St. Alban
| Saint Alban | |
|---|---|
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Saint Alban
|
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| Martyr | |
| Born | unknown Verulamium |
| Died | disputed: 22 June 209, c.251 or 304 Holywell Hill (formerly Holmhurst Hill), St Albans |
| Venerated in |
Roman Catholic Church Anglican Communion Eastern Orthodox Church |
| Major shrine | Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban |
| Feast | 22 June |
| Attributes | Soldier with a very large cross and a sword; decapitated, with his head in a holly bush and the eyes of his executioner dropping out |
| Patronage | converts, refugees, torture victims |
Saint Alban (/ˈɔːlbən, ˈæl-/; Latin: Albanus) is venerated as the first recorded British Christian martyr, and is considered to be the British protomartyr. Along with his fellow saints "Amphibalus," Julius, and Aaron, Alban is one of four named martyrs recorded from Roman Britain. He is traditionally believed to have been beheaded in the Roman city of Verulamium (modern St Albans) sometime during the 3rd or 4th century, and his cult has been celebrated there since ancient times.
Little can actually be known about the real St Alban (estimated to have died c. 209 – 305 A.D. depending on interpretations), as there are no contemporaneous accounts of his martyrdom. The major sources on his life were written hundreds of years after his death, and many of the later texts contain traditional additions and wondrous embellishments that may or may not have occurred. In the view of Robin Lane Fox, "the date and historicity of the first British 'martyr', St Alban, are highly disputable".
Contemporary research by historians suggests that the origin of the Saint Alban cult as we know it was an invention of Germanus and other Late Antique leaders, who promoted his cult as a way of combating the Pelagian Heresy. Before Germanus's visit to Britain in c. 429 AD, "Alban" was an unnamed saint about whom little was known. When Germanus visited his tomb as part of a tour of Britain to combat Pelagianism, the Christians there knew nothing about the martyr, not even his name. While at the tomb, Germanus claimed that Saint Alban came to him in a dream, revealing his name and the story of his martyrdom. Germanus had this vision set down in tituli (possibly engraved in the walls of a church with illustrations), which went on to become the first version of the Passio Albani, or original account of Saint Alban's life and martyrdom. This first version of the Passio, written in the 5th century, was very simple and short, and as time went on, more and more details and wondrous events were added to the account until it came to its most detailed version in the 8th century, in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
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