Saint Alban of Mainz

Alban of Mainz (Latin: Albanus or Albinus; supposedly died in or near Mainz) was a Catholic priest, missionary, and martyr in the Late Roman Empire. He is venerated as Saint Alban of Mainz in the Catholic Church, not to be confused with Saint Alban of Verulamium. Nothing is known for certain about Alban, about whom no contemporary sources survive. There is evidence that, at various points in the Middle Ages, he was confused with the British Saint Alban, who died at Verulamium (now St Albans, Hertfordshire, England) around the year 300; later