ECCLESIASTICAL 

 HISTORY 



BEFORE THE CONQUEST 



THE early ecclesiastical history of the district now known as 

 Hertfordshire centres round the saint and martyr Alban, the 

 influence of whose name still survives in the county. By the 

 beginning of the 3rd century, or perhaps a little earlier, Christianity 

 nad penetrated to Gaul, and, considering the relations then existing between 

 that country and Britain, it is probable that it reached this island shortly 

 afterwards. There is no reason to doubt that small bodies of Christians were 

 established in Britain before the middle of the 3rd century,^ and that Paganism 

 and Christianity for long existed peaceably side by side. 



Doubts have been cast by historians upon the existence of Alban,*" 

 principally on account of the stories as to his life and martyrdom which grew 

 up at a date when miracles were an essential part of the passio of any saint. 

 The probabilities in favour of Alban being an authentic character are, how- 

 ever, strong. The earliest evidence we have of him is in the Vita Sancti 

 Germanic compiled about 480 by Constantius' of Lyons, in which St. German's 

 visit to the tomb of St. Alban in 429 is referred to. It is clear from this 

 and from the reference to Alban in a poem by Venantius Fortunatus of 

 Poictiers, composed at the end of the 6th century,* and from Gaulish legends 

 of the beginning of the 6th century, hereafter referred to, that the story of 

 Alban was well established at an early date, not only in Britain, but in Gaul. 

 Gildas writing in 564 supplies the following account of Alban and his 

 martyrdom : — 



Though these precepts (of Christianity) * had a lukewarm reception from the inhabitants, nevertheless 

 they continued unimpaired with some, with others less so, until the nine years' ^ persecution of the tyrant 

 Diocletian. ... He (God) of His own free gift, in the above-mentioned time of persecution as we conclude 

 (a/ cimicimus) ^ lest Britain should be completely enveloped in the thick darkness of black night, kindled for 

 us bright lamps of holy martyrs. ... I speak of St. Alban of Verulam, Aaron and Julius, citizens of 

 Caerlleon, and the rest of both sexes in different places, who stood firm with lofty nobleness of mind in 

 Christ's battle. 



1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Eccl. Doc. i, 3, 4, quoting Tertullian (Adv. Jud. vii), writing about 

 208, and Origen (Hom. vi in Luc. i, 24, and Hom. xxviii in Matt, ixiv), writing about 239-46 to show 

 that Christianity was in their days eitablished in Britain. See also Williams, Christianity in Early Brit. 

 78 et seq. 



2 cf. Smith and Wace, Diet, of Christ. Biog. under St. Alban ; Biographia Brit. (ed. A. Kippis, 1778), 

 i, 114. ' Printed in L. Surius, De Probatis Sanctorum Historiis (157°, &c.), iv, 405. 



* De Laude Virginum, Poem, viii (iv), 155, quoted in Haddan and Stubbs, op. cit. i, 6. 

 ^ Gildas, De Excidio Britonniae (ed. Williams, Cymmrodorion Rec. Soc), i, 23. 



* That is from 303 to the Edict of Milan in 312. 



'' Another text gives ut cognoscimus, but Williams considers this merely a gloss (Gildas, op. cit. i, 24). 



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