DUBLIN

UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER, 1876.

ST ALBAN'S ABBEY.

had access to, and quotes largely English geography, and no doubt from, state documents, charters, and the able burin of my friend Basire exchequer rolls. The frequency of will truly show the world that M. the royal visits to the Abbey brought Paris could not make a map. 1 him a store of political intelligence, think you have got those two blots and Henry III. himself contributed which Giraldus Cambrensis calls to the great chronicle which has England and Ireland; if not, pray preserved with so terrible a faith- let me send you such valuable comfulness the memory of his weakness panions to my Master Mat.” and misgovernment." The sunshine The manuscripts of the learned of royal favour, which dazzled many monk were in early times, as now, of our old chroniclers, blinding treasured with great reverence.

In them to the truth, left Matthew Knight's “ Pictorial History of Paris independent, undaunted, and England we read, “ On a manuclear-sighted. Bravely he wrote script of Matthew Paris, now in the what he felt to be true; and this he British Museum, there is an indid, well knowing the cost. “ The scription, in Latin, dated 1st June, case of historical writers,” he says, 1488, in the handwriting and with “is hard ; for if they tell the truth the signature of John Russell, then they provoke men, and if they write Bishop of Lincoln, in which who- . what is false they offend God.” In soever shall obliterate or destroy the a curious and valuable manuscriptbishop's memorandum respecting now at the British Museum, namely, the ownership of the volume is Matthew Paris's works which he solemnly declared to be accursed."

be presented to Henry III., we find Matthew Paris, who was rememmany incidents of English History bered by his brother monks as the represented in illuminations done “pride and glory of their monasby his own hand. In Nichols's tery," was succeeded in the scrip“Literary Anecdotes” (vol. viii. torium by William de Rishanger, pp. 608 &c.) we

come upon a

who carried on the story of St. correspondence between M. Tyson Alban's Abbey till 1272, the last and R. Gough concerning Matthew year of Henry III. The scant Paris as an artist and a drawer of and lifeless jottings of this maps.

chronicler

collected and The book of tracing-paper you arranged by the last of the St. have,” Tyson writes to Gough, Alban's annalists, Thomas Wals“ was intended for some very curi- ingham, who, after a pause of con. ous figures of Chaucer's Pilgrims, siderable length, took up the thread in a very old illuminated MS, which of the narrative, threw together the I now have in my room.

successive annals, and produced the Mr. Nasmith tells me that this very “ Historia Anglicana," which was copy was given by Matthew Paris long known “Walsingham's himself to the Abbey of St. Alban's. History.” Thomas Walsingham I have since found the dedication : died in 1440. Independently of • Hunc librum dedit fr. Math. de the above writings, we learn much Parisiis Deo'

[no doubt - from old chartularies, ledger- books, and to St. Alban's)."

and shorter histories compiled in And again,

" The

idlest of the Monastery. Thus we have a Camus's sons"—(Tyson here alludes continued and regular account, to a Cambridge friend of his who more or less trustworthy, of St. had delayed the performance of his Alban's Abbey until the time of its promise) —" has at last traced this dissolution in 1539. According to most truly valuable specimen of monkish tradition, Offa, the re

were

as

simplicity of the original. Never- hallow the site of his martyrdom, theless, Abbot Paul's church re- it is well to bear in mind how mains to us, covering the sanre vague that tradition is, and bow ground, and having the same walls very far the story of St. Alban is and piers, shrouded as they are from taking its place among the with their recasings.

received facts of history. We will After some difficulty, as we may not lay any stress on the absence suppose, in steering clear of other of proof of there being any persededications, seeing that already

that already cution in Britain at that epoch. there were about twenty abbeys in Individual deaths of Christians for the land, and the same number of their faith must have frequently episcopal sees with their cathedrals, occurred without any actual persethe king finally decided on St. cution. But the earliest reference Alban the Martyr, and we read to St. Alban is in connection with much that is incredible, or perhaps the anti-Pelagian mission of Ger. we may say, symbolical, concerning manus (A.D. 429.), who is said to the patient search made by the have visited his relics, presumably royal devotee for the saintly ashes at Verulam." Thus the story of of his chosen patron. According St. Alban must, we fear, be regarded to Roger Wendover, revised by merely as one among a multitude Matthew Paris, who as a devout of beautiful fictions, rich with monk of the thirteenth century, meaning; and as for “St. Amphidutifully preserved the much-loved balus," from whom St. Alban was traditions of his monastery, Offa, alleged to have learned the doctrines supernaturally assisted, succeeded of Christianity, as Fuller quaintly in his pious quest; and Matthew remarks: “He passeth nameless in Paris, in his life of that king, tells all authors till about four hundred us that Offa adorned the skull of years since ; when Jeffrey Mon. St. Alban with a circlet of gold, mouth was his godfather, and first after which, with great solemnity calls him Amphibalus.” and followed by a grand procession, Bede merely mentions Amphithe dead saint was conveyed to an balus as “clericum quendam.” old church outside the town of Offa now commenced the build. Verulam. "This church,” says ing of St. Alban's Monastery, which Bede, “ was of admirable architec- he endowed with his palace and ture, though built only of planks of manor of Winslow, an estate twenty wood."

miles away and about twenty miles Concerning the tradition of “St. in circumference. As soon as the Alban,” and its connection with the building assumed a habitable form, Abbey church, which has survived " he placed there one hundred monks so many generations of English- under the rule of an abbot of his men who have walked among its own choice-Willegod, who was of aisles and arches, it has been said royal affinity. Having made a good of late : “ There is an evident fit- beginning of what he had long had ness in a church dedicated to the it in his heart to accomplish, the proto-martyr of England becoming Mercian king, now aged, withdrew the cathedral church of an English to his palace at Ofiley, near Bedford, see. It is almost strange that it and here he died in 794. should have waited for it so long. Willegod sent an earnest request But while the tradition of the that he and his monks might have Roman soldier who was the first to the solemn companionship of their seal his faith with his blood on dead benefactor, which request was British soil will ever deservedly refused by Offa's son, Egfrid, who

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