Augustine was, of course, the monastery’s chief treasure, and next came the body of St Mildred which was given to the house by Canute. It must never be forgotten by those who would look at things mediæval with mediæval eyes, that in those days the dead were more powerful than the living; even kings humbled themselves before the bones of dead saints. This relic worship became almost a madness, and the rage seized upon monks and their rulers, who stooped to the meanest thefts in order to possess themselves of such valuables. It is related that the monks of St Augustine’s Abbey offered to make Roger, the keeper of the altar of the Martyrdom, their abbot, if only he would steal for them the fragment of Becket’s skull which was entrusted to his charge. He fell to the temptation, and rose to be ruler of the rival house. For many a long year indeed St Augustine’s dominated and domineered over Christ Church; and for more than one reason. The former was an abbey, the latter but a mere priory; in the precincts of the former was buried England’s apostle Augustine, and Ethelbert, Augustine’s successor Lawrence--indeed, the first eight occupants of the archiepiscopal throne. How could a poor cathedral with never an archbishop’s bones hope to contend with such favoured rivalry? So St Cuthbert, the ninth archbishop, came to the rescue, preferring to lay his bones in his own cathedral rather than in the church of the rival establishment. He foresaw the difficulties that would arise; provided against them by procuring from the King of Kent and from the Pope an authorisation to be buried within the city walls, which he handed to the sorrowing monks as he lay adying, bidding them also to bury him first and toll the bell afterward. So it came to pass that when Abbot Aldhelm and the monks of St Augustine’s came to claim their lawful prey, they were defeated and retired in dismay. They struggled once more over the body of the succeeding Archbishop Bregwin, and then succumbed to the inevitable. The glory of the Cathedral waxed; it covered the graves of St Dunstan, St Alphege, and St Anselm; then came St Thomas and eclipse to St Augustine. Of the church but a few fragments remain, though at the beginning of last century Ethelbert’s Tower, built about 1047, was still standing. South of the church are the remains of St Pancras’ Church, where excavations have revealed much of interest.