A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



residences of the clergy, determined if possible to stamp out the faith through- 

 out the whole of that region. Then arose Alfred, and when at last peace was 

 signed between the English monarch and Guthrum the Dane, it was arranged 

 that the latter should leave Wessex, but should be permitted to retain East 

 Anglia and other northern territory. It was also stipulated that Guthrum 

 should accept Christianity as the religion of his people. Guthrum was 

 accordingly baptized, Alfred standing as his godfather, and took the new 

 name of Athelstan. For ten years he ruled in East Anglia, abiding there, 

 and died in 890. For at least thirty years after his death the province was 

 entirely under Danish rule ; but the chroniclers are almost silent as to its 

 internal condition, and the extent to which Christianity was maintained is a 

 matter of conjecture. 



Dunwich is not heard of again as the seat of a bishopric ; probably the 

 incursions of the sea had already begun to deprive it of some of its import- 

 ance. Elmham, on the contrary, in the centre of Norfolk, seems to have 

 been recognized as a more suitable station for a bishop than any place on the 

 coast line, and when bishops of East Anglia begin again to be named they 

 are invariably, for more than a century, bishops of Elmham. 1 



The Danes had been brought into subjection by Alfred's son, Edward 

 the Elder, in 921, and East Anglia again came under English rule. 2 After 

 the Danish suppression a strong revival of monastic life under the Benedictine 

 rule passed over England. 3 But monastic fervour was suffered to receive another 

 severe check from Danish incursions. In 991 and again in 993 Ipswich 

 was ravaged, and a tribute exacted on account of the great terror of the wild 

 Northmen which existed on the coast line. In 1 004 King Sweyn sailed up the 

 Yare, burned Norwich and Thetford, and made much desolation with fire and 

 sword throughout many parts of Suffolk and Norfolk. The churches and 

 monasteries were spoiled, and many monks carried off into captivity. In 

 10 10 the Northmen came in yet larger numbers, landing this time at Ipswich, 

 and harrying a still wider extent of East Anglia.' 1 



On Sweyn's death in 10 14 his son Canute succeeded, and within three 

 years found himself master of England. Canute in his turn became a patron 

 of the Benedictine order, and in the year that he became overlord of East 

 Anglia and the rest of the kingdom founded in the midst of the Norfolk Broads 

 the abbey of St. Benet of Holme. It was from Holme a few years later that 

 a colony of monks proceeded to found the ever-famous Suffolk abbey of 

 St. Edmunds. 



With regard to the action and influence and lives of the later bishops of 

 Elmham, such as Stigand and his brother iEthelmaer, any discussion of their 

 lives comes more appropriately under the story of the church in the county 



1 There is record of twelve bishops of Elmham, after the break from the Danish invasion up to the trans- 

 ference of the see to Thetford : — Eadulf (signatures 956-64), ^Elfric, Theodred (signature 975), Theodred 

 (signature 995), ^Elfstan (995-1001), jElfgar (1001-102 1), ^Elfwine (1016, last signature 1022), ^Elfric 

 (died 1038), ^Elfric (consecrated 1038), Stigand (1043-6), ^Ethelmaer (1047, last signature 1055), and 

 Herfast (consecrated 1070). 



3 Ang. Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 195. 



3 One of its chief supporters in this district, during the tenth century, was jEthelwine, to whom from his 

 devoutness the patriarchal title of the 'Friend of God ' was applied. He was alderman of East Anglia, and 

 founder of the abbey of Ramsey in the Huntingdon swamps, where he was buried in 992. Hist. Rames. 

 (Chron. and Mem. Ser.), pp. 12, 31, 100, 103, &c. ; Vita Oswaldi (Chron. and Mem. Ser.), i, passim. 



' Hen. Hunt. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), 175-8 ; Matt. Paris, Chron. Majora (Rolls Ser.), i, 481-2 ; Ang. Sax. 

 Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 264. 



6 



