Passio Albani

The Passio Albani, or Passion of Saint Alban, is medieval hagiographic text about the martyrdom of Saint Alban, the protomartyr of Roman Britain. The author is anonymous, but the work is thought to have been written in the sixth or fifth century. In the latter case, it may actually have been authored or commissioned by Germanus of Auxerre. It currently survives in three different recensions and six separate manuscripts located throughout Europe, and forms the basis for all subsequent retellings of the Saint Alban martyrdom, from Gildas to Bede.

The Passio has survived in six separate manuscripts located throughout Europe. In 1904, The German scholar W. Meyer identified three different recensions of the manuscript, which he named T, P, and E. The T manuscript is located in Turin, the P manuscript in Paris, and the E manuscripts, of which there are four copies, are located at the British Library, Gray's Inn London, Autun France, and Einsiedeln Switzerland.

Meyer identified the T or Turin manuscript as the oldest version of the Passio, and the basis for all other recensions. He believed it was produced at the end of the eighth century at Corbie. Meyer did not believe that the original version of the Passio, the one set down by Germanus on tituli, had survived, and he assumed that the T version was therefore the oldest and most accurate version of the lost original. He postulated that the Turin manuscript was later abridged to form text E, which was then redacted to form the Paris text. This led him to assume that the E version was merely an abridgment of the Turin manuscript, and he edited it only in an abriged form as part of his 1904 survey.

Meyer's view was the standard interpretation for nearly 100 years, which had major implications in how later historians interpreted the historicity of Saint Alban and dated his martyrdom. It wasn't until 2001 that Richard Sharpe examined the E manuscripts and argued that the Turin manuscript is probably not the oldest version after all, and was instead probably composed in the ninth or tenth century at Saint Maur-des-Fossés. Not taking into account Meyer's main argument, Sharpe tried to demonstrate that the E recension is in fact older, and the parent text of all both the T and P texts. In fact the E recension is by far the simplest and shortest of the texts, and, far from being certain, therefore could possibly represent the original account set down by Germanus on tituli. That would mean that Germanus' original account did survive with few later additions in the E manuscript.

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