ALPHEGE [AELFHEAH], SAINT (954-1023), archbishop of
Canterbury, came of a noble family, but in early life gave up
everything for religion. Having assumed the monastic habit
in the monastery of Deerhurst, he pased thence to Bath, where
he became an anchorite and ultimately abbot, distinguishing
himself by his piety and the austerity of his life. In 984 he
was appointed through Dunstan's influence to the bishopric of
Winchester, and in 1006 he succeeded Aelfric as archbishop of
Canterbury. At the sack of Canterbury by the Danes in
1011 Aelfheah was captured and kept in prison for seven
months. Refusing to pay a ransom he was barbarously murdered
at Greenwich on the 19th of April 1012. He was buried in St
Paul's, whence his body was removed by Canute to Canterbury
with all the ceremony of a great act of state in 1023.
Lives of St. Alphege in prose (which survives) and in
verse were written by command of Lanfranc by the Canterbury
monk Osborn (d. c. 1090), who says that his account of
the solemn translation to Canterbury in 1023 was received
from the dean, Godric, one of Alphege's own scholars.
This article is from the 1911 edition of an
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