medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I have a geographical question raised by the vita of St. Alban.
Bede (Historia Ecclesiastica I.7) states that, after being taken from his
home in Verulamium (now St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, England) to a judge
who condemned him, St. Alban came to a river (‘pervenit ad flumen') en
route to his execution. According to the edition of Bede I'm reading (Loeb
Classical Library, J.E. King, trans.), this river is the Coln. The River
Coln, however, is a full 2 degrees west in current Gloucestershire. To go,
in the early Fourth Century, from just north of modern-day London nearly
across the entire breadth of Britain would have been quite a journey.
Although Bede doesn't say so, I presume that Alban ended up so far west
because that was where the judge who condemned him sat. Yet, given the
Roman penchant for decentralizing authority over local matters, this seems
rather far unless, perhaps, the western locale was the situs of the crime
-- i.e., the place whence the fugitive priest hidden by St. Alban had fled.
Any explanations (or speculations!) would be most welcome.
--Christopher
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