Saint Albans

“ Alban's shrine.
33. In 1451 Abbot John of Wheathampstead, though over eighty years of age, was re-elected. Soon after his election he gave his church a "pair of organs," surpassing all others in England in size, tone, and workmanship.
In 1455 the Wars of the Roses began with the first battle of St. Albans (May 23rd) , fought to the east of the town. In this the White Rose party were victorious; the King was taken prisoner and lodged for the night in the Abbey. The victorious army plundered the town, but the Abbot by sending out plenty of wine and food saved his monastery. ”

“ Shall we after them?
WARWICK.
After them? Nay, before them, if we can.
Now, by my hand, lords, ’twas a glorious day.
Saint Albans battle won by famous York
Shall be eternized in all age to come.
Sound drums and trumpets, and to London all;
And more such days as these to us befall! ”

“ Ethelbert of East Anglia had been treacherously murdered by his father-in-law, Offa, King of Mercia, who now sought to salve his conscience by building a monastery in honour of St Alban. Of this second church (the first was only a temporary shelter for the relics of the saint, which were supposed to have been miraculously discovered by King Offa) there are now but few traces. The town of St Albans lies on a high hill, while the Ver, a stream supposed to have burst forth miraculously to assuage the thirst of Alban the martyr, flows along the peaceful valley below. ”

“ Most of those who visit St. Albans for the first time feel a sense of disappointment. The church has no far-projecting buttresses to give light and shade, no flying buttresses or pinnacles like those that lend such a charm to most French and many English churches. All is severely plain, partly on [Pg 24] account of the very early time at which the greater part of the existing church was built, partly on account of the material used for its walls. Abbot Paul of Caen, who designed it, trusted entirely to mass and proportion for the effect he wished to produce. ”

“ ALBAN, SAINT, usually styled the protomartyr of Britain, is said to have been born at Verulamium (the modern St Albans in Hertfordshire) towards the close of the 3rd century, and to have served for seven years in Rome in the army of the emperor Diocletian. On his return to Britain he settled at his native place and was put to death as a Christian during the persecution of Diocletian (c. 286–303) . According to tradition, when peace was restored, great honours were paid to his tomb. ”

“ But though in early times the laity had not in all churches regular access to the building, yet it appears that they were some times admitted even in those churches that as a rule excluded them. For we find it recorded that a great number both of men and women were in the nave of St. Albans for the purpose of hearing Mass and praying at the time when the Norman piers on the south side of the nave fell in 1323. ”

“ Albans to lend him the choir copes of the abbey, for Dunstable Priory was not founded until some years later (Monasticon, vi. 238) . On the night after the play, doubtless 24 Nov., the eve of the saint's feast day, Master Geoffrey's house was burnt, and with it his books and the St. Albans copes. Not knowing how to make up the loss to God and the saint, he determined to make an offering of himself (Gesta Abbatum, i. 73) ; became a monk of St. Albans, and in after days as abbot took special care to provide the house with valuable choir copes. ”

“ It is plain that these old monks were not always to be trusted to behave in an honourable manner when precious relics were concerned. The chronicler, however, who tells the story, considers the conduct of the monks of St. Albans in sending spurious relics was "pious," while the behaviour of the monks of Ely was "detestable and disgraceful"—but then the chronicler was a monk of St. Albans. Ælfric bought the royal palace of Kingsbury and its land near the Abbey, demolishing the whole of the palace except one tower. Ælfric in 995 was promoted to the office of Archbishop of Canterbury. ”

“ Albans in Hertfordshire, on the Watling Street, hence probably the name, Vaeclingacaestir. 56. The place was afterwards called Holmhurst. The church mentioned by Bede was superseded by the monastery of St. Alban, the foundation of which is attributed to Offa, circ. 793 a.d. Certain extraordinary privileges were granted to it, and its abbot obtained a superiority over all other English abbots (Dugdale, “Monasticon”) . 57. The evidence for their martyrdom is very doubtful. ”

