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Translating St Alban: Romano-British, Merovingian and Anglo-Saxon Cults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2017

M. D. Laynesmith
M. D. Laynesmith*
Affiliation:
University of Reading
*
*Chaplaincy Centre, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AH. E-mail: marklaynesmith@gmail.com.
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Abstract

This article treats the early medieval cult of St Alban of Verulamium. It explores how, and how far, the cult extended in Britain, France and Germany. As well as crossing geographical boundaries, Alban's relics were also shared among different cultures: British, Anglo-Saxon and Merovingian. The article argues that this resulted in differing appreciations, interpretations and applications of Alban's cult, and that the Gallic contribution to the cult's survival was particularly important.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 53: TRANSLATING CHRISTIANITY , June 2017 , pp. 51 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2017 

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Footnotes

This article is based on ongoing doctoral research into ‘The Cult of St Alban of Verulamium, c.400–c.750’ (Archbishop's Examination in Theology, Lambeth Palace). A gazetteer of medieval Alban churches is online at: <https://www.academia.edu/24430468/A_Provisional_Gazetteer_of_Alban_Churches_in_Medieval_North-western_Europe>, accessed 15 April 2016.

References

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7 Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Origins’, 62.

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24 HE 1.7 (my translation).

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28 See Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Origins’, 66–9; Crick, ‘Offa’, 80–3.

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30 Earsdon (7), founded c.1097; Wymondham (8), 1107: Arnold-Forster, Studies, 2: 298. Wickersley (10), probably twelfth-century, is first mentioned c.1230: Fasti Parochiales, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson and S. T. Clay, 5 vols (Wakefield, 1933–85), 2/2: 118. Alban's body was briefly moved to Ely (11) during the Conquest (whence relics were translated to Denmark): Liber Eliensis: A History of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh Century to the Twelfth, transl. Janet Fairweather (Woodbridge, 2005), 207–8. Beaworthy (12) may be a confusion with John the Baptist: Orme, Nicholas, English Church Dedications: With a Survey of Cornwall and Devon (Exeter, 1996), 131Google Scholar.

31 Levison, ‘St Alban’, 340–3.

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33 HE 1.7.

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37 The ‘excerpts’ (BHL 211a), and the ‘P’ (BHL 211) and ‘T’ (BHL 210d) versions: Meyer, ‘Die Legende’, 35–47. BHL numbers refer to the Bollandist catalogue Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis, 4 vols, Subsidia Hagiographica 6, 12, 70 (Brussels, 1898–1986).

38 On Norman support, see Hayward, ‘Cult’, 186–98, though note the dispute with Ely: Ridyard, S. J., ‘Condigna Veneratio: Post-Conquest Attitudes to the Saints of the Anglo-Saxons’, in Anglo-Norman Studies 9: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1986, ed. Brown, R. Allen (Woodbridge, 1987), 179–206Google Scholar, at 190.

39 Lowe, William R. L., ‘History of the Legend of St Alban’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London 27 (1914–15), 58–67Google Scholar; Baker, Eric P., ‘The Cult of St Alban at Cologne’, Archaeological Journal 94 (1938), 207–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beck, Marcel, ‘St Alban in Uri. Ein Zeuge spät-antiken Christentums’, Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Geschichte 28 (1948), 273–309Google Scholar; Büttner, Heinrich, ‘Zur Albanverehrung im frühen Mittelalter’, Zeitschrift für schweizerische Geschichte 29 (1949), 1–16Google Scholar; Dolch, Martin, ‘Die Heiligennamen Albin und Alban. Zur Verehrung westfränkischer Heiliger im 8. Jahrhundert’, Archiv für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte 39 (1987), 43–66Google Scholar. On Gallic cults generally, see Ian Wood‚ ‘Constructing Cults in Early Medieval France: Local Saints and Churches in Burgundy and the Auvergne 400–1000’, in Thacker and Sharpe, eds, Local Saints and Local Churches, 155–87.

40 The principal topographical source is Dauzat, Albert and Rostaing, Charles, Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de lieux en France, 2nd edn (Paris, 1978), 583–4Google Scholar, though this is far from complete. Brigitte Beaujard lists various sixth-century Gallic cults but not Alban's: Le Culte des Saints en Gaul (Paris, 2000), 524–31.

