are many authorities and to follow the consensus of
testimony wherever I have found discrepancy or contradiction.

It has already been stated that, according to Gildas, Bede and other
authorities, a church was erected on Holmhurst Hill after the martyrdom
of St. Alban. Concerning that church we know little more than that it
was almost destroyed by the Saxons. In 793, or very near that date, Offa
II., who had murdered the East Anglian King, Ethelbert, resolved to
found a monastery, encouraged, as we learn from William of Malmesbury,
by Charlemagne. The monastery was duly founded, for an abbot and 100
Benedictine monks, and the little church, renovated, became the original
abbey of the foundation. Having discovered the bones of St. Alban and
placed them in a costly reliquary, Offa conveyed them to this church,
intending to erect a nobler edifice for their reception; but it is
doubtful whether the design was carried out during his lifetime. Indeed,
we know little as to that enlarging and adornment of the church which
must surely have been effected in the days of the early abbots, and the
first hints of the erection of the great abbey occur in the lives of
Ealdred and Eadmer, eighth and ninth abbots, who collected immense
quantities of red, tile-like Roman bricks from the ruins of Verulam;
Matthew Paris tells us that Eadmer made some progress in the actual
rebuilding of the church. The twelfth abbot, Leofstan (d. 1066),
enriched the building with "certain ornaments"; but it was the
fourteenth abbot, Paul de Caen (1077-97), who, using the vast stores of
material collected by his predecessors, entirely rebuilt the church on a
scale almost commensurate with its present size.

The rebuilding of the Abbey Church by Abbot Paul de Caen occupied eleven
years. When completed, it was certainly one of the noblest and largest
structures in the kingdom. The length of this cruciform Norman church
was 426 feet. (The extreme length is now 550, due to additions presently
mentioned.) On the E. side of either transept were two apsidal chapels,
the one adjoining the presbytery aisle being in each case the larger of
the two; there was also an apse at the E. end of the presbytery. A
square, battlemented tower flanked the W. front on either side; but the
chief glory of Abbot Paul's church was undoubtedly the enormous Norman
tower of four stages, triforium, clerestory, ringing-floor and belfry,
surmounted by parapets and flanked by angle turrets,