“ Yet politics were as keen and as absorbing in the Middle Ages as they are now, and monks and Abbot must have followed their course, and criticised the actors, with as much freedom as the men of to-day.25 In favour of St. Albans it must be said that, in comparison with other monasteries, its chronicles are singularly living and human. In those written during the revival of historical writing under the guidance of Thomas Walsingham, the political sympathies of the convent during the critical period of Richard II’s reign are fully revealed. ”

“ Albans, largely though the place has grown of late126 years. The Abbey, on its crowning ridge, of course dominates everything; but, apart from that chief feature, you have old churches, old houses of every degree of antiquity down to the time of George the Third (after which period houses cease to be antique) , and old inns. And with all these evidences of a venerable age there is yet a lively air, a bustling cheeriness, about St. Albans that render it really lovable. Much might be said of St. Albans: of the ruins of Sopwell nunnery, down in the quelchy water-meadows as you come in from London ”

“ The tide of economic decline and growing material decrepitude, stemmed by De la Mare’s careful administration, proceeded unchecked after his death. Within the convent the decay of the monastic spirit was everywhere apparent. Living became inevitably more luxurious, and the religious life grew cold and formal.63 Yet the reputation of48 St. Albans was as great in 1460 as in the days of Abbot Thomas. Up to 1464 (the year in which Whethamstede died) no flagrant abuses appear to have invaded the cloister, nor was there any considerable slackening of the discipline. ”

“ Its poverty weakened its independence, and was at once the cause of the decline of its hospitality and the reason for its growing obsequiousness toward the great. The bishops especially were quick to realise the weakness of the Abbey.72 Always jealous of exempt houses, they exhibited in the fifteenth century an unusually bitter hostility towards St. Albans. In 1399, Henry Bishop of Lincoln had formally notified the Abbot that he claimed no jurisdiction over the Abbey73 ”

“ PARIS, MATTHEW (d. 1259) , historian and monk, took the religious habit at St. Albans on St. Agnes's day, 21 Jan. 1217. He was then, it may be surmised, about seventeen years old. He had doubtless received his early education in the convent school. His surname, which was not uncommon in England in the thirteenth century, was probably inherited. St. Albans was at that time a place of art and learning, and the writing of history was specially encouraged there. Abbot Paul [q. v.] had endowed the scriptorium and increased the library, which received further additions under his successors ”

“ The effect of lessening the pressure of outside circumstances and rendering more safe and easy the existence of the Abbey was to promote a mild revival which bore its best fruits in a new outburst of historical writing. The golden age of St. Albans’ historical composition had been the early thirteenth century, and was associated with the names of Roger Wendover and Matthew Paris. Then it was that the St. Albans School grew famous. ”

“ And scarcely was there a forest, chase, or wood throughout the greatest part of England, which did not in some measure contribute a supply to the abbey of its timber or venison. Successive monarchs banquetted within its walls, and while the abbots were distinguished for their extensive hospitality, the poor were not forgotten. Thus stood St. Albans, [Pg 220] often in stormy times a place of refuge, into which the peasants drove their cattle and were secure, and while the storm of war raged furiously without, there was safety and abundance within. ”

“ A growing movement towards reform and revival was thus the main trend of events at St. Albans during the fourteenth century. The persistent efforts of Maryns and the other short-lived abbots removed abuses and restored the discipline. The long abbacy of Thomas de la Mare was marked by able administration, and minute and unflagging attention to the monastery’s interests. The Abbot shirked no contest to retain or regain lands, services or jurisdiction upon which the Abbey had just claims. ”

“ The ground was therefore opened, and, in the presence of the king, the body of Alban was found. Offa is said to have placed a golden circle round the head of the St. Alban's body found after a lapse of 494 years; a golden circle placed round his head. deceased, with an inscription, to signify his name and title, and immediately caused the remains of the saint to be conveyed to a small chapel, without the walls of Verulam, as the town was then called, until a more noble edifice could be raised for its reception. ”

