bliss, in that wretched city whence had first come to us
Christendom and bliss before God and before the world.

[Footnote I: _i.e._ of English Christianity.]

"And they kept the archbishop with them as long as to the time when they
martyred him.

"A.D. 1012. In this year came Eadric the ealdorman, and all the chief
witan, religious and lay, of the English folk of London, before Easter:
Easterday was then on the date of the Ides of April (13th April). And
they were there then so long as until all the tribute was paid, after
Easter; that was eight and forty thousand pounds. Then on the Saturday
(19th April) was the (Danish) army greatly stirred up against the
bishop, because he would not promise them any money; but he forbad that
anything should be given for him. They were also very drunken, because
wine had been brought there from the south. Then took they the bishop,
led him to their husting on the eve of Sunday, the octave of the Pasch;
and there they then shamefully killed him: they pelted him with bones
and the heads of oxen, and then one of them struck him with an axe-iron
on the head, so that with the blow he sank down; and his holy blood fell
on the earth, and that his holy soul be sent to God's kingdom."

A sorrowful story of evil folly and treachery: a splendid story of
steadfastness to the end: of glorious martyrdom. The refusal to allow
himself to be ransomed at his pillaged people's cost; the greed of the
Danes; the death-stroke given him, we are told, in another chronicle, in
mercy, to put an end to his sufferings, given him by a newly-made
convert of his. And see how the Church has shown us, in her canonisation
as a martyr saint, of this man, who died not directly to testify to the
truth of the religion of Jesus, but for the sake of justice, that
justice is the outcome of Christianity, and that he who dies for justice
sake dies for God.

It was said by Lanfrane that AEfeah was not a martyr, because he had not
died for the Faith; but St Anselm said he was a true martyr, because he
died for justice and charity.

CHAPTER XII

Abbot AElfric, writer of Homilies, Lives of Saints, and other works.
Wulfstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.

The greatest of English prose-writers before the Conquest was AElfric,
who was educated at the school at Winchester which AEthelwold, a pupil of
St Dunstan, had founded. His works are very numerous. He wrote Homilies,
or Sermons, on Scriptural subjects, and Lives