The Saints: St. Alban

Third century / Feast - June 20

Believed to be Britain’s first martyr, Alban was a pagan living at Verulamium, now St. Albans. During a Roman persecution, he sheltered a fleeing priest who baptized him, and was himself arrested and put to death.

He is first mentioned in the fifth-century life of St. Germanus; the Venerable Bede expanded the earlier story, including a lively account of the execution by beheading and some supernatural signs that accompanied it.

Successive churches, including a Benedictine abbey and an Anglican cathedral, have occupied the traditional hilltop site of the martyrdom.