The patron saint of England is St. George, but if I had to pick another saint it'd be Alban. Unlike George, who's from Turkey, Alban is actually from England and he had a great following from as early as the 500s, so much that the town of his execution is named after him. However the facts behind his story are very vague at best: We know he was executed for his faith during the Roman persecutions, so probably at some point in the 200s.

I knew the main points about his life, but now I'm translating the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is basically a very famous chronicle of England from the beginning of written history until Bede's time in the 600-700s. He writes extensively about this incident, and... wow. It's kinda crazy how people actually believed this shit. You ever heard of the word "hagiography?" As a technical term it just means a biography of a saint. As a secondary meaning, it's a biography of idealization to the point of fantastic.

Bede states Alban took in a fleeing Christian clergyman, who eventually converted him from paganism. When the authorities finally located him, Alban offered himself up instead. The judge offered Alban to renounce his new faith, but he refused even after being tortured. Angry, the judge then condemned him to death. On the way there the people came out to see him to the point that only the judge was left in town, and saddened that their multitudes physically prevented him from crossing the bridge to the execution spot, he prayed and the riverbed dried up to allow him passage. The executioner was so moved by this he refused to complete his task and asked to be killed alongside of or instead of Alban. When Alban finally came to the hill of his death, he prayed for water and a spring bubbled from his feet to prove that the water in the river had also disappeared at his command. Another executioner came to take the first's place and killed both of them, but then his eyes fell out. The judge then was amazed by all these miracles and ceased persecutions of Christians.

There are so many questions in this story. If everyone appeared to show their support of Alban, why the hell weren't there riots in his defense? Hell, if everyone liked Christianity so much, why was he the only one executed? Why did the second executioner step up the task after it was apparent this wasn't your regular dude? Why was the executioner punished for killing Alban but not the man who ordered it? I particularly liked the clergyman who was hiding out in Alban's house and did not do anything to help him whatsoever. And speaking of him, the soldiers knew the dude was in there. Why did they just take Alban? Why not Alban and the clergyman? He's still running around, converting people.

Before literacy rates were reasonable, saints were often depicted with a symbol or event for the peasant folk to be able to identify them in sainted glass or whatever. For Alban, he's usually depicted as decapitated with an eyeless executioner. I know a couple of others, like Peter usually has keys, George is usually in armor with a lance and dragon, Ambrose is associated with bees... but to be honest I'm not very good at it. I had a classmate who could identify a saint in an instant just by looking at the symbols, but I don't read hagiographies that often because I inevitably start laughing. I know in the early church miracles were important: Jesus himself converted the masses through miracles, and later Roman Christians claimed they converted pagans with the same M.O. There are countless stories of a missionary approaching a king and to prove the Christian God is better than the pagan gods, they perform a miracle while the enfeebled pagan priests can do nothing.

It's just for me martyr stories are particularly spurious because they make the saint seem so awesome and yet there is considerable proof no one from the town gave a shit and the person died in obscurity until a century or two later when Christianity became the dominant religion the oral traditions came into the light. There is no evidence that St. Albans suddenly became Christian after one dude started springing up water all over the place. I'm fairly certain the Roman records would mention this. And if not him, the other dozens of martyrdom stories that are floating around with equally implausible assertions. But I always wonder how these stories came to be believed; surely there was someone running around who can verify that none of this happened.