several English monastic houses claimed to have relics of the saint King Edgar gave one to Westminster Abbey and the relic collection of Peterborough Abbey included the hand of St Magnus the Martyr as well as the famous arm of St Oswald. The feast of St Magnus the Martyr, celebrated on 19 August, appears in most liturgical calendars from the Gelasian Sacramentary in the eighth century and the missal of Robert of Jumièges in the 11th century to the 16th century. The original dedication of the church may therefore, as noted by Richard Thomson in his Chronicles of London Bridge of 1827, have been to St Magnus of Anagni (Sancti Magni martiris et episcopi Tranensis), a putative third-century bishop who was martyred in the reign of the Emperor Decius and whose relics were translated from Fondi to Veroli and then to Anangni in the 9th century. It is possible that the dedication might also have been influenced by Cnut's journey to Rome in 1027 or by the translation to Canterbury in 1023 of the remains of Alphage, Bishop and Martyr, from St Paul's Cathedral, where a cult had rapidly developed at his tomb. The feast on 19 August was still celebrated in the 16th century. It was included in an Almanack attached to Miles Coverdale's translation of the Bible and in the Preces Privitae of 1564 (authorised by Elizabeth I for private devotion), but was excluded from the Book of Common Prayer. It was also omitted from the Tridentine Calendar, falling as it did within the Octave of the Assumption, but has remained in local calendars. St Magnus of Anagni also remains in the Martyrologium Romanum. History 11th and 12th centuries: foundation A metropolitan bishop of London attended the Council of Arles in 314, which indicates that there must have been a Christian community in Londinium by this date, and it has been suggested that a large aisled building excavated in 1993 near Tower Hill can be compared with the 4th-century Cathedral of St Tecla in Milan. However, there is no evidence to suggest that any of the mediaeval churches in the City of London had a Roman foundation. The archaeological record suggests that the area of the bridgehead was not occupied from the early 5th century until the early 10th century. Environmental evidence indicates that the area was waste ground during this period, colonised by elder and nettles. Following