“ Only a man who in his youth has come at last in sight of some great city he had dreamed of all his life and longed to see, can enter into Rolf's feelings as they swept around the big bend, and Albany—Albany, hove in view. Albany, the first chartered city of the United States; Albany, the capital of all the Empire State; Albany, the thriving metropolis with nearly six thousand living human souls; Albany with its State House, beautiful and dignified, looking down the mighty Hudson highway that led to the open sea. ”

“ Thus Albany is a real capital,—a typical Southern county town, the centre of the life of ten thousand souls; their point of contact with the outer world, their centre of news and gossip, their market for buying and selling, borrowing and lending, their fountain of justice and law. Once upon a time we knew country life so well and city life so little, that we illustrated city life as that of a closely crowded country district. ”

“ St. Albans became a specially learned monastery and home of historians, while Roman law, medicine, and theology were closely studied, and books were lent out to students from the monastic libraries, a pledge of value being deposited by the borrower.
Latin Literature. ”

“ Albans’ very bulk is impressive, and, to the distant view, softened as it is by the smoke of the town chimneys, not unlovely, despite that long outline which rivals Winchester’s great span; and though the crudities of the wealthy architectural amateur are insistent at close quarters they are fortunately lost in great measure from a distance. For where bygone abbots strove so greatly to build in ages past, it is happily difficult for one man to largely alter the outline of their work. ”

“ Albans, editor of the New York 'Daily Fife,' whose 'leaders' on the propriety of an immediate slaughter of all Britons within reach, have excited much terror in the bosom of Victoria.
"'My dear sir,' screamed the sturdy St. Albans, springing to meet his visitor, 'I am delighted to welcome you to the United States!'
"Mr. R. Fennarf's heart sank down to his very boots. ”

“ As Albano was more smitten with edifices than with any other work of art, so did he see from afar with holy awe the long mountain-chain of art, which again bore upon itself hills; so did he stand before the plain, around which two enormous colonnades run like Corsos, bearing a people of statues; in the centre shoots up the obelisk, and on its right and left an eternal fountain, and from the lofty steps the proud church of the world, inwardly filled with churches, rearing upon itself a temple toward heaven, looks down upon the earth. ”

“ But his method was effective. Before long the Abbey grew famous, not only in England, but on the Continent, and monks were often sent to St. Albans to be trained in monastic discipline for the benefit of their own houses.
17
The position of St. Albans as the premier Benedictine house was recognised by the election of the Abbot as president of the successive General Chapters at Northampton. In these assemblies De la Mare issued a comprehensive series of constitutions on the discipline of the Order. ”

“ Albans, gleefully reproduced in his “Historia Anglicana”: “Her body was buried in the monastery of Ambresbury, but her heart in London, in the church of the Minorites, who, like all friars of every order, claim for themselves something of the bodies of any powerful persons dying; after the manner of the dogs assembling {298} round corpses, where each one greedily awaits his portion to devour.”408 Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, had given for the same building twenty trees from his forest of Tunbridge. Rich merchants, the mayor, the aldermen, followed suit. ”

“ Julia, these are moments of awful romance; how the soul longs for the consolations of friendship. Albany is one of the most picturesque places in the world; situated most delightfully on the banks of the Hudson, which here meanders in sylvan beauty through meadows of ever-green and desert islands. Words are wanting to paint the melancholy beauties of the ride to Schenectady, through gloomy forests, where the silvery pine waves in solemn grandeur to the sighings of Eolus, while Boreas threatens in vain their firm-rooted trunks. ”

“ But what can the mere littérateur do, walled up to heaven in a world of mathematical mystery and machinery! Your own city of Albany is a paradise compared to the metropolis: you are really very fortunate—very, very happy to be able to live at home. ”

“ Albans, where, driven out of the abbey, unable to bear the sight of its restorations, and out of the churchyard, where I would fain have stayed to draw, by the black plague-wind, I take refuge from all in an old apple-woman’s shop, because she reminds me of my Croydon Amorite aunt,—and her little window of the one in the parlour beside the shop in Market Street. She sells comic songs as well as apples. ”