ON ST. ALBINUS THE MARTYR,
CARRIED FROM ROME TO COLOGNE.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
On the present state of the body, its translation from Rome to Cologne, and whether it is likely that it was previously brought from England to Rome, the body of St. Alban Protomartyr of England.
Albinus Martyr, carried from Rome to Cologne (St.)
BY G. H.
When in the year 1660 we made our journey from Belgium through Germany to Rome, we stayed for several days at Cologne, The body of St. Albinus shown to us at Cologne, most welcome guests to the Reverend Father Jerome Warmold the Rector and the rest of the Fathers of the college of our Society, among whom shone the most humane charity of the Reverend Father Hermann Crombach, who led us to all the sacred things, which very many are in that city, to be accurately surveyed, and especially took care that to himself and to us should be shown the sacred Relics of St. Albinus: which with remarkable kindness the Religious of the place performed. The same things therefore which the said Hermann Crombach writes about the holy body seen by him before, in book XI of his History, page 1105, we wish to be applied to us.
[2] I do not know, he says, whether a more pleasing spectacle, and more apt for establishing the orthodox faith, as he describes it, Hermann Crombach. my eyes have drunk in. I saw with great gladness of soul, not without sacred amazement at such a prodigy, the venerable head, on every side surrounded by flesh and skin; smooth however, for what three hundred years ago, the little garment with the arms of the sacred body, was found, given to other places with the same I think; since among the Maccabean Virgins at Cologne one bone of St. Albinus, with flesh quite thick and skin surrounded, I have seen elsewhere. The face too is clothed with flesh, the eyelids appear closed, the orbits of the eyes hidden within: the end of the nose has fallen away a little. The sacred mouth gapes, tongueless, the lips contracted, the chin covered with flesh. But the neck exhibits the figure of a head recently cut off: so the bloody flesh covers all, where the head is joined to the neck, that the extremities of the veins, arteries, and nerves one may almost distinguish. Of the shoulder-blades one remains fleshy, so that of the bones nothing protrudes. But the breast and the whole belly is covered with flesh and skin on every side, dry and juiceless; which, opened from the right side, and lifted with a little silver fork, the inmost parts of the breast lays open: in which it shows certain hardened viscera. The whole posterior part of the body, each thigh, the shins, and the feet are wanting: which the English monastery of St. Alban piously and religiously preserved, adorned also with various prodigies. A remarkable proof indeed of divine power, and of the faith against the heterodox, and of the worship of the Saints to be asserted an evident testimony, ennobled by almost annual miracles in our age, which, when they shall be confirmed with authentic documents, I will not begrudge to posterity. These things there. Those miracles, if they be communicated to us, we will subjoin toward the end. For the rest the said Crombach showed us each thing, as he accurately described it. Concerning St. Alban, Martyr of Verulamium in England, and his sacred Relics there preserved in their own church, we have treated above. That these are the same, which at Cologne are kept, was believed there from the year at least 1186, when, the coffer being opened, the Relics were shown, as we have a testimony then written by an eyewitness Author from the codex of the very monastery of St. Pantaleon, but the whole matter more accurately explains the diploma of the elevation of St. Albinus made, in the year 1330, which Aegidius Gelenius published in his "Magnitude of Cologne," book 3, syntagma 12, 53, printed in this manner.