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43 First mentioned in 910: Courson, Aurelien de, ed., Cartulaire de l'Abbaye de Redon en Bretagne (Paris, 1863), 226Google Scholar. For Gildas, see Largillière, René, ‘La Topographie du culte de Saint Gildas’, Mémoire de la Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de Bretagne 5 (1924), 1–25Google Scholar.

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46 Dynamius, Vita sancti Maximi episcopi Reiensis 8 (Pascal Boulhol et al., Maxime de Riez entre l'histoire et la légende [Valensole, 2014], 112, cf. 58–9); Alban's church was later rededicated to Maximus: 72–3. Philippe Borgard and Marc Heijmans, ‘Riez’, in Françoise Prévot, Michèle Gaillard and Nancy Gauthier, eds, Topographie chrétienne, 16/1: 240.

47 Vita Germani 19–24 (MGH SRM 7, 265–9). Germanus died before November 450: Gillett, Andrew, Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West, 411–533 (Cambridge 2003), 278–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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53 Françoise Descombes, ‘Vienne’, in Gauthier and Picard, eds, Topographie chrétienne, 3: 31.

54 Locatelli, René and Moyse, Gérard, ‘Une Pierre d'attente du volume de Gallia Pontificia en chantier pour le diocèse de Lyon. L'Abbaye de Saint-Claude’, Revue Mabillon 79 (2007), 253–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 268–9 (charters 14, 16).

55 Autun, Séminaire, MS S38 (34), fols 70r–70v; Guy Lanoë, ‘S 38 (34) Passiones martyrum’, Catalogue des manuscrits d'Autun, Bibliothèque municipale et Société Éduenne, ed. Claire Maître (Turnhout, 2004), 128–33.

56 Coralie Belleville and Julie Régnier, ‘Fonts baptismaux, actuellement bénitier’, Inventaire général du patrimoine culturel, Région Rhône-Alpes, Dossier IM69000851 (2002), online at: <http://patrimoine.rhonealpes.fr/dossier/fonts-baptismaux-actuellement-benitier/e5df5d64-841b-436b-8b98-00f76e6b56a6>, accessed 14 December 2015. Gardes, Gilbert, Lyon. L'Art et la ville (Paris, 1988), 129Google Scholar, considers the church to be sixth-century.

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58 Fontvannes (Aube), first mentioned in 1019: Denajar, Laurent, L'Aube (Paris, 2005), 345–6Google Scholar; and Fontaine Luyères (Aube), near the source of the Barbuise.

59 Vita Germani 28 (MGH SRM 7, 271–2).

60 Columbus, Johannes, De rebus gestis episcoporum vivariensium, 4 vols (Lyon, 1651), 1Google Scholar: 17.

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62 ‘Saint-Alban’, online at: <http://www.culture.gouv.fr/documentation/memoire/HTML/IVR82/ia00048155/>, accessed 14 December 2015. The church is listed as twelfth-century.

63 Fevrier, ‘Alba-Viviers’, 58.

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67 ‘De loco ubi sanguis eius influxerat, sustulit ex terra pulverem cum cruore et fideliter domi referens’, Vita Bibiani vel Viviani episcopi Santonensis 8 (in Passiones Vitaeque Sanctorum aeui Merovingici, MGH SRM 3, 92–100, at 99). This seems to copy ‘de loco ipso ubi martyris sanguis exfluxerat massam cruenti pulueris rapuit’ from Alban's passio (common words shown in italics): Meyer, ‘Die Legende’, 45.

68 Krusch thought it dated from the eighth century: MGH SRM 3, 92–3. Ferdinand Lot thought it was earlier: ‘La Vita Viviani et la domination Wisigothique en Aquitaine’, Mélanges Paul Fournier (Paris, 1929), 467–77. On the possibility of borrowing, see Gillett, Envoys, 143–8.

69 Vita Bibiani 9 (MGH SRM 3, 100).

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73 See Wood, ‘Constructing Cults’.

74 Vita Germani, epistola ad Censurium (MGH SRM 7, 248–9).

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90 Space does not permit similar speculation as to the origin of the cathedral of Saint-Aubain in Namur.

91 Vita Germani 25 (MGH SRM 7, 269); HE 1.21. René Borius thought Severus was instead from Vence: Vie de Saint Germain d'Auxerre, SC 112, 89; cf. Higham, Nicholas J., ‘Constantius, St Germanus and Fifth-Century Britain’, EME 22 (2014), 113–37Google Scholar.