BUTLER, ALBAN. — English hagiographer, born at Appletree in the county of Northampton on 24 October 1710, died at St-Omer (France) on 15 May 1773. He studied at the English College of Douai (France), where he was ordained a priest in 1735. Thereafter he taught philosophy and theology there. In 1745 he travelled in France and Italy, then worked for some time as a missionary in his homeland. He was appointed president of the English seminary at St-Omer, formerly directed by the Jesuits, who had by then been expelled by the French government.
B. wrote several works, but is especially famous for The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints, the fruit of more than 25 years of work. It is a popular collection of saints’ lives arranged according to the calendar. It was published without the author’s name and without his notes, in 5 vols., in London in the years 1754–59. After his death, many editions were produced, with the author’s notes: thus in Dublin 1779–80 and Edinburgh 1798–1800. Later editions were continually updated. The latest English edition is that of H. Thurston (and collaborators N. Celston and D. Attwater), London 1926–1938, in 12 vols. D. Attwater compiled the general index, London 1938.
There were also numerous translations. These increasingly modified B.’s original work by adding new saints and, especially, national saints not mentioned in the English work. The first translation was the French one by Godescard (Paris 1763–1788), followed by numerous other editions printed in France (e.g., Versailles 1818–1820), Belgium (Louvain 1828–33, Brussels 1854), etc. B.’s work was also translated into German (Mainz 1823–27) and Spanish. The Italian translations were made from the French ones (Venice 1823–26, in 20 vols.; there 1837–63, in 15 vols.); the final volumes of these editions, however, are merely appendices: thus vol. XIII of the latter edition contains another treatise by B.: Feste mobili, digiuni ed altre osservanze annuali della Chiesa Cattolica (a posthumous work published in 1774 under the title Movable Fests and Fasts); vol. XV contains, among other things, the indexes and the life of B.
An English compendium was also translated into Italian: Le feste del Signore e della B. Vergine, opera originale inglese... (4 vols., Monza 1833).
B.’s life was written by his nephew Charles Butler, An Account of the Life and Writings of the Rev. A. B., (London 1799. In Italian in vol. XX of the Venice 1826 ed., pp. 3–61, and in vol. XV of the Venice 1863 ed., pp. 99–131).