A contemporary report tells that Thorkell the Tall attempted to save Ælfheah from the mob about to kill him by offering them everything he owned except for his ship, in exchange for Ælfheah's life; Thorkell's presence is not mentioned in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, however.[25] Some sources record that the final blow, with the back of an axe, was delivered as an act of kindness by a Christian convert known as "Thrum." Ælfheah was buried in St Paul's Cathedral,[8] but in 1023 his body was removed by King Canute to Canterbury, with great ceremony.[26] Thorkell the Tall was appalled at the brutality of his fellow raiders, and switched sides to the English king Ethelred the Unready following Ælfheah's death.[27]
[edit] Veneration
Pope Gregory VII canonized St Ælfheah in 1078, with a feast day of 19 April.[1] Lanfranc, the first post-conquest Norman archbishop, was dubious about some of the saints venerated at Canterbury. He was persuaded of Ælfheah's sanctity,[28] but Ælfheah and Augustine of Canterbury were the only pre-conquest Anglo-Saxon archbishops kept on Canterbury's calendar of saints.[29] Ælfheah's shrine, which had become neglected, was rebuilt and expanded under Anselm of Canterbury in the early twelfth century.[30] After the 1174 fire in Canterbury Cathedral, Ælfheah's remains together with those of Saint Dunstan were placed around the High Altar, at which Thomas Becket is said to have commended his life into Ælfheah's care shortly before his martyrdom.[8] An incised paving slab to the north of the present High Altar marks the spot where the medieval shrine is believed to have stood.[1] A Life of St. Alphege in prose and verse was written by a Canterbury monk named Osbern, at Lanfranc's request. The prose version has survived, but the Life is very much a hagiography: many of the stories it contains have obvious Biblical parallels, making them suspect as a historical record.[8]
[edit] Notes
[edit] Citations
- ^ a b c Delaney Dictionary of Saints pp. 29–30
- ^ Holford-Strevens, et al. Oxford Book of Days pp. 160–161
- ^ "St. Alphege". Catholic Online. http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1278. Accessed on 18 February 2009
- ^ "Saint Alphege of Winchester". Saints. SPQN. http://saints.sqpn.com/saintajw.htm. Accessed on 18 February 2009
- ^ Knowles, et al. Heads of Religious Houses, England and Wales pp. 28, 241
- ^ Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 223
- ^ Barlow English Church 1000–1066 p. 109 footnote 5
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Leyser "Ælfheah (d. 1012) (subscription required)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ Hindley A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons pp. 304–305
- ^ Stenton Anglo-Saxon England p. 378
- ^ Williams Æthelred the Unready p. 47
- ^ a b Walsh A New Dictionary of Saints p. 28
- ^ a b Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 214
- ^ Barlow English Church 1000–1066 pp. 298–299 footnote 7
- ^ Schoenig "Bonds of Wool" America: The National Catholic Weekly p. 19
- ^ Barlow English Church 1000–1066 p. 62
- ^ Barlow English Church 1000–1066 p. 223
- ^ Stenton Anglo-Saxon England p. 458
- ^ Fletcher Bloodfeud p. 94
- ^ a b Williams Æthelred the Unready pp. 106–107
- ^ a b Hindley A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons p. 301
- ^ Barlow English Church 1000–1066 pp. 209–210
- ^ a b Swanton Anglo-Saxon Chronicle p. 142
- ^ Fletcher Bloodfeud p. 78
- ^ Williams Æthelred the Unready pp. 109–110
- ^ Hindley A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons pp. 309–310
- ^ Stenton Anglo-Saxon England p. 383
- ^ Williams English and the Norman Conquest p. 137
- ^ Stenton Anglo-Saxon England p. 672
- ^ Brooke Popular Religion in the Middle Ages p. 40
[edit] References
- Barlow, Frank (1979). The English Church 1000–1066: A History of the Later Anglo-Saxon Church (Second ed.). New York: Longman. ISBN 0-582-49049-9. OCLC 4514947.
- Brooke, Christopher; Brooke, Rosalind (1996). Popular Religion in the Middle Ages: Western Europe 1000–1300 (Reprint ed.). New York: Barnes & Noble. ISBN 0-76070-093-1. OCLC 36029027.
- Delaney, John P. (1980). Dictionary of Saints (Second ed.). Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-13594-7. OCLC 54709118.
- Fletcher, R. A. (2003). Bloodfeud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-516136-X.
- Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X. OCLC 183920684.
- Hindley, Geoffrey (2006). A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons: The Beginnings of the English Nation. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0-78671-738-5. OCLC 70637347.
- Holford-Strevens, Leofranc; Blackburn, Bonnie J. (2000). The Oxford Book of Days. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-866260-2.
- Knowles, David; London, Vera C. M.; Brooke, Christopher (2001). The Heads of Religious Houses, England and Wales, 940–1216 (Second ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-80452-3. OCLC 133161958.
- Leyser, Henrietta (September 2004). "Ælfheah (d. 1012)" (fee required). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (October 2006 ed.). Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/181. Accessed 7 November 2007
- Schoenig, Steven A. (16 January 2006). "Bonds of Wool". America: The American Catholic Weekly. http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=4575. Accessed 30 April 2009
- Stenton, F. M. (1971). Anglo-Saxon England (Third ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280139-5. OCLC 185499725.
- Swanton, Michael James (trans.) (1998). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92129-5.
- Walsh, Michael J. (2007). A New Dictionary of Saints: East and West. London: Burns & Oats. ISBN 0-8601-2438-X. OCLC 154691725.
- Williams, Ann (2003). Aethelred the Unready: The Ill-Counselled King. London: Hambledon & London. ISBN 1-85285-382-4. OCLC 51780838.
- Williams, Ann (2000). The English and the Norman Conquest. Ipswich: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-708-4.
[edit] Further reading
- McDougal, I. (1993). "Serious Entertainments: An Examination of a Peculiar Type of Viking Atrocity". Anglo-Saxon England XXII. pp. 201–225.
[edit] External links
| Roman Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Æthelwold |
Bishop of Winchester 984–1006 |
Succeeded by Cenwulf of Winchester |
| Preceded by Ælfric of Abingdon |
Archbishop of Canterbury 1006–1012 |
Succeeded by Lyfing |
