Back to the Definitely All Romans calendar
As we have said before, the Romans worshipped many gods and they were not, at this stage, Christians. Some emperors had
tolerated those who had a different religion but you may know stories that in Rome, Christians were put into the arenas to fight with lions. There weren’t many
Christian winners.
The Emperor Diocletian ordered that all Christians should be persecuted. He didn’t go a bundle on Christianity. In England this ruling was followed
as well. There was a priest in Verulamium who was wanted by the Romans. On learning of this, a man who we believe was called Alban, it may not have been his real
name, but he had recently become a Christian and he offered to change places with the priest.
The Romans found him and, thinking that he was the priest they
wanted, they arrested him and he was then executed, probably without a trial of any sort. The print on the left was from a manuscript written some 1,000 years
later. This is one of the problems with a lot of early history. It is written by people who weren’t there, in fact weren’t even born or thought of at that time.
Now I know what you are thinking. OK, I don’t really know but I'm guessing you might be thinking that I am doing exactly the same as the people who
wrote these old histories. I would have to agree. Some of what we know is fact, there is proof, but some is merely what we think.
By the way, if you look closely at the print you will see that after chopping off Alban's head, the executioners eyes fell out. Unlikely, I would say,
but a good story if you are trying to show what happens to you when you kill a Christian.
I guess you also may now have guessed why Verulamium is now called St Alban's
Forward to 306AD
