Elphege

Saint Elphege, whose Old English name was Ælfheah (also rendered Alphege), was a Benedictine monk, Bishop of Winchester, and Archbishop of Canterbury, remembered as a martyr of the Danish wars in England. He was born in the tenth century in England and is described in medieval lives as coming from a noble family. In youth he entered the monastery of Deerhurst in Gloucestershire. Desiring a harsher way of life than he found there, he left to live as a hermit at Bath. His reputation for austerity drew disciples, and he became abbot of the monastery at Bath, where he is said to have restored regular discipline.

In 984 he was made Bishop of Winchester, succeeding to a see closely associated with the tenth-century Benedictine reform. Writers of the following generations portray him as severe toward himself and open-handed toward the poor, using episcopal revenues for almsgiving. England in his time was repeatedly attacked by Scandinavian fleets. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Bishop Elphege and Ealdorman Æthelweard were sent to negotiate with Olaf Tryggvason; Olaf was confirmed, with King Æthelred as his sponsor, and pledged not to return as an enemy. After more than twenty years at Winchester, Elphege was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1006 and received the pallium as metropolitan of the English church.

The early years of his archiepiscopate coincided with a new wave of Danish invasion. In 1011 an army under Thorkell the Tall invested Canterbury. After a siege of some weeks the city was entered, amid killing and plunder; Christ Church cathedral was despoiled and burned. Elphege was taken prisoner and held for several months while his captors demanded ransom. He forbade payment of the sum they sought, unwilling that it should be wrung from a ravaged people or from the remaining goods of the Church.

On 19 April 1012, at the Danish camp at Greenwich on the River Thames, the archbishop was brought out during a drinking feast. He was pelted with bones and ox-heads and beaten; according to near-contemporary report he was finally put to death by a blow from an axe. Some narratives add that Thorkell tried to save him and that the fatal stroke was given by a man who had accepted baptism at his hands, in order to shorten his agony. The killing was treated by the English as martyrdom.

Elphege was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral in London. In 1023 King Cnut ordered the translation of the body to Canterbury Cathedral, where it was enshrined. A liturgical cult grew quickly. After the Norman Conquest, Lanfranc of Canterbury hesitated over whether death at the hands of drunken raiders constituted martyrdom; Anselm argued that Elphege had died for justice because he would not buy his life at the cost of his flock, and the cult continued. His feast is observed on 19 April. Greenwich, the traditional place of his death, has long been associated with his patronage, and a church dedicated to him stands near the site.