Albin

CONCERNING ST. ALBIN, OR ALBUIN, BISHOP OF BRIXEN IN THE TYROL.

ABOUT THE YEAR 1015.

Albin, or Albuin, Bishop of Brixen in the Tyrol (Saint)

By J. B.

[1] Brixen, or Brixino, is a city in the Tyrol, the seat (as may be conjectured) of the ancient Brixentes, whom Pliny in book 3, chapter 20, counts among the Alpine peoples. Here St. Albin, or Albuin, is venerated — first Bishop of Sabiona, then the first Bishop of Brixen — and his name has been inscribed in the Roman and other Martyrologies, along with that of St. Ingenuin, as we have reported in the latter's Life above on this same day, section 1, number 2.

[2] Concerning this holy man, says Hundius in his Metropolis, where he treats of the Bishops of Brixen, many things are said to survive, but in a mutilated state and reduced to no order. Distinguished for miracles, he died on the Nones of February. It is remarkable that those Acts of St. Albuin, whatever they may be, escaped the diligence of our Matthaeus Rader, if they truly exist: for he testifies that only a few things had come to his hands from writers of sacred affairs; and he draws these from the Annals of Brixen in these words.

[3] More than four hundred years after Ingenuin, under the successive reigns of Otto III and Henry the Holy, Albuin was the twenty-eighth Bishop of the Church of Sabiona. Born of noble lineage, he was both highly esteemed by the aforementioned holy Emperor and favored with distinguished benefits, on account of the admirable integrity of his life. Moreover, having transferred the episcopal seat from Sabiona to Brixen, and having fulfilled all the duties of an excellent Pastor, at last, shining with holiness and signs of virtue, he passed to the Lord. His body was solemnly placed beside the body of St. Ingenuin — which had been transported to Brixen many years later — on this very day of his death. The relics of both are religiously preserved in the high altar of the Cathedral church.

[4] As for what is said about the See being transferred from Sabiona to Brixen, Miraeus too, in his Register of Bishoprics, under the entry "Brixen," reports that this was done by St. Albuin: but he wrongly adds that it occurred around the year 1027, since, as we said in the Life of St. Ingenuin, section 5, number 37, Hartwig was already Bishop of Brixen in the year 1027 — perhaps the fourth after St. Albuin. Hundius writes of St. Albuin: He first transferred the episcopal seat from Sabiona to Brixen. Of Bishop Hartwig: He, having left Sabiona, migrated to Brixen, which he entirely surrounded with walls, as is still seen today. But of Herbard, whom he places immediately before Hartwig, after Adalbero the successor of St. Albuin: He first partly fortified the city of Brixen with walls.

[5] It is probable that the body of St. Ingenuin was translated to Brixen by the same holy Bishop Albuin. But it was not afterward, as Ghinius writes, transported from Brixen to Brescia: neither, as the same Ghinius and Galesinius report, was Albin a Bishop of Brescia: nor indeed (as Constantius Felicius claims) do these two Saints have a special veneration in Brescia; which Maurolycus also implies with these words: At Brescia, Saints Geminus and Albin, Bishops, illustrious for the glory of their miracles.