Page:Anglo-Saxon version of the Hexameron of St. Basil.djvu/19

xiv and between whom and the secular clergy intense rivalry prevailed - is proved by the Saxon Chronicle. "Then went Ælfric to his archiepiscopal seat - this Ælfric was a very wise man, there was no sager man in England - and when he came thither, he was received by those men in orders who were most unacceptable to him, that was, by clerks;" (the secular clergy). These clerks were ejected by him, after his return from Rome, from the minster of Canterbury, and their places supplied by men of the monastic order. (See Saxon Chron.)

In the year 996, by the unanimous consent of the monks, Ælfric was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, after the death of Sigeric. The Saxon Chronicle describes the election by King Æthelred and his council as taking place on Easter day, two years before, at Amesbury. Three years after this time, Ælfric goes to Rome to obtain his pall; according to a Norman interpolation of the Saxon Chronicle, which is supported only by the authority of one MS. (See "Ingram's Saxon Chronicle," published 1823.)

During the time that Ælfric presided over the see of Canterbury, England was much ravaged by the Danes under Sweyn. Ælfric died on Nov. 16th, A.D. 1006, according to Florence of Worcester, but in A.D. 1005 according to the Saxon Chronicle, and was buried at Abingdon, the place at which he had first embraced the profession of a monk, but his remains were afterwards removed to Canterbury during the reign of Canute.

The will of Ælfric, archbishop of Canterbury, proves his connection with the above-named places by his bequeathing to them various legacies; to Abingdon, he bequeathed land at Dumeltun, with ten oxen and two men; to St. Alban's, the land at Tiwe, Osanig, and London, which he had purchased - and to the people of Canterbury and Wiltshire, he bequeathed a ship to be given as a largess. Leofric the