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Paris himself seems unconscious of the fact, could be neither more nor less than the very Church which he previously mentions, as "built by the early converts to Christianity," and into which the body of St. Alban had been removed. Still more explicit, however, is the language of Paris: he affirms that Offa," in his Monastery, which he had begun from the foundations, within four or five years after he began the pious work, had in a style of excellence erected nearly all the officinal buildings;"* all the buildings officinal to that which was the principal and denominator of the whole-the Church.t

So much was the mind of Offa occupied by the concerns of his new foundation, that he is recorded to have continued at St. Alban's till the very eve of his death; engaged in the active superintendance and carrying on of the work. When the Monastery was sufficiently completed, he granted it the most ample privileges, and endowed it with numerous manors and mansions, for the perpetual maintenance of one hundred monks of the Benedictine order, and the entertainment of all travellers who should seek relief within its precincts. Among his endowments was his manor and palace of Winslow, in Buckinghamshire. The former, says Matthew Paris, was twenty miles in circumference," as the writings of the King, now preserved in this Church, can testify;" and for this estate he had procured exemption from the payment of Rome-Scot, or Peter-pence; a privilege that was enjoyed by no other place in his kingdom. Soon afterwards, he retired to his Palace at Offley in this county, where he died; (anno 796;) he was buried in a Chapel on the banks of the Ouse, near Bedford, into which river, tradition reports his sepulchre to have been carried by the torrent in a time of flood, together with the Chapel in which it had been deposited. The death of Willegod, the first Abbot, in about two months after that of his Royal master, is said to have been hastened

*Fere omnia officinalia ædificia laudabiliter in cœnobio suo, quod a fundamentis inchoaverat, ædificaverat infra quartum quintumve annum postquam pium opus illud inchoaverat. Matt. Paris, 987.

tWhitaker, Vol. II. p. 165.

hastened by the grief which he felt at having been refused permission to inter the body of Offa in the Monastery of his own foundation.

Vulsig, or Ulsin, the third Abbot, is recorded to have been much addicted to intemperance and hunting; and to have practised, say his annals, the “great enormity" of inviting crowds of noble ladies to his table, by which means he not only injured his own fame, but corrupted the sobriety of his brethren. He also wastefully expended the treasures of his house, altered the form and color of his garments, used "vestments of silk, and walked with a long train." His female relations he gave in marriage to the nobles and great men, enriching them at the expense of the Abbey: but, after his death, the Monks obtained restitution of the greater part of the estates that had been alienated. His successor, Vulnoth, during the first three or four years of his supremacy, strove with exemplary diligence to reform the abuses that had been thus generated. He afterwards fell into all the vices of Vulsig; but altered his conduct, on being struck with the palsy, "and changed his life to such a degree of sanctity, as to reform many by his example, and to end his days in felicity." In the time of this Abbot, and about the year 930, the tomb of St. Alban is said to have been broke open by the Danes, and some of his bones to have been taken away, and carried into Denmark, where they were deposited under a costly shrine, in the hope that they would there become as much venerated and adored, as they had been in England. Ædfrid, the fifth Abbot, was equally distinguished by his festive cheerfulness, and relaxation from monkish discipline, as his predecessors, till near the close of life; when he resigned his pastoral office, and devoting himself to seclusion, retired to a Chapel that had been re-built, by his permission, by Prior Ulpho, in memory of Germanus, and on the spot where the latter had preached to the citizens of Verulam: in this retirement he passed the remainder of his days.

Ulsinus, the sixth Abbot, was the most considerable benefactor to the town of St. Alban that had yet presided; and that " by inviting persons to settle in it, by assisting them with money and VOL. VII. Nov. 1805.

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materials

materials for the erection of houses, and even building no fewer than three Churches for them." These Churches were erected at the different entrances into the town; and were respectively dedicated to St. Peter, St. Michael, and St. Stephen. He also built a small Chapel, or Oratory, at a short distance from St. German's Chapel, and consecrated it to the honor of St. Mary Magdalen. His successor, Ælfric, obtained great repute for his erudition and piety. He was the author of many epistles and sermons: he composed a Saxon Grammar; and he translated a considerable part of the Scriptures. The great fish-pool, which has been mentioned under Verulam, and which belonged to the Crown, and had been productive of much loss to the Abbey, by the company it attracted during the festivities displayed here by the Saxon Sovereigns, who had a Palace, called Kingsbury, on the banks of the pool, near St. Michael's Bridge, was purchased of King Edgar by this Abbot; or rather, perhaps, received in exchange for a cup of excellent workmanship, that had been obtained, for the purpose of holding the consecrated wafer, by Abbot Ædfrid. The embankment which held in the waters, was then cut away, and a small pool only was suffered to remain for the use of the Abbey.

