For the first three hundred years of its existence the Christian Church faced bouts of persecution by the Roman emperors. What angered the Romans was not Christianity itself, but the fact that Christians were not prepared to worship the gods of Rome alongside their God. For a long time these attacks did not reach the distant province of Britain, and Christians there were left in peace. At the beginning of the fourth century this changed. The persecution ordered by the Emperor Diocletian stretched its tentacles across the English Channel. When it reached the Roman city of Verulamium it claimed its first victim.
A Roman citizen named Alban – some versions of the story suggest he was a soldier – gave shelter to a Christian priest as he fled from those charged with seeking out and capturing Christians. Alban watched and listened to the priest and was impressed by what he saw and heard. He asked to become a Christian himself and was baptised. In time the priest’s pursuers discovered his whereabouts. When he heard them demanding entry to his house, Alban insisted on changing clothes with his friend and encouraged him to escape through a back exit. Alban was arrested in his place and taken before the local official. When the official realised that the man in front of him was not the Christian priest he expected but a fellow Roman citizen he was furious. He threatened Alban, telling him that unless he immediately joined in worship of the Roman gods he would receive the punishment intended for the priest – torture and death. Alban refused, steadfastly declaring “I worship and adore the true and living God, who created all things.”
Retribution fell. Alban was severely beaten and when he refused to recant was sentenced to death. He was taken from the city to be executed. The watching crowd became so large that the bridge across a small river between the city and the hill where he was to die was blocked. At a word from Alban the river dried up, allowing him to cross. When he reached the top of the hill he was thirsty. At another word, a spring appeared, providing him with fresh water to drink. These events and Alban’s demeanour had a dramatic effect on the man appointed to be his executioner, who threw his sword to the ground and declared that he also wished to be a Christian; if Alban were to die, he would die alongside him. A replacement executioner was found and both men were beheaded, becoming England’s first and second martyrs. Their martyrdom had an immediate effect. When he heard what had happened the official who condemned Alban had a change of heart and ended his campaign against the Christians.
Alban was revered as a martyr and a Church was built in his memory on the spot where he died. This first Church was destined not to survive. In the fifth century the Romans left Britain and the pagan Anglo-Saxons overran the southern and eastern parts of the land. Christianity either died out or was reduced to a small remnant in this area, and the Church at Verulamium disappeared. The memory of St.Alban survived and so, apparently, did his relics. The Anglo-Saxons in their turn were converted to Christianity and in 793 Offa, King of Mercia, founded a monastery on the site of Alban’s martyrdom. This monastery thrived, becoming in time the most important in the whole country. A town grew up around it, no longer called Verulamium, but now named St.Albans after its most honoured former citizen. At the end of the eleventh century a bigger, better Church was built there, using both sections of the Saxon building and bricks from the ruins of the old Roman city. Today the same Church is the Cathedral of St.Albans. If you visit it you can see the shrine of St.Alban, rebuilt again after it was destroyed at the Reformation. And maybe, just maybe, you will be walking in a building built from the very bricks that saw Alban the Roman citizen walk bravely to his death.
PRAYER: Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyr Alban triumphed over suffering and was faithful even unto death: Grant to us, who now remember him with thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
FEAST DAY: June 22nd
TIMELINE: The traditional date of Alban’s martyrdom is c.304.
HISTORICAL NOTE: Again, we do not know how much of the story of St.Alban is true and how much is legend. The first surviving mention of him dates from c.480, and most versions of the story are based on the history written by Bede in the early eighth century. Later versions give the priest the name Amphibalus, but it is likely this is a mistake stemming from the fact that the priest wore a type of cloak called an “amphibalus”.
© Kathryn Faulkner 2005. All rights reserved.
