During the Diocletian persecution of the Christians, in the year 304 A. D., a distinguished citizen, Alban of Verulamium, of Roman origin, but converted to Christianity, suffered martyrdom for giving shelter to Amphibalus, a Christian. For this crime he was executed on the site of the present abbey, and in 772 was canonised.
Nearly five hundred years after, in 793, Offa, the King of Mercia, was very much exercised in mind as to the best means of expiating his murder of Æthelbert.
Greatly to his relief, he was bidden in a vision to seek the remains of St. Alban, and over them, when found, to erect a monastery. In accordance with these instructions he, with Higbert, Archbishop of Lichfield, the Bishops of Leicester and Lindsey, and a huge assembly of clergy and laity, visited the hill, where the "Proto-martyr of England," as St. Alban came to be known, had suffered. There the holy remains were discovered. Over them Offa founded the abbey, with a monastery for one hundred monks of the Order of St. Benedict.
The present abbey really dates from the eleventh century. At the close of the tenth century the ruins of the old Roman city of Verulamium were broken up to serve as materials for the new church buildings. But owing to the unsettled character of the times the erection was delayed, till William the Conqueror was firmly possessed of the throne, when Paul of Caen, a relative of Archbishop Lanfranc, was appointed abbot in 1077. He built the magnificent Norman structure, based upon the plans of St. Stephen's, Caen--the same church which served as a model for Lanfranc, when he built Canterbury.
Though finished for some years past, it was only consecrated in 1115.
As was invariably the custom, the church was built in the form of a cross. In this connection it is interesting to note the evolution of the cross.
Prior to the Christian era the cross was looked upon with disfavour.
To be crucified was to undergo a most ignominious form of punishment, and it was only served out to malefactors of the worst description. Nothing short of this would have been a sufficient check in those times to the growth of vice. But in the early days of Christianity the cross came to be regarded as the holiest symbol of "The Sacrifice" made for the good of mankind.