Alban
Alban (3rd century), protomartyr of Britain. The cult of this saint links England, as no other local cult does, with the early patristic age and with the Church of the late Roman Empire. Gildas and Bede attributed his martyrdom to the persecution of Diocletian (c.305); some modern scholars have argued more or less plausibly for that of Decius (c.254) or even that of Septimius Severus (c.209). Whatever the date, Alban is an interesting example of a martyr who suffered in the amphitheatre outside the town, whose relics were buried in a martyrium of a kind known on the Continent, around which the new town (St. Albans instead of Verulamium) grew up. It is also possible that Verulamium was in the Chiltern enclave which long resisted Anglo-Saxon invasion.
Few details are known about him. The legendary Acts, followed by Bede, say that Alban, a Roman citizen, sheltered a priest, was converted by him and baptized. Soldiers in pursuit of the priest, later called Amphibalus, were sent to search his house. Alban dressed in the priest's clothes to enable him to escape. He himself was arrested and after refusing to offer sacrifice was condemned to death. One executioner was converted; Alban was beheaded by another, whose eyes (as later artists loved to depict) fell out.
He was buried nearby; the shrine, where the sick were cured, was visited by Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus in 429, when they removed some dust from it for their relic collection and gave other relics of apostles and martyrs in return. The shrine was in use, at least intermittently and probably continuously, to the time of Bede.
A story that the shrine was lost and then recovered by revelation at the time of Offa's supposed foundation of the monastery at St. Albans is unlikely. The relics of Alban were venerated there until the Reformation, but Ely with some plausibility claimed a rival set due to a translation under Abbot Frederick in the 11th century. St. Albans, however, alleged that the Ely relics were a false set. The St. Albans case was given further impetus by a translation in 1129 and by the discovery of Amphibalus' supposed relics at Redbourn in 1177 and of Alban's original grave in 1257. These last two claims are rightly challenged by modern historians. The cult prospered under the increasing importance of St. Albans Abbey, enhanced by the best artistic products of England's wealthiest monastery. These included the fine illustrated Life by Matthew Paris and the new shrine, part of which survives. Representations of him by Comper and others after World War I present him as a soldier. Much of his shrine at St. Albans has recently been restored.
Alban's cult extended all over England and in parts of France influenced by Germanus. Nine ancient English churches were dedicated to him. Odensee (Denmark), founded by Evesham, also claimed his relics. Feast: 20 June (formerly 22 June, as in B.C.P.); translation, 2 August (15 May at Ely).
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- AA.SS. Iun. IV (1707), 146–70; Bede, H.E., i. 7, 17–21; Matthew Paris, Gesta Abbatum S. Albani (R.S.) i. 12–18, 94; id., Chronica Majora (R.S.), ii. 306–8; v. 608–10; W. Meyer, ‘Die Legende des hl. Albanus, des Protomartyr Angliae in Texten vor Beda’, Abh. (Gott.), N.F. viii. Nr. 1 (1904); W. Levison, ‘St. Alban and St. Albans’, Antiquity, xv (1941), 337–59; J. Morris, ‘The Date of St. Alban’, Hertfordshire Archaeology, i (1968), 1–8; see also W. R. L. Lowe and E. F. Jacob, Illustrations to the Life of St. Alban (1924); O. Pacht, C. R. Dodwell, and F. Wormald, The St. Albans Psalter (1960); J. E. van der Westhuizen, Lydgate's Life of St. Alban (1974); D. Rollason, Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England (1989)
