Ælfheah of Canterbury
[10] The 12th-century chronicler, William of Malmesbury recorded that Ælfheah was a monk and prior at Glastonbury Abbey,[12] but this is not accepted by all historians.
[12] Probably due to the influence of Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury (959–988), Ælfheah was elected Bishop of Winchester in 984,[13][14] and was consecrated on 19 October that year.
Ælfheah refused to allow a ransom to be paid for his freedom, and as a result was killed on 19 April 1012 at Greenwich,[27] reputedly on the site of St Alfege's Church.
[19][20] 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.
Then they seized the bishop, led him to their "hustings"[d] 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.
[31] 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".
[32][e] Thorkell the Tall was appalled at the brutality of his fellow raiders, and switched sides to the English king Æthelred the Unready following Ælfheah's death.
[40] A Life of Saint Ælfheah 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.
[11] In the late medieval period, Ælfheah's feast day was celebrated in Scandinavia, perhaps because of the saint's connection with Cnut.
[44] In the town of Solihull in the West Midlands, St Alphege Church is dedicated to Ælfheah dating back to approximately 1277.
