An anchoress was a religious woman who chose to live an isolated life rather than become a nun. This article describes the evidence for anchoresses at St Peter's church as well as the boundaries of their isolation.
In medieval St Albans, the cloth trade was of great local importance. Some of the manufacturing processes took place in Fullers Street (now the vehicular access to the Westminster Sports centre, aka Mud Lane). Chris Saunders explains how historical records shed light on the scale and range of manufacturing activities.
If you were poor in the Middle Ages, the Benedictine monastery and abbey at St Albans might provide a dole of bread and measure of beer, provided there were any leftovers from the monks’ table.
Analysis of food remains from the Saxon and Norman periods found at abbeys in Eynsham and St Albans helped to shed light on the extent to which the abbeys conformed to dietary rules, and how wealthy they were.
Kingsbury Barn is one of an exceptional group of barns built to store grain from the estates of St Albans Abbey.
Drawing on research by SAHAAS members J. T. Smith and Gerard McSweeney, Jill Singer describes the changing extent and ownership of Kingsbury Manor and the manor house.
Perhaps the most famous of the monks of St Albans, Matthew Paris wrote an acclaimed chronicle of England, offering fascinating observations on the people and events he saw as important.
Just off Cottonmill Lane stand the remains of a building known variously as the Sopwell Nunnery, Sopwell House or Sopwell ruins. Ruins they certainly are, but not of the nunnery, nor the precursor of the present Sopwell House about a mile away. Excavations carried out in the 1960s discovered more about how the site has been used over the last nine hundred years.
The manuscripts produced in St Albans Abbey were dispersed when the monastery was dissolved in 1539. Fortunately, many have found their way into the collections of libraries and archives, and some can be seen online.
Easter 1349 brought profound changes to St Albans, going well beyond the immediate havoc that the Black Death wrought on the townspeople and the monks of the Abbey.
As David Thorold explains, St Albans Abbey gave rise to two exceptional medieval chroniclers - Matthew Paris and Thomas Walsingham - who took advantage of the Abbey's status and excellent connections to produce wide ranging accounts of the ages they lived in.
Drawing on recent research, Dr John Morewood, SAHAAS President, looks at the background to the Wars of the Roses, and how the first battle of the struggle unfolded in St Albans.
St Albans has the only medieval town belfry in England, dating back to 1405. It rang the alarm at the first Battle of St Albans in 1455, and enabled rapid cross-country communication during the Napoleonic Wars, when it became a signalling station in 1805.
For hundreds of years, an Eleanor Cross stood in the market place of St Albans. Find out why, and what happened to it.
2021 is the 640th anniversary of the most serious popular revolt in Medieval England, popularly known as the 'Peasants' Revolt'. Dr John Morewood, SAHAAS President, looks at how St Albans was involved in the uprising, and what places are connected with the events of June - July 1381.
Unlike some towns and cities, medieval St Albans had no city wall. But, as Society Vice President Dr Peter Burley explains, St Albans possessed credible defensive features which took advantage of the town’s natural topography.
In 1213, the Abbot of St Albans Abbey hosted a meeting called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, and ...
