This grant applied to the whole of Offa's kingdom. The payment of
Peter's Pence had only been instituted sixty-six years previously, the
object being to maintain a Saxon college at Rome. Offa lived to see the
monastery established and partially endowed. He himself gave one of the
royal manors to the endowment, but he did not live long enough even to
make a beginning of the grand church he appears to have had in
contemplation, for he died not long after his return from Rome, some
authorities giving the year 794 as the date of his death, others 796.
The monastery was of the Benedictine order. Though it became important,
and at last the chief of the Benedictine houses in England, it was not
one of the earliest. The Benedictine order had been introduced into
England in 596, and forty-five monasteries had been founded before that
of St. Alban's. Many of these were little more than cells, and many were
afterwards absorbed into the larger establishments. Yet several very
famous abbeys were founded at least a century before Offa founded St.
Alban's.
Many of the early Abbots of St. Albans were men of mark and of influence
in the national councils, and some of them were closely related to the
royal family.
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