Saint Alban
Saint Alban is venerated as the first-recorded British Christian martyr, for which reason he is considered to be the protomartyr of Britain. Along with fellow Saints Julius and Aaron, Alban is one of three named martyrs recorded at an early date from Roman Britain. He is traditionally believed to have been beheaded in Verulamium sometime during the 3rd or 4th century, and has been celebrated there since ancient times.
Life and hagiography
Sparse records testify that Alban was a Roman citizen living in Verulamium around AD 300. Nothing is known of his background or age. The story of his trial and execution were told in several sources. The earliest reference to Alban's martyrdom is in the Life of Germanus by Constantius of Lyons. According to this account Germanus visited Alban's tomb in 429. However, Verulanium was not mentioned by Constantius. A later British writer, Gildas, wrote around 547 and referred to 'Alban of Verulanium' and gave a recognisable account of the execution. which he places in Londinium as he refers to crossing the Thames before the execution.Bede's account
One of the best known accounts is that of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written in 731.In the 3rd or 4th century, Christians began to suffer "cruel persecution". However, Gildas says he crossed the Thames before his martyrdom, so some authors place his residence and martyrdom in or near Londinium. Both agree that Alban met a priest fleeing from persecutors and sheltered him in his house for a number of days. The priest, who later came to be called Amphibalus, prayed and "kept watch" day and night, and Alban was so impressed by the priest's faith and piety that he found himself emulating him and soon converting to Christianity. Eventually, it came to the ears of an unnamed "impious prince" that Alban was sheltering the priest. The prince gave orders for Roman soldiers to make a strict search of Alban's house. As they came to seize the priest, Alban put on the priest's cloak and clothing and presented himself to the soldiers in place of his guest.
Alban was brought before a judge, who just then happened to be standing at the altar, offering sacrifices to "devils". When the judge heard that Alban had offered himself up in place of the priest, he became enraged that Alban would shelter a person who "despised and blasphemed the gods," and, as Alban had given himself up in the Christian's place, Alban was sentenced to endure all the punishments that were to be inflicted upon the priest, unless he would comply with the rites of their pagan religion. Alban refused, and declared, "I worship and adore the true and living God who created all things.". The enraged judge ordered Alban to be scourged, thinking that a whipping would shake the constancy of his heart, but Alban bore these torments patiently and joyfully. When the judge realized that the tortures would not shake his faith, he gave orders for Alban to be beheaded.
Alban was led to execution, and he presently came to a fast-flowing river that could not be crossed. There was a bridge, but a mob of curious townspeople who wished to watch the execution had so clogged the bridge that the execution party could not cross. Filled with an ardent desire to arrive quickly at martyrdom, Alban raised his eyes to heaven, and the river dried up, allowing Alban and his captors to cross over on dry land. The astonished executioner cast down his sword and fell at Alban's feet, moved by divine inspiration and praying that he might either suffer with Alban or be executed for him.
The other executioners hesitated to pick up his sword, and meanwhile, Alban and they went about 500 paces to a gently sloping hill, completely covered with all kinds of wildflowers, and overlooking a beautiful plain.
File:DublinTrinityCollegeMSEi40LifeAlbanFol38rMartyrdomAlban.jpg|thumb|300x300px|The martyrdom of St Alban, a miniature from a 13th-century manuscript written and illustrated by Matthew Paris, now in Trinity College Library, Dublin; here, the executioner's eyes are depicted falling out of his head, concurring with Bede's account.
When Alban reached the summit of the hill, he began to thirst and prayed God would give him water. A spring immediately sprang up at his feet. It was there that his head was struck off, as well as the head of the first Roman soldier who was miraculously converted and refused to execute him. However, immediately after delivering the fatal stroke, the eyes of the second executioner popped out of his head and dropped to the ground, along with Alban's head, so that this second executioner could not rejoice over Alban's death.
Other legends
In later legends, Alban's head rolled downhill after his execution, and a well sprang up where it stopped.Upon hearing of the miracles, the astonished judge ordered further persecutions to cease, and he began to honour the saint's death.
St Albans Cathedral now stands near the believed site of his execution, and a well is at the bottom of the hill, Holywell Hill.
Disputed topics
Dating
The date of Alban's execution has never been firmly established. Original sources and modern historians indicate a range of dates between 209 and 313.The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle lists the year 283, but Bede places it in 305, "when the cruel Emperors first published their edicts against the Christians." In other words, it was sometime after the publication of the edicts by Eastern Roman Emperor Diocletian in 303 and before the proclamation of toleration in the Edict of Milan by co-ruling Roman Emperors Constantine I and Licinius, in 313. Bede was probably following Gildas.
English historian John Morris suggests that Alban's martyrdom took place during the persecutions of Emperor Septimius Severus in 209. Morris bases his claims on the Turin version of the Passio Albani, unknown to Bede, which states, "Alban received a fugitive cleric and put on his garment and his cloak that he was wearing and delivered himself up to be killed instead of the priest… and was delivered immediately to the evil Caesar Severus." According to Morris, Gildas knew the source but mistranslated the name "Severus" as an adjective, wrongly identifying the emperor as Diocletian. Bede accepted the identification as fact and dates Alban's martyrdom to this later period. As Morris points out, Diocletian reigned only in the East and would not have been involved in British affairs in 304; Emperor Severus, however, was in Britain from 208 to 211. Morris thus dates Alban's death to 209. However, the mention of Severus in the Turin version has been shown to be an interpolation into an original text, which mentioned only a iudex or 'judge'. Subsequent scholars have argued that such a single, localised British martyrdom in 209 would have been unusual, and they have suggested the period of 251–259 is more likely.
Location
While it is certain that the cult devoted to Saint Alban was established in Verulamium, and his martyrdom was also alleged to have taken place there, the sources are unclear about where he was actually executed. Neither Victricius's De Laude Sanctorum nor the Passio Albani mentions where he was martyred other than that it was in Britain. In the Vita Germani, Germanus visits Alban's tomb and touches droplets of his blood still on the ground, but the text does not name the location of the tomb. It is not until Gildas that Alban was connected with Verulamium.Historicity
Little is known about the historical Alban, as there are no contemporaneous accounts of his martyrdom and the major sources on his life were written hundreds of years after his death, containing wondrous embellishments, which may or may not refer to real events.Saint Alban was long regarded as a genuine martyr saint, the protomartyr of Britain, and for much of the twentieth century controversy centred on the date of his martyrdom. More recently, however, some researchers have taken a more sceptical view of his historicity. In the view of Robin Lane Fox, not only is St Alban's date disputable but so is his very existence.
In 2008 the historian Ian Wood proposed that Alban was an 'invention' of Germanus of Auxerre. Germanus visited Britain in 429, as is known from the nearly-contemporary mention by Prosper of Aquitaine. His chronicle, in the entry for the year 429, states:
Meanwhile, it was recorded in the Vita Germani, written probably sometime between 450 and 485 by Constantius of Lyons, that he, together with his fellow bishop Lupus, having stamped out the heresy of Pelagianism in Britain, visited the tomb of Saint Alban:
The martyr Alban is also mentioned, one more time, in the context of Germanus's return journey, by sea:
File:St. Alban window at Church of the Good Shepherd.jpg|left|thumb|St. Alban window at Church of the Good Shepherd
The Vita Germani was long regarded as the earliest source for the martyr Alban, but recent research by Richard Sharpe has suggested the earliest version of the Passio Albani may be even earlier. Wood's argument was based partly on the idea that the name Albanus is suggestive of Albion as the oldest name for Britain, but for him, the name Alban suggested simply 'the man from Albion' rather than an actual 'personification' of the island and its people. It is, in any case, a part of what suggested to Wood that "it is Germanus who gives Alban a name". That, in turn, encouraged him in his conclusion:
"The story of the saint's martyrdom seems to have been revealed to, or invented by, Germanus in the context of his anti-Pelagian mission" and in a later article "Alban may, therefore, have been 'discovered' by the bishop of Auxerre".
The argument has been accepted by, for instance, Michael Garcia but disputed by, for instance, historian Nick Higham, who, in an article written in 2014, noted that since Germanus brought relics of continental saints with him, which, so the Passio relates, he deposits in the tomb of Saint Alban while removing some bloodstained earth to take back to Gaul, he must have known from the start that he would make a visit to the cult-centre of Saint Alban, as part of his campaign against Pelagianism. On this basis he states: "This would make good sense in terms of his mission, claiming Britain's most famous cult for Catholicism". He therefore argues against the conclusion of Woods and Garcia that the martyr Alban was unknown before being invented by Germanus.
Key to the argument is a passage in the T version of the Passio that Sharpe has convincingly argued represents an 'interpolation' to the more original E text. All extant versions of the Passio mention Germanus's visit to the tomb of Saint Alban. The E version, followed essentially by the T version, states :
but interpolated at this point in only the T version is
after which the T version essentially follows the E version again:
It is possible to deduce from the interpolated passage that the name of the martyr was unknown before being revealed to Germanus, either in a vision he had of the martyr during his sea journey or in the dream he had in the basilica. It is also possible to deduce that it was simply the acta, or 'story of the martyrdom', of an already well-known figure that was revealed to Germanus. The acta were then written down in tituli : that is possibly engraved in the walls of a church with illustrations. This might have been either in a church in Auxerre as argued by Sharpe and Wood, or in Britain. If the latter is the case, by being on public display, they might have served to give a definitive version of the saint's martyrdom, which could not be contradicted or reinterpreted In any case, it has been argued by Sharpe and Wood that these acta written down in tituli were actually the original, very simple and short, first version of the Passio Albani that has come down in the 'E' and later versions That is very possible but, of course, quite unprovable, but it seems clear that the Passio originates with the circle of Germanus at Auxerre. As time went on, more and more details and wondrous events were added to the account, reaching its most detailed version in Bede's 8th century Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
The location of the tomb of Saint Alban that Germanus visited is most often thought to have been Verulamium, now St Albans. That is on the basis of what is in fact the earliest mention of the martyr Alban in an indigenous British source, in the De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae probably written in the second quarter of the fifth century, by the British author Gildas. As part of his brief historical account, he describes the persecution of Christians in Britain, which he identifies as part of the persecution of Diocletian, adding at the end of a passage about "their graves and the places where they suffered":
"I refer to Saint Alban of Verulam, Aaron and Iulius, citizens of Caerleon and others of both sexes, who in different places, displayed the highest spirit in the battle-line of Christ".
The Verulamium location is supported by the fact that the topography of the Passio can be broadly, if not quite exactly, matched to that of Verulamium, and Bede describes an important cult of Saint Alban there, by the early eighth century at least. Some doubt, however, is encouraged by the fact that in his account of Albans's martyrdom Gildas describes the martyr as crossing the Thames to his place of execution, which some have taken as an indication that the actual martyrdom was located in Londinium.