Ealdred, the eighth Abbot, who appears to have been the first that took measures for re-building the Abbey Church, is represented, by Matthew Paris, as searching into the ruins of Verulam, "laying up those materials which he found fit for an edifice, and reserving them for the fabric of a Church; as he had determined, if he could be furnished with the means, to tear down the ancient Church, and to build it anew :"+ but, "when he had collected a great quantity of materials for the fabric of the Church, he was prevented by an over early death, and obliged to leave the work undone."

* Some books of this translation were printed under the direction of Dr. Hickes, at Oxford, in the year 1698.

+ Quos invenit aptus (aptos) ad ædificia seponens, ad fabricam ecclesiæ reservavit; proposuit enim, si facultates suppeterent, dirutá ve» teri ecclesiá novam construere. M. Paris, p. 994.

undone."

His immediate successor, Eadmer, "did not disperse nor consume what Ealdred had collected for the construction of the Church;" he even searched for more among the ruins of Verulam, and "reserved all that were necessary for the fabrication of that Church, which he proposed to fabricate to the holy martyr Alban;" yet "did not so far please God and the martyr, as to erect and finish a house for the martyr himself." After him the intention was and even the search for ma→

never revived by any of the Saxons; terials was discontinued by them all: yet the intention was never abandoned, as the materials in general, remained entire to the Conquest, and the application of them was then begun."‡

The very curious discovery of the History of St. Alban, in the British language, made at Verulam during the searches carried on under Eadmer, has been noticed above. His workmen are recorded also to have found sundry glass and earthen vessels, originally used as pitchers and cups, together with vessels of glass containing the ashes of the dead: temples half ruined were likewise discovered, with altars and statues of heathen gods, and divers sorts of coins: all these the mistaken piety of the Abbot “caused to be stamped to dust, and destroyed."][

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Cum jam multam―ad fabricam ecclesiæ coacervásset quantitatem; maturâ nimis morte præventus, imperfecto negocio, viam universæ carnis est ingressus.: M. Paris, p. 994,

+ Adquisita ad ecclesiam construendam, non dispersit vel consumpsit; M. Paris, 994: quæ ecclesiæ fabricandæ fuerunt necessaria, sibi reservaret, quam proposuit sancto martyri fabricare: Ibid, 995: non in tantum placuit Deo ac martyri, ut domum ipsius martyris ædificaret et consummaret. Ibid. 994.

Whitaker's St. Germans, Vol. II, p. 166.

By a most singular mis-construction of the words of Matthew Paris, Sir Henry Chauncey has affirmed, in his History of Hertfordshire, that Eadmer, "out of the ruins of Verulam, built anew the greatest part of his Church, and Monastery, with an intent to have finished the whole, but death disappointed his hopes." See p. 431.

Leofric, son to the Earl of Kent, and afterwards promoted to the See of Canterbury, succeeded Eadmer. This Abbot was renowned for benevolence: during a grievous famine, that raged over England, he expended the treasures that had been reserved for the fabrication of a new Church, in relieving the distresses of the poor; and when this was found insufficient, he sold the slabs of stone, the columns, and the timber, that had been dug up from the ruins of the ancient city, to provide additional supplies for the same purpose, together with all the gold and silver vessels, both belonging to his own table, and to the Church. This generous attention to the wants of his fellow-men, occasioned much dissention, and procured him many enemies among the more superstitious and inconsiderate classes of his monkish brethren; yet his own firmness, and the support he received from the many exalted personages to whom he was related, at length succeeded in composing the differences. On his acceptance of the See of Canterbury, in 993, Elfric, the second of that name, his younger brother, became Abbot. He had previously been Chancellor to King Ethelred, and had obtained from that Monarch a grant of the manor of Kingsbury, with all its appurtenances: of this grant he procured a confirmation from King Canute, and immediately caused the regal Palace to be levelled with the ground, that it might no more occasion inconvenience to the Abbey, from becoming the residence of a court: one small tower, however, that was situated somewhat nearer to the Monastery, Canute would not suffer to be demolished, that some memorial of royalty might still remain.*

Leofstan,

* During the government of Ælfric, many ravages were committed in different parts of the kingdom by the Danes; and the Abbot becoming apprehensive of their visits, secured the most valuable effects of the Monastery, together with the shrine and relics of St. Alban, in a wooden chest, which, with the privity of only a few of his brethren, he concealed in a secret cavity in the wall of the Church. Then, the more completely to effect their preservation, he openly solicited the Monks of Ely to receive into their Convent the relics of the holy martyr; requesting that, as their house was well secured from danger by waters and marshes, they would preserve the invaluable pledges, till the same

should

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