medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Wednesday, June 20, 2007, at 11:55 pm, I wrote (saints of the day 20. June):
> 1) Alban of England (d. ca. 304?). A. is the fairly legendary
> English protomartyr first known from continental references of the
> fifth century (Prosper of Aquitaine. Constantius of Lyon). The
> earliest British account of him to survive is that of Gildas in the
> sixth century; this was shown (by Richard Sharpe in 2001) to have been
> based on a brief, legendary Passio that neither dates A.'s martyrdom
> nor locates it in any named town. In it, A. is a pagan who during a
> persecution takes the place of a hunted Christian and is publicly
> executed on 21. June at a walled town; ...
and on Thursday, June 21, 2007, at 11:57 pm, I wrote (saints of the day 21. June):
> 2) Alban of Mainz (d. ca. 405, supposedly). ...
> As today is also the _dies natalis_ of St. Alban of England in the
> earliest version of his Passio, the suspicion exists that today's A.
> is merely A. of England outfitted at Mainz with a new identity. Since
> A. of England had been venerated in Francia since the fifth century,
> it is sometimes difficult to determine whether certain foundations
> dedicated to an A. originally honored the English saint or instead the
> one of Mainz. For example, the original dedicatee of the monastery of
> church of St. Alban at Basel, illustrated here (view expandable)
> http://tinyurl.com/2kc44w
> is unknown.
Another instance of such uncertainty is the originally late fourteenth-/fifteenth-century Albanikirche in Göttingen, shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/2wd2be
http://tinyurl.com/2vvftu
This replaced an earlier church on the site first documented from 1254. A church in this general location (at some remove from the center of the later medieval town) is known from 953 and is said to have been dedicated to a St. A. since at least the early eleventh century. As Göttingen lies within the Saxon territory evangelized in a missionary enterprise originally undertaken by St. Boniface and by others from England, the prevailing belief today is that the A. in question was Alban of England.
Pretty certainly always dedicated to A. of England is the perhaps originally twelfth-century église paroissiale Saint-Alban at Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole (Lozère) in Languedoc-Roussillon. An illustrated fact sheet on it is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2kct83
Other views:
http://location48.free.fr/lozere_eglise_saint_alban.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/227r4x
http://tinyurl.com/yw4nyd
Ditto for the twelfth-/fifteenth-century église paroissiale Saint-Alban at Bresdon (Charente-Maritime) in Saintonge. There's an English-language description here (scroll down to 'Bresdon'):
http://tinyurl.com/3bc3rz
Views:
http://tinyurl.com/2be7zm
http://tinyurl.com/28zd6r
http://tinyurl.com/2dsfgx
http://tinyurl.com/33oewu
http://tinyurl.com/2uz6rn
Probably the same is true of the originally late twelfth-century église paroissiale Saint-Alban at Corcy (Aisne) in Picardy. A fact sheet is here:
http://tinyurl.com/yt42nf
Exterior view:
http://tinyurl.com/26r6yw
Discussion of this structure named in part for A. in today's Saint-Alban-du-Rhône (Isère) and Saint-Maurice-l’Exil (Isère) would, I fear, transcend the temporal remit of the list:
http://assodis.free.fr/centrale06.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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