The Romans Leave
The Roman City of Verulamium slowly declined and fell into decay after the departure of the Roman Army in AD 410. However, its ruined buildings provided building materials to build the new monastic and market settlement of St Albans which was growing on the hill above, close to the site of Saint Alban's execution. In the Norman Abbey tower, you can still see the Roman bricks removed from Verulamium.
Much of the post-Roman development of St Albans was in memorial to Saint Alban, the earliest known British Christian martyr, executed in AD 250 (the exact date is unknown, with scholars suggesting dates of 209, 254 and 304). The town itself was known for some time by the Saxon name 'Verlamchester'. A shrine was built on the site of his death following Emperor Constantine's adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire. In the 5th century a Benedictine monastic church was constructed.
Read more about this topic: History Of St Albans
Famous quotes containing the words the romans, romans and/or leave:
“The last of all the Romans, fare thee well.
It is impossible that ever Rome
Should breed thy fellow.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“So by all means let’s have a television show quick and long, even if the commercial has to be delivered by a man in a white coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck, selling ergot pills. After all the public is entitled to what it wants, isn’t it? The Romans knew that and even they lasted four hundred years after they started to putrefy.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“When we leave our child in nursery school for the first time, it won’t be just our child’s feelings about separation that we will have to cope with, but our own feelings as well—from our present and from our past, parents are extra vulnerable to new tremors from old earthquakes.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)