According to the 13th-century chronicler Matthew Paris, in AD 948 Abbot Wulsin (or Ulsinus) of St Alban's Abbey founded a church on each of the three main roads into the town of St Albans, namely St Michael's, St Peter's and St Stephen's, to serve pilgrims coming to venerate the Abbey's shrine of Saint Alban. In fact Wulsin may have been Abbot in about 860–880, and the earliest parts of the present building are at least a century later. Nevertheless, the church is certainly from the late Anglo-Saxon era and there may have been an earlier building on the present site.