A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



The former of these, through love, hid a confessor " when pursued by his persecutors, and on the poi nt 

 of being seized, imitating in this Christ laying down His life for the sheep. He first concealed him in his 

 house, and afterwards exchanging garments with him, willingly exposed himself to the danger of being 

 pursued in the clothes of the brother mentioned. Being in this way well pleasing to God, during the time 

 between his holy confession and cruel death, in the presence of the impious men, who carried the Roman 

 standard with hate.ul haughtiness, he was wonderfully adorned with miraculous signs so that by fenrent 

 prayer he opened an unknown way through the bed of the noble River Thames, similar to that dry little- 

 trodden way of the Israelites, when the ark of the covenant stood long on the gravel in the middle of 

 Jordan ; accompanied by a thousand men, he walked through with dry foot, the rushing waters on either 

 side hanging like abrupt precipices, and converted first his executioner, as he saw such wonders, from a wolf 

 into a lamb, and caused him together with himself to thirst more deeply for the triumphant palm of 

 martyrdom, and more bravely to seize it. 



The narrative given by Bede, writing about 731, comes from another 

 source and is much more detailed than Gildas. He gives an account of the 

 persecution of Diocletian in the eastern empire and of Maximian in the west, 

 ' more lasting and bloody than all the others before it.' ' At length,' he says, 

 ' it reached Britain also, and many persons with the constancy of martyrs died 

 in the confession of their faith.' He continues' : 



At that time suffered St. Alban. . . This Alban being yet a pagan, at the time when at the bidding 

 of unbelieving rulers all manner of cruelty was practised against the Christians, gave entertainment in his 

 house to a certain clerk, flying from his persecutors. This man he observed to be engaged in continual 

 prayer and watching day and night ; when on a sudden the Divine grace shining on him, he began to 

 im;tatc the example of faith and piety which was set before him, and being gradually instructed by his 

 wholesome admonitions, he cast off the darkness of idolatry, and became a Christian in all sincerity of heart. 

 The aforesaid clerk having been some days entertained by him, it came to the ears of the impious prince that 

 a confessor of Christ, to whom a martyr's place had not yet been assigned, was concealed at Alban's house. 

 Whereupon he sent some soldiers to make a strict search after him. When they came to the martyr's hut, 

 St. Alban presently came forth to the soldiers, instead of his guest and master, in the habit or long coat 

 which he wore and was bound and led before the judge. It happened that the judge, at the time when 

 Alban was carried before him, was standing at the altar, and offering sacrifice to devils. When he saw 

 Alban, being much enraged that he should thus, of his own accord, dare to put himself into the hands of the 

 soldiers, and incur such danger on behalf of the guest whom he had harboured, he commanded him to be 

 dragged to the images of the devils, before which he stood, saying, ' Because you have chosen to conceal a 

 rebellious and sacrilegious man, rather than to deliver him up to the soldiers, that his contempt of the gods 

 might meet with the penalty due to such blasphemy, you shall undergo all the punishment that was due to 

 him, if you seek to abandon the worship of our religion.' But St. Alban, who had voluntarily declared 

 himself a Christian to the persecutors of the faith, was not at all daunted by the prince's threats, but putting 

 on the armour of spiritual warfare, publicly declared that he would not obey his command. Then said the 

 judge, 'Of what family or race are you V 'What does it concern you,' answered Alban, 'of what stock I 

 am ! If you desire to hear the truth of my religion, be it known to you that I am now a Christian and free 

 to fulfil Christian duties.' 'I ask your name,' said the judge, 'tell me it immediately.' 'lam called Alban 

 by my parents,' replied he, 'and I worship ever and adore the true and living God, Who created all things.' 

 Then the judge, filled with anger, said, 'If you would enjoy the happiness of eternal life, do not delay to 

 offer sacrifice to the great gods.' Alban rejoined, ' These sacrifices, which by you are offered to devils, 

 neither can avail the worhippers, nor fulfil the desires and petitions of the suppliants. Rather, whosoever 

 shall offer sacrifice to these images, shall receive the everlasting pains of hell for his reward.' 



The judge, hearing these worJs, and being much incensed, ordered this holy confessor of God to be 

 scourged by the executioners, believing that he might by stripes shake that constancy of heart, on which he 

 could not prevail by words. He, being most cruelly tortured, bore the same patiently, or rather joyfully, 

 for our Lord's sake. When the judge perceived that he was not to be overcome by tortures, or withdrawn 

 from the exercise of the Christian religion, he ordered him to be put to death. Being led to execution he 

 came to a river, which with a most rapid course ran between the wall of the town and the arena where he 

 was to be executed. He there saw a great multitude of persons of both sexes, and of divers ages and con- 

 ditions, who were doubtless assembled by Divine inspiration, to attend the blessed confessor and martyr, and 



• A name was not given to the confessor sheltered by Alban till Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his 

 Historia Britonum in the middle of the i zth century. Archbishop Ussher and others suggest that the name 

 Amphibalus given to the converter of St. Alban was an alternative word for caracalla, the garment which 

 Bede states Alban put on to impersonate his guest (cf. also Epistola Gildae, a.d. 547, printed by Haddan 

 and Stubbs, op. cit. 49, 1, II, and note 54, where two readings are given, one showing the use of the 

 word Amphibalus as a cloak, and the other less authentic as a Christfan name). A few years after Geoffrey of 

 Monmouth compiled his history a barrow was opened at Redbourn in 11 78, which from the minute 

 description of its contents was clearly a pagan Saxon burial. Abbot Simon, however, desiring to add glory 

 to his church assigned the bones to the newly invented saint whose life was composed to suit the occasion 

 (T. Wright, Essays on Arch, i, 285). « Bede, Hist. Eccl. (transL A. M. Sellar), 14. 



282 



