A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



The two points upon which there has long been dispute are the date 

 and place of the martyrdom. The dates which have been suggested vary 

 between 208 and 305. The Turin passio gives the period as the time of the 

 Emperor Severus, before whom the trial of Alban is laid,'* which would 

 therefore be during the stay of Severus in Britain between 208 and his death 

 at York in 211. This date, however, is discredited by Meyer as being the 

 invention of a Frenchman who prefaces the account of the passio of St. Alban 

 with the story of the persecution of Severus at Lyons and Aachen, which 

 occurs in no other legend of this saint." Dr. Williams in Christianity in Early 

 Britain urges strongly that Alban suffered either under the seventh persecu- 

 tion of Decius, which began in 250 and probably continued till 253, or the 

 eighth, under Aurelian, which lasted from 257 till the relaxation of Gallierius 

 in 260. He points out that Gildas only conjectured that Alban suffered under 

 the persecution of Diocletian and upon the evidence of Eusebius and Lactan- 

 tius, he contends that the persecution never reached Britain." There seems 

 to be little warrant for the date 286" that has been accepted by some. At 

 this date, so far as it is known, there is no evidence of persecution in Britain, 

 which was then in a disturbed condition owing to the usurpation by Carausius. 

 The adoption of this date probably originated through an error of the com- 

 pilers of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, who base their story upon Bede's Eccle- 

 siastical History where booki, cap. 6, begins with the accession of Diocletian 

 in this year and deals with events of his reign, including the persecution, 

 and cap. 7 gives the account of the martyrdom in the time of the persecution 

 without intervening date. 



The generally accepted time, and that suggested, if not asserted, by 

 Gildas, adopted by Bede, and implied by the Paris passio, is the persecution 

 of Diocletian. The first edict for this was issued at Nicomedia, about 

 March 303. It ordered the destruction of all churches and the burning of 

 all copies of the Scriptures. Christians in honourable positions were to be 

 degraded and Christian freedmen were to be deprived of their liberty. 

 This edict was followed by others, under the last of which a general persecution 

 was proclaimed against the Christians." The persecution lasted till the 

 abdication of Diocletian on i May 305, and seems to have been carried out 

 with the utmost severity in the eastern parts of the Empire, where according 

 to Eusebius great numbers suffered martyrdom. In the west, however, where 

 Spain, Gaul and Britain were under the mild rule of Constantius Chlorus, 

 we learn from Eusebius and Lactantius that persecution was less rigorous. 

 Constantius, although not a Christian, was favourably inclined to the Church, 

 and is said to have protected its members." Lactantius states that Constan- 

 tius destroyed the Christian churches, but ' preserved intact the true temple 



1* W. Meyer, op. cit. 35, 46. 



^^ Ibid. 1 8. The Turin text, as Professor Meyer points out, has some connexion with Lyons and was 

 compiled by a Gallic scribe, for it is prefaced by an account of the persecution under Severus there. It is 

 possible there may have been some confusion v?ith the general Albinus, who usurped the authority of Severus 

 for three years in Britain, and was beheaded at Lyons in 197 after the rout of his British army there. 



1^ Williams, op. cit. loi, 102, 109, ill, 114, 115. 



1^ See Williams as above, citing Tillemont, Hist, des Emptreurs, iv, 508 ; AUard, La Persecution de 

 Diocletien, 40, 41 ; Gorres, ZeitschriftfUr Wissenschaft. Theologie, 1888, xxxi, 83. See also U sshti, Primordia, 

 cap. vii, p. 174. ^* Eusebius, Ecc/. Hist. bk. viii, cap. 2. Alban, it is supposed, was a priest. 



1' Ibid. cap. 13. Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. bk. i, cap. 6. Sozomen only conjectures that there was no 

 persecution in Gaul, Britain and Spain. 



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