Saint Alban Protomartyr of Britain

Alban was a citizen of the Roman town of Verulamium in Britain, a few miles northwest of London at the site of the modern city of St Albans, and is venerated as the protomartyr of Britain, the first to shed his blood for Christ in the British Isles. By tradition he was a pagan who, during a time of persecution, gave shelter in his home to a fleeing Christian priest, named Amphibalus in the later tradition. Moved by the priest's constant prayer and vigil, Alban questioned him about the faith, came to believe in Christ, and received baptism.

When soldiers came searching for the fugitive priest, Alban exchanged clothes with him so that the priest could escape, and was arrested in his place. Brought before the magistrate and unmasked, he confessed himself a Christian and a worshipper of the true God. After he refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods he was tortured and condemned to be beheaded on a hill above the town.

The precise date of Alban's martyrdom is uncertain and much debated. Some traditions and scholars place it during the persecution under Decius (c. 251) or Valerian (c. 257); the Venerable Bede set it within the Diocletianic persecution at the start of the fourth century, while one manuscript tradition dates it as early as 209 under Septimius Severus. The earliest surviving witnesses to his cult include the writings of Gildas (sixth century), the account of Bede's Ecclesiastical History (c. 730), and the Passio Albani, whose oldest manuscript dates to the eighth century. He is commemorated on June 22.