[3] In the name of the Lord. Amen. We Theoderic by the grace of God Abbot, the Prior, and the whole Convent of the monastery of St. Pantaleon of Cologne of the Order of St. Benedict, to all the faithful of Christ, The Relics in the year 1330 translated into a new case, and especially to the Prelates of Churches, Rectors, Parish-priests, and also to the Brothers of the Order of Preachers, Minors, Carmelites and of St. Augustine, greeting in the Lord the Savior of all. Since according to the Prophet, it is fitting to praise the Lord in his Saints &c. hence it is that we, sinners though unworthy, of so great a Patron, the glorious Martyr St. Albinus, a soldier, the first in Britain to suffer martyrdom: whose Relics, first by Blessed Germanus the Bishop from Britain to the city of Rome, and afterward through the Empress Theophania, the mother of the Emperor Otto the third, from Rome to Cologne to us translated, for three hundred and fifty years among us have been laid up, and now, by the will of God especially, and on account of an evident cause, from the case, in which they were laid up, taken out and opened, to the faithful people to excite devotion, that in his holy Martyr God may be honored and praised, are shown to be seen: of whom from the passion until now, since there are one thousand and twenty
years, yet by his own merits with Christ demanding it, his Relics seem so precious and recent, they appear fresh, as if not by a long interval of time he had undergone temporal death: for the head with the beard, the neck still infected with the blood of his passion, the arms and hands and shoulder-blades, protected by skin and flesh, the breast with the parts of the sides, and the spine of the back with the loins; the cloth too, with which his sacred body for three hundred and fifty years among us was wrapped and covered, is white as snow and incorrupt, as if it had been placed there recently. Psalm 150. 1 Moreover concerning the miracles and signs, now newly through the bounty of divine mercy magnificently done at our church, the truth we have thought ought to be made known to you. For from the Lord's day before the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist in the year of the Lord 1327 until now, his holy and venerable Relics being publicly shown to the people, both paralytics and others lame, with legs bent, others contracted, others creeping upon the earth, others hunchbacked in the back and bent, others born blind, others mute, others demoniac, others maimed, others feverish and oppressed by various ailments, and several dead and drowned in waters, the miracles wrought. to the number of five hundred and more persons of both sexes, by the merits of that Albinus, through the divine mercy and bounty; at our Church have been cured. And not only from the ailments of men, but also in palfreys, horses and beasts of burden the grace of curing and of soundness has been manifoldly shown, by the testimony not only of ourselves, but of many worthy of credence, and of the whole city of Cologne and the surrounding country, by a fair and true testimony can truthfully be proved: concerning which it is worthy and just, that the holy and undivided Trinity, throughout the whole Christian world, for these graces and benefits of his mercy be honored and praised, that in our times such and magnificent benefits of his mercy he should deign us to receive. This we write to you with our seal, to excite devotion in the faithful people by preaching in your churches. Given on the Vigil of Pentecost in the year of the Lord one thousand three hundred and thirty.
[4] Thus far that diploma, according to whose reckoning the body of St. Albinus would have been carried from Rome to Cologne in the year 980. The time of its reception from Rome. There flourished then Theophano the Empress, wife of Otto II, who, dead about the year 983, his son Otto III, a little child, helped both in administering the Empire, and in the year 989, says Lambert of Hersfeld, the Empress Theophania went to Rome, and subjected all that region to the King. And why should she not then from the Roman Pontiff John XI have received that precious treasure of half the body of St. Albinus, and in the year 911 have carried it to Cologne; in which year the sun was eclipsed on the 12th day before the Kalends of November at the fifth hour of the day. This I add: because, that eclipse being indicated, Thietmar writes in book 4 of his Chronicle: In the following year, the course of her life being completed in good works, at Nijmegen the Empress Theophano falls sick, and from this life on the 17th day before the Kalends of July departs, buried by Everger, Archbishop of the holy Church of Cologne, in the monastery of St. Pantaleon (which, costs being given, Bruno the Archbishop resting there ordered to be built), her son being present, and bestowing much on these Brethren for the remedy of his mother. All these things being thus discussed, we judge that body of St. Albinus to have been brought by the said Empress to the monastery of St. Pantaleon. But that it is the body of St. Alban, carried by St. Germanus to Rome, we cannot yet believe. Let us hear other instruments.
[5] There is printed at Cologne in the year 1483, and two years after reprinted at Louvain, a History of the Saints, in which after the Life of St. Alban the Martyr, And mention in the history printed in the year 1483. page 88, is recounted the Life of St. Alban who suffered in Britain; and after the Acts of the martyrdom related from Bede, these things are added: The body of this Alban was carried to Rome, until Otto the third, still a little boy, reigned with his mother. But she obtained from the Pope the body of St. Alban, and prosperously came to Mainz with it: where at that time the Bishop honored both the body of St. Alban, and the Empress herself, and because his Saint Alban would be overshadowed by this St. Alban, through the equivocation of the name (for each was called Alban) he asked of the Empress that this Saint, for distinction from the other, be named Albinus. Then the Empress led Albinus to Cologne, and in the place where he is now venerated, deposited him, and prepared for herself a burial before the altar. These things there, in which the change of the name is added, of which in the former relation no mention was made. The same change is asserted also in the Trier manuscript of St. Maximin, where these things are added: But afterward, when Litanies were solemnly celebrated with the Relics of the Saints at Cologne, and Leo the Apostolic at once and the Emperor Henry with the Bishop of the same See Hermann were present, this one of whom we treat, we heard called by the Romans their own Martyr Alban, and at Rome from the doorkeeper of the Apostolic Church we learned the same about him. This is St. Leo Pope the ninth, whose Acts we accurately discussed on the day of his birth, the 19th of April, and we said from Hermann Contractus, that in the year 1049 with the Emperor Henry he came to Cologne, on the birthday of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and it is added in the Acts, book 2, number 12, that he granted to Hermann the Archbishop various privileges, but without mention of the Litanies and Relics of St. Albinus.
[6] There was printed a little book at Cologne in the year 1502 about the conversion, passion, A little book published in the year 1502, and the coruscation of the miracles of the renowned and glorious Protomartyr of England Alban, whom in Germany and France they call Albinus, and it was dedicated to Henry VII the King, under this inscription: To the most illustrious Prince, Lord Henry, most invincible King of England, France, And Lord of Ireland, our ever most gracious Lord. Most serene and greatest King, since now from many times past in the city of Cologne in our monastery of St. Pantaleon, sprung from Britain, with a preface to the King of England: which now we call England, in his native soil led even to martyrdom, the blessed Protomartyr of England Alban, is worshipped with renowned veneration, and by the pious devotion of the people, both for the Relics of his sacred body, and for the presence of his powers, is frequented; just as, besides others, many also distinguished men, from your Highness's kingdom, Ecclesiastics and seculars, both often before and lately, who happened to pass this way, have beheld; it came into our mind, as many of his life, miracles, translation, as by true testimonies have become known to us, briefly to collect and publish, that his name, as also his grace, might be more widely diffused; and this very thing to your Royal Highness with most obedient mind to offer, that by his grace, leave and permission, of which we have good hope, in your kingdom it might be made common. For just as his martyrdom and some other things from your writers, especially the venerable Bede, we have learned; it will not seem absurd, if, as it were returning thanks, the things which from our own we have received, we should add to their writings: that just as the one glorious soul of the Martyr in the heavens suffered the Relics of his body to be disjoined, on the other hand again one history may connect into the minds of men all his praise and glory, as far as through us, his zealots, is permitted. Which by a happy and fortunate man we do not doubt has happened to us, in the times of your reign, most serene King: whose religion toward God and the Saints is no less, than in his rule his prudence and equity, against enemies his felicity and fortitude. Let your Highness therefore receive, most serene King, from your humble and devout servants the connected history of this holy Martyr Alban: that to the things which in his fatherland are known, of what kind and how great he is here (where he willed part of himself to be) held, with pious mind your Highness may learn. From Cologne. In the year of the Lord 1502 on the Ides of January. To your Royal Highness most devoted; the Abbot and Convent of the monastery of St. Pantaleon, in Cologne Agrippina.
[7] Whether to this letter and the added little work any answer, and what kind, was given, nowhere appears. Meanwhile let the Reader observe that he who hitherto has been called Albinus the Martyr, by which it is indicated that the body was found by King Offa, in the already-said letter first began to be called Alban; that so a somewhat more probable access to the English or British Martyr might be given. For the rest, the things which in the first § about the conversion and passion are had in the said little work, we omit, already above published from Bede. Then in the second §, the things which about the Finding of his most sacred Body in England are had, we have set forth in the Analecta from number 2 up to the end of the first chapter, from the Life of King Offa, who in the year 793 found it, after the Angelic revelation made, and indeed (as in this little work too is had) in these words: You will find the venerable body of Blessed Alban, the Protomartyr of the English, and you will build for him a monastery, placing his sacred Relics venerably in a precious case. But all things being performed, thus there it is concluded: The King himself, offering gifts upon the altar of Blessed Alban, to God and his Mother, most devoutly supplicated, that the Church dedicated to the honor of St. Alban might always receive a happy increase.
[8] Then in the following third §, in which the mystery is contained, namely How the body of Blessed Alban from England came to Rome: carried to Rome 300 years earlier, it is said that that body, which in the year 743 in England by King Offa was found, three hundred years earlier (marvelous and paradoxical) by SS. Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of the cities of Troyes, Bishops, was carried off, namely the Relics of the holy Martyr Alban being received, when, going toward Rome, they had reached Ravenna, by the Emperor Valentinian they were honorably received. But St. Germanus there migrating to Christ, the Relics of the aforesaid Martyr by the venerable Queen Placidia, namely the mother of Valentinian, with due devotion carried to Rome, in greatest veneration were held: until the monarchy Otto the third obtained, who, his father dead, with his mother Theophano administered the helm of the kingdom. These things there. But the venerable Bede in the Analecta, number 1, writes these things: Germanus the Bishop, from the very place, where the blood of the blessed Martyr had been shed, took away a mass of dust to carry with him, in which it appeared, the blood being preserved, that the slaughter of the Martyrs had reddened it: others add that he carried such a mass to Auxerre, but it is shown that it was left in England: in whose both church and diocese was celebrated the feast of St. Alban and his Companions the Martyrs, three lessons being taken from the relation of the Venerable Bede, in whom Germanus is said to have ordered the tomb of St. Alban to be opened up, and added various Relics of the Saints, that those whom equal in merits heaven had received, the hospitality of one tomb he might hold. Which same things Constantius has in the Life of St. Germanus on the 31st of July. Germanus therefore left at Verulamium the body of St. Alban, afterward raised and translated by King Offa; whose bones all in the year 1123 Paris asserts were counted, above number 27, as from those who had been present he received, and there was lacking of the left shoulder-blade the bone to the integrity of the rest of the body, which into Spain
(nay rather to Hesbaye) it is added to have been carried.
