Who Was Bishop of Winchester in 990?

Ælfheah (also spelled Alphage oe Alfege) became Bishop of Winchester in 984 only leaving this position to be consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1006. He was largely responsible for development of a cult of St. Dunstan, and due to his own deep sanctity and his martyrdom in 1012 was canonized in 1075 by Pope Gregory VII. It was he to whom Thomas á Becket was praying when he was murdered by four of Henry II's barons.

He was born in Somerset to a noble family in 954. He became a monk and later an anchorite (a type of hermit) but was elected abbot of Bath Abbey. As Bishop of Winchester he helped initiate the building of an organ so large that it could be heard more than a mile away. He built and stregthened churches in the city. In 994 when Vikings raided the area, he met with the famous Leader Olaf Tryggveson and persuaded him not only to agree to a truce and to convert to Christianity.

Ælfheah's holiness was so well known that it was inevitable that he would be chosen to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. His accomplishments as Archbishop include a journey to Rome, on which he was robbed, the writing of a life of St. Dunstan, a change in the Church liturgy, and he brought St. Swithin's head to Canterbury as a relic. He was a strong proponent of education, establishing the monastic school at Cerne Abbey. Ælfheah was present at the council of May 1008 where Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York preached his sermon Sermo Lupi ad Anglos or The Sermon of the Wolf to the English, which castigated the English for their moral failings and blamed those failings for the tribulations that were afflicting the country.

In 1011 Danes invaded England again and laid siege to Canterbury. They captured Ælfheah and on April 19, 1012, killed him. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle describes his death as follows:

. . . for there was wine brought them from the south. Then took they the bishop . . . on the eve of the Sunday after Easter . . . They overwhelmed him with bones and horns of oxen; and one of them smote him with an axe-iron on the head; so that he sunk downwards with the blow; and his holy blood fell on the earth, whilst his sacred soul was sent to the realm of God.

As a result, his feast day is April 19, and he is the patron saint of kidnap victims.

The image above is a painted carving of the death of Ælfheah and can be found at Canterbury Cathedral.