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The St. Alphege Chapel
St Alphege (953-1012) was Abbot of the Anglo-Saxon monastery
at Bath while still a young man. In 984 he became Bishop of Winchester and in
1006 Archbishop of Canterbury.
In 1011 Alphege was captured by Vikings who had invaded
and overrun southern England in search of plunder. They set a huge ransom for
his release but the aged Archbishop, although he had suffered months of harsh
captivity, refused to order his poor people to raise the enormous sum demanded
for his freedom. His stubbornness infuriated his captors and the following
April while feasting at Greenwich, a party of drunken Vikings beat and pelted
him to death with ox-bones. Alphege became a saint in recognition of his life
of holiness and final self-sacrifice.
In 1997 a chapel was created in the Abbey to honour his
memory. The embroidered screen behind the altar shows St Alphege surrounded by
the bones that were used to martyr him.
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