ANNO: D[=N]I: 1570
Note F.—(Page [20].)
ABBEY OF S. ALBAN.
Saint Alban, the proto-martyr, suffered death in the Diocletian persecution in 303 A.D.
King Offa is said to have exhumed the body, placed it in a magnificent shrine, and established monks to watch over it in 793; but Bede says that a church was established where the martyrdom took place in 731 A.D.; and Offa is believed to have designed a nobler church which perhaps was not completed by him, but by Eadmer, the 9th Saxon Abbat, and this church existed at the time of the Norman conquest.
Paul of Caen, appointed by Lancfranc in 1077 “pulled down the Saxon building and constructed the church entirely anew of stones and tiles taken from the ancient Roman city of Verulam, a great portion of which had been collected by the two last Saxon Abbots.” (Frithric, mentioned in note on page 20, being one of them.)
This, then, was substantially the same church which has been restored in these modern times and which became the Cathedral of the new diocese of S. Albans in 1877, when Dr. Claughton was enthroned as Bishop.
The reader will find valuable information in
1. A History of the Abbey of S. Alban, by Dr. Nicholson.
2. Report on the Lady Chapel of S. Alban, by Sir Gilbert Scott.
3. The Restoration of the Abbey of S. Alban, by J. Chapple, 1874.