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.