Listed 2 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "SAINT ALBANS Town ENGLAND".
Verulamium Near St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England.
A pre-Roman and Romano-British town and chief center of the Catuvellauni, 33 km
NW of London on Watling Street. The Roman town now lies beneath open country and
has been available for excavation: there is a good museum on the site. The name
Verlamio first appears as mint mark on coins of Tasciovanus (ca. 20 B.C-A.D. 5),
and the pre-Roman oppidum is today represented by various earthworks extending
well beyond the Roman walls: one of its cemeteries was excavated in 1966-68.
The Roman site was first occupied by a military post ca. A.D. 43-44;
civil buildings and a rectangular street-grid were laid out ca. A.D. 50, and were
probably from the first surrounded by a bank and ditch enclosing 47.6 ha. The
town may well have had the status of a Latin municipium (Tac. Ann. 14.33). Excavation
in Insula XIV has revealed a row of shops, originally under a single roof and
therefore probably under single ownership. The building technique, timber framing
filled with clay, was new to British builders and is evidence for the part played
by the Roman army in the government's urbanizing program in the new province.
Some of the shops were occupied by bronzeworkers. These buildings and others were
destroyed in the rebellion of Boudicca in A.D. 60-61. The shops were not rebuilt
for 15 years: they rose again under Vespasian, to whom the large new forum was
dedicated with an inscription of A.D. 79, mentioning the governor Julius Agricola
(cf. Tac. Agr. 21). It was a building of unusual plan, more closely resembling
the forums of Roman Gaul than the normal principia type of Roman Britain. The
Flavian period also saw the construction of a masonry shopping precinct and temple;
domestic and commercial buildings were still half-timbered.
Towards the end of the reign of Antoninus Pius Verulamium was again
devastated by fire; the remains of the half-timbered buildings roofed in thatch
or shingles have yielded frescos now in the museum. The city, however, was full
of vigor; it had already expanded beyond its 1st c. defenses, and now the forum
was rebuilt, a theater of Gallo-Roman type was provided for the temple ceremonies,
and for the first time large courtyard houses of 30 or 40 rooms are found. It
is possible that there was a local firm of mosaicists at this date, whose products
have also been found in nearby villas and at Colchester. Towards the end of the
2d c. a new defensive bank and ditch with masonry gateways was laid out to enclose
90 ha, but not finished; this may date from the rebellion of Albinus. Though no
material traces of Christianity have been found with the exception of a possible
cemetery church outside the London gate, it is certain that the martyrdom of St.
Alban occurred at Verulamium, possibly in A.D. 208-209. In the 3d c. a town wall
was built, excluding part of the area formerly embanked and enclosing only 80
ha. Earlier theories about the devastating effects of the 3d c. economic crisis
have not been confirmed by recent excavations.
In the early 4th c. many 2d c. structures were replaced, and again
many mosaics were laid. Substantial houses continued to be built or altered until
almost 400, and only with the 5th c. is there any sign of decline. During that
century a corn-drying oven was inserted into a large mosaic in Insula XXVII, suggesting
insecurity in the surrounding farmlands; but the same site yielded evidence for
two further structural phases that leave no doubt that urban life was maintained
behind the walls until at least 450. Thereafter evidence ceases, for the upper
levels have been mostly ploughed away. In time, with the breakdown of commerce
and of the food supply, the city became deserted, but the absence of early Saxon
settlements and burials in the neighboring region points to the maintenance of
Romano-British rule during the 5th c. Later, with the revival of the shrine of
St. Alban on the opposite hill, a new town sprang up on a different site.
S.S. Frere, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Feb 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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