RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Paris before Abbot Leofric, but as we have a 

 definite date for ^Ifric, who, as has been shown, 

 was succeeded by his brother Leofric, there is 

 no room for them unless they come after 

 Leofric ; besides which all we know about them 

 is with regard to their excavations and searches 

 at Verulamium, which was not granted to 

 St. Albans till the abbacy of Leofric. Matthew 

 Paris gives an account of the remains found 

 during the excavations by Ealdred and tells a 

 story of a cave at a place called ' Wormenhert,' 

 which was the habitation of a dragon. This 

 abbot collected a great store of stones, tiles and 

 wood for the fabric of the church, but was 

 prevented by his death from carrying out his 

 intention of rebuilding the abbey.^" Eadmar 

 continued the work of his predecessor and 

 collected more material from Verulamium. 

 During the searches it is said some books were 

 found, one of which was the life of St. Alban 

 written in the ancient British language, and 

 after being translated by a priest, Unwona, it 

 fell to pieces. As no known manuscript has 

 ever been discovered in the ancient British 

 language the story is apocryphal. Like his pre- 

 decessor, Eadmar left his intention of rebuilding 

 the church unfulfilled.^^ 



Matthew Paris gives a second Abbot ^Ifric, 

 but as some of the events attributed to his 

 abbacy, such as the loan to King iEthelred, 

 above referred to, appear from more authentic 

 sources to belong to the time of Leofric, it seems 

 probable that his existence forms a part of the 

 confusion already mentioned. To the time, 

 however, of this abbot, and in the reign of 

 Edward the Confessor, Matthew Paris attributes 

 the well-known story of the removal of the 

 relics of St. Alban to Ely for security during 

 a threatened invasion of the Danes, probably 

 that of Magnus, King of Norway and Denmark, 

 in 1045. The scare being over, the Abbot of 

 St. Albans demanded the return of the relics, but 

 the monks of Ely refused to restore them. After 

 appeals to King Edward and the pope, the monks 

 of Ely were induced to return what they 

 professed were Alban's bones, retaining, however, 

 what they considered were the true relics. The 

 Abbot of St. Albans then declared that he had 

 only pretended to send the real relics to Ely and 

 the authentic bones he had concealed in his 

 church. Later St. Alban, it is said, appeared 

 to one of the monks and declared that his true 

 relics had been hidden in the middle of the 

 church, from which they were publicly and 

 solemnly taken.^^ Arising out of this story is 

 the further legend of the carrying off of the 

 bones of the saint to Odense in Denmark, where 

 they were deposited in a monastery. This 

 episode is given by Matthew Paris under the 



'" Gesta Jbbat. i, 25. 



" Ibid. 28. " Ibid. 34-6. 



abbacy of Wulnoth ^^ in the first half of the 

 loth century, but as the Danes were then 

 heathen and the priory of Odense was not 

 founded till the nth century, it is obvious 

 that it belongs to a later date. By the recent 

 researches of Mr. W. R. L. Lowe it has been 

 shown that St. Canute or Knud came to England 

 in the Danish expedition of 1069-70 to assist 

 the EngHsh refugees under Hereward at Ely, 

 and according to an nth-century MS. ' Passio 

 of St. Canute ' and a tablet erected at Odense 

 the Danish king St. Canute then carried back 

 with him some of the supposed relics of 

 St. Alban probably from those retained by Ely. 

 These were deposited in the priory of St. Mary 

 at Odense, which thereupon received the addi- 

 tional dedication to St. Alban, and it was in the 

 church of this monastery that Canute was 

 murdered in 1086.^* The further story how 

 Egwin the sacrist, after receiving a message 

 from St. Alban in a dream, became a monk at 

 Odense, where he stole the relics and sent them 

 to England, is perhaps an adaptation from the 

 legend as to the relics of St. Oswald taken 

 from Peterborough.^^ 



The next abbot was apparently Leofstan 

 ' surnamed Plumstan', who was appointed 

 shortly after the accession of Edward the 

 Confessor, possibly about 1048.^' He had 

 been a member of the royal household, and 

 was the confessor of King Edward and Queen 

 Edith, with both of whom he had considerable 

 influence.^' Possibly on account of his court 

 interest he obtained numerous grants of lands 

 from the nobility and others, and very 

 largely from wealthy Danes, many of whom 

 appear to have settled in the neighbourhood 

 of the monastery.^^ He further improved the 

 estates of the abbey by clearing the woods from 

 the confines of the Chiltern district almost to 

 London, at the same time securing the safety 



^5 Gesta Abbat. i, 12-19. 



" ' The Cult of St. Alban Abroad,' reprinted from 

 the Hertfordshire Post, 13 July 1 910. The priory 

 church at Odense has been destroyed, but the market- 

 place there is still called St. Albans Market, and there 

 is a St. Albans Bridge and St. Albans Street in the 

 town. There is, again, another story that the bones 

 of the saint were carried by Abbot Frederic to Ely 

 when he fled there in 1 07 7, which is indignantly 

 denied by Matthew Paris {fiesta Abbat. i, 51). See 

 also Festskrift udgivet af Kjobenhavns Universitet : Knud 

 den Helliges Martyrhistorie (1907). 



^^ Dugdale, Mon. i, 349. 



^^ The earliest reference to him is in a grant by 

 iEgelwin the Black to the abbey in his time, which is 

 attributed to 1042-9 fiesta Abbat. i, 39; Kemble, 

 Cod. D'tpl. iv, no. 962). A grant by Tova, a widow, 

 to Leofstan the Abbot and the congregation of 

 St. Alban is attributed to 1049-52 fiesta Abbat. i, 

 39 ; Kemble, Cod. Dipl. iv, no. 950). 



" Gesta Abbat. i, 38. 



«8 Cott. MS. Nero, D vii. 



371 