[9] It is asked therefore on what occasion especially the Cologne monks of St. Pantaleon believed, on what occasion the body of St. Alban the Briton is said to be at Cologne. that that body of St. Albinus which Theophano had brought from Rome, was that same body of St. Alban which at Verulamium in England was preserved. For an answer several things seem able to be said; and first, that the elevation or translation was perhaps made on this 22nd of June, and on that day the annual solemnity was held, and consequently it was the more easily believed that one and the same was the body of St. Albinus and of St. Alban; or certainly by the common error of this time, by which after Relics had been received from Rome a day is seized, ascribed in the Roman Martyrology to a Saint of the same name, as in this our work very often is shown. Then there had to be devised a reason, by which such a body from England had been carried to Rome, and therefore in the diploma of the year 1330 above related, these Relics are said to have been first by Blessed Germanus the Bishop from Britain to the city of Rome translated. But because from the Life of St. Germanus it is established that he did not come to Rome, but only to Ravenna, and there breathed his last day: therefore in the little book printed in the year 1502, these Relics are said to have been by the Empress Placidia from Ravenna to Rome carried. Now she at Rome departed from life two years after the death of St. Germanus. But with what certainty that could be asserted after a thousand and more years, we do not yet comprehend. Besides, where and in what place or Church there at Rome it was deposited, and for five hundred and more years preserved, will it be said? Let these be compared with the English instruments, therefore with greater diligence by us brought forward; and easily everyone will judge that there was altogether one St. Alban Martyr of Verulamium, and another St. Albinus Martyr the Roman, whose glorious Body from the Roman Pontiff received the Empress Theophano.
[10] Concerning the translation of this, while in the said little book §4 it is treated, it is said that the Horse, bearer of the holy spoils, in the highest Alps suddenly fell, The body is said to have been preserved with the horse fallen in the Alps and rolled down headlong, halted at the roots of the mountain. Which, when by the Empress and all who were present with the greatest grief was sought, and now was reckoned to have been broken to pieces, was found sound and unharmed in the deep valleys, even the shrines, in which the Relics of the holy man were laid, being unharmed. There a Church in honor of St. Alban built, with worthy honor his festivity is now worshipped, and his martyrdom with renowned memory is celebrated, which commonly is called Silymon. These things there. Which also in the Trier manuscript of St. Maximin are had. Then the § is about the change of his name, made at Mainz at the instance of the Archbishop, out of regard for the other St. Alban, who rests and is worshipped at Mainz. But about these in the first relation nothing is had and everywhere he is called Albinus, which we also do. The things which in the sixth § are narrated, are especially drawn from the foregoing relation, and at last for a conclusion it is asked what kind of Relics remained in England; which thence above by Hermann Crombach are reported, and from what has already been said are sufficiently refuted.
[11] The same Crombach, in volume 3 of the History of the three Magi Kings, book 3, chapter 54, reports the Translation of these Bodies made in the 14th century, and the cases of the Relics of the city of Cologne then in a solemn procession carried about, when the case of St. Albinus, which is at St. Pantaleon's, the Aldermen carried. The Relics in a public Procession immovable. But this case of St. Albinus when it came to the White Virgins, could not be carried further, nor be moved from that place; but again it had to be carried back to the Church of St. Pantaleon, and in place of St. Albinus is carried the case of St. Maurinus, Abbot of the same monastery. To those Relics, while they are carried about, there could now be added the Head of St. Sabaria, which with some of her Relics, in a little bag of more precious material, was found at Cologne, in the year 1690, under the high altar of the church of St. Pantaleon. And on the little bag indeed was inscribed, "Relics of the glorious Virgin Sabaria": but within another title was found, where, in place of "Glorious," was put "B.," that is, "Blessed." Asked what I thought about them, I answered, that those found in such a place and manner, without doubt could be worshipped as Saints, nor would it be ill, at the discretion of the Ordinary, to assign to her worship a special day, whenever it might please to institute some solemn elevation or translation of them. If there were added the title of Martyr it could be presumed to be one of the Companions of St. Ursula: but since it is lacking, it would be a rash conjecture. Meanwhile I wished here to make mention of her, because no fitter place in this work occurs, to excite by this commemoration the diligence of those whom it concerns.