took
possession of his kingdom. Either as a politic effort to remove the evil
reputation of such deeds, or as a conscientious offering to regain the
favour of Heaven by means of a great work for the Church, Offa resolved
to found a monastery, in honour of the protomartyr of Britain, upon the
site of the martyrdom. The first thing to do was to discover the actual
remains of St. Alban. The story of the discovery would not be complete
without a vision and a miracle. Accordingly a vision is said to have
appeared to the King at Bath, and a miraculous light to have guided him
to the spot where the coffin was found. This had been purposely removed
from its first resting-place within the walls of the church, for fear of
its being desecrated by the Saxons, who certainly did reduce the
building almost to a ruin. The coffin was found to contain the body of
the martyr, as well as the precious relics which had been placed within
it by the Bishop of Auxerre. Their presence establishes the identity of
the remains. The church was then repaired so as to be able to preserve
safely the reliquary which contained the precious relics "until a more
worthy edifice should be built." Permission to build and endow the
monastery was obtained from Pope Adrian I., the King making a special
journey to Rome in order to procure it. The martyr was canonized at the
same time. At some later time a valuable concession was granted to the
new monastery: the tribute known as Peter's Pence being assigned to it,
while the lands belonging to the Abbey were exempted from the payment.
This grant applied to the whole of Offa's kingdom. The payment of
Peter's Pence had only been instituted sixty-six years previously, the
object being to maintain a Saxon college at Rome. Offa lived to see the
monastery established and partially endowed. He himself gave one of the
royal manors to the endowment, but he did not live long enough even to
make a beginning of the grand church he appears to have had in
contemplation, for he died not long after his return from Rome, some
authorities giving the year 794 as the date of his death, others 796.

The monastery was of the Benedictine order. Though it became important,
and at last the chief of the Benedictine houses in England, it was not
one of the earliest. The Benedictine order had been introduced into
England in 596, and forty-five monasteries had been founded before that
of St. Alban's. Many of these were little more than cells,