He felt himself
constrained to sell some of the materials he had collected for this
purpose, to obtain money for the relief of the poor during a famine. A
long description is preserved of the decoration of the shrine. Among
other precious things worked into it was an eagle with outstretched
wings, the gift of King Ethelred. Although it was not quite finished, it
was sufficiently so as to be ready to receive the bones of the martyr.
The remains were examined in the presence of Alexander, Bishop of
Lincoln, and sundry Abbots in 1129. The genuineness of the relics, so it
is said, was established by appearances of the saint to divers persons
as well as by miracles. One shoulder blade was missing; but this, as it
afterwards appeared, had been given by a former Abbot, at the request of
King Canute, to the reigning duke of some foreign land, who had founded
a cathedral church on purpose to receive so precious a relic. A long
list is given of the valuable gifts this Abbot made to the monastery and
church. During his time lived the hermits Roger and Sigur, and the
recluse Christina, whose story has been told in Chapter III.
At this time also Henry I. granted to the Abbots the Liberty of St.
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