It has already been stated that, according to Gildas, Bede and other authorities, a church was erected on Holmhurst Hill after the martyrdom of St. Alban. Concerning that church we know little more than that it was almost destroyed by the Saxons. In 793, or very near that date, Offa II., who had murdered the East Anglian King, Ethelbert, resolved to found a monastery, encouraged, as we learn from William of Malmesbury, by Charlemagne. The monastery was duly founded, for an abbot and 100 Benedictine monks, and the little church, renovated, became the original abbey of the foundation. Having discovered the bones of St. Alban and placed them in a costly reliquary, Offa conveyed them to this church, intending to erect a nobler edifice for their reception; but it is doubtful whether the design was carried out during his lifetime. Indeed, we know little as to that enlarging and adornment of the church which must surely have been effected in the days of the early abbots, and the first hints of the erection of the great abbey occur in the lives of Ealdred and Eadmer, eighth and ninth abbots, who collected immense quantities of red, tile-like Roman bricks from the ruins of Verulam; Matthew Paris tells us that Eadmer made some progress in the actual rebuilding of the church. The twelfth abbot, Leofstan (d. 1066), enriched the building with "certain ornaments"; but it was the fourteenth abbot, Paul de Caen (1077-97), who, using the vast stores of material collected by his predecessors, entirely rebuilt the church on a scale almost commensurate with its present size. The rebuilding of the Abbey Church by Abbot Paul de Caen occupied eleven years. When completed, it was certainly one of the noblest and largest structures in the kingdom. The length of this cruciform Norman church was 426 feet. (The extreme length is now 550, due to additions presently mentioned.) On the E. side of either transept were two apsidal chapels, the one adjoining the presbytery aisle being in each case the larger of the two; there was also an apse at the E. end of the presbytery. A square, battlemented tower flanked the W. front on either side; but the chief glory of Abbot Paul's church was undoubtedly the enormous Norman tower of four stages, triforium, clerestory, ringing-floor and belfry, surmounted by parapets and flanked by angle turrets, of which such considerable portions yet remain. Visitors who saw the Abbey thirty years ago saw the E. portion of the nave, the transepts and the tower substantially as built by Abbot Paul de Caen. The new Abbey was dedicated 1115. Geoffrey de Gorham, sixteenth abbot (1119-46), placed the relics of St. Alban in a new shrine.