Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/117

ST. ELFRIC It is agreed, however, that Elfric became the 10th Abbot of St Alban's, being installed by Oswald, Bishop of Worcester and Archbishop of York; and on his elevation to the Bishopric of Ramsbury in A.D. 990 his half-brother Leofric was elected Abbot to succeed him.

His translation to Canterbury is omitted by William of Malmesbury; but under date A.D. 995 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, we read:—"This year was Elfric consecrated Archbishop at Christ Church (Canterbury)." The previous year notes the date of his election: "A.D. 994, this year Archbishop Siric died and Elfric Bishop of Ramsbury was chosen on Easter Day, April 21, at Amesbury by King Ethelred and all his Council."

In that particular MS. of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the British Museum (Cotton MS. Domitian A. viii) which appears to have originally belonged to the Library of Christ Church, Canterbury, and indeed to have been compiled within its walls and written in its scriptorium, are many references to Kent. Amongst them is the story of how Archbishop Elfric on arrival at his Cathedral was, much to his disgust, received by clerks and not by monks. It is curious that the references in this MS. to the expelling of Seculars and the filling up of their places by Regulars at Canterbury, are mostly additions added after the original transcription of the MS. and appear in the margin or on inserted scraps of vellum. It should be remembered that this particular MS. was written at the end of the eleventh, or the beginning of the twelfth century, and that these interpolations were probably influenced by a very natural monastic ambition on behalf of the Benedictine Priory at Canterbury for its glorification.

The statement that "Elfric was a very wise man, and that there was no saner man in England" we can accept unhesitatingly. It is the glory of the Church in England that we are able to say that most of its Archbishops of Canterbury bore the same character; but the special pleading found in this MS. as to the presence of monks in Christ Church Cathedral before the Conquest will scarcely be accepted by the students of Church History. Elfric was consecrated in 996, the year after his election to Canterbury, and as he had already been consecrated to Ramsbury, this statement probably means installation and enthronization on the reception of the pallium. 79