ALBANO, SANTO, MARTIRE - Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. I, p. 405

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

ALBAN, Saint, martyr. — Protomartyr of England, beheaded according to the *Passio* under Severus (c. 200), according to later writers under Diocletian. The manuscripts of the second recension of the *Martyrologium Hieronymianum* commemorate him on 22 June, the date of his present liturgical feast. The first testimony concerning A. is contained in the biography of Germanus of Auxerre (d. after 444), written by the contemporary Constantius; Venantius Fortunatus attests to the antiquity of his cult. The *Passio*, probably from the 6th century, is not without value.

At Verulamium (north of St Albans), the place of A.’s martyrdom, there stood in the early Middle Ages a very renowned abbey, prominent in the 13th and 14th centuries, of which the church still survives.

Bibl.: *Martyrologium Hieronymianum*, pp. 330–331; Constantius, *Vita Germani Autissiodorensis*, ed. Levison-Krusch, in MGH, *Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum*, VII, Hanover 1920, pp. 262, 265; Gildas, *De excidio et conquestu Britanniae*, 10–11, ed. Th. Mommsen, in MGH, *Auctores Antiquissimi*, XIII, Berlin 1898, pp. 31–32; Venantius Fortunatus, *Carmina*, VIII, 3, V. 155; Bede, *Historia ecclesiastica*, I, 7, 18; *Acta Sanctorum Iunii*, IV, Paris 1867, pp. 127–28; *Martyrologium Romanum*, pp. 248, 250; H. Delehaye, *Les origines du culte des Martyrs*, 2nd ed., Brussels 1933, p. 362.