Saints and Treasures

Sometime in the 3rd or early 4th century a man living in England’s Roman city of Verulamium gave shelter to a Christian priest called Amphibalus who was fleeing persecution. Although the man was pagan, he became so impressed by the fugitive’s strength of faith that he converted to Christianity and further assisted the priest’s escape by swapping clothes with him. The local Roman authorities, discovering the charade and angered by the convert’s refusal to renounce his new beliefs, duly had him beheaded. The man was Alban and he is hailed as Britain’s first saint, giving his name to the modern Hertfordshire city of St Albans, just to the northeast of Verulamium’s remains.

“A beautiful church worthy of Alban’s martyrdom was built, where sick folk are healed and frequent miracles take place to this day,” the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede noted in 731. The modern iteration of that church, St Albans Cathedral, now houses the saint’s restored medieval shrine beneath a canopy, as well as the shrine of Amphibalus, who was eventually caught and killed