a hand in creating and promoting the cult of Saint Alban. Gildas writing probably in the second quarter of the fifth century calls Saint Alban Verolamiensis, 'of Verulamium' in a passage that refers to the "graves and places where they suffered" of the early British martyrs. This suggests there was at least a shrine but quite possibly a church to him at Verulamium by then. Certainly, Bede (c. 720) mentions a church there, dedicated to him. Offa of Mercia established a Benedictine Abbey and monastery at the site c. 793, but the abbey was probably sacked and destroyed by the Danes c. 890. It was rebuilt by the Normans, with construction beginning in 1077. By the High Middle Ages, St Albans ranked as the premier abbey in England. The abbey church now serves as the cathedral of the Diocese of St Albans, established in 1877. In a chapel east of the crossing and high altar are remains of the 14th-century marble shrine of St Alban. In June 2002 a scapula (shoulder blade), believed to be a relic of St Alban, was presented to St Albans Cathedral and placed inside the saint's restored 13th-century shrine. The bone was given by the Church of St Pantaleon in Cologne, Germany News. St Pantaleon's, like St Albans Cathedral a former Benedictine abbey church that had a shrine dedicated to St Alban, has possessed remains believed to be those of St Alban since the 10th century. It is entirely possible that further relics were acquired by the church in the 16th century at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England, when many such relics were smuggled abroad to prevent their destruction. St Albans Abbey was dissolved in 1539. The largest relic of St Alban in England is the thigh of the protomartyr preserved at St Michael's Benedictine Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire, which was transferred from the St Pantaleon's reliquary in the 1950s. On the Continent There has also been an extensive cult of Saint Alban on the Continent from an early date such as in Mainz, Cologne and Basel on the Rhine as well as a number of other localities in Switzerland and Italy and a notable concentration in the French Alpine regions and the Rhone Valley. Sometimes, the 'Saint Alban' concerned is regarded as a separate figure, other times, he is alternatively called Albinus (and often identified with 6th c. bishop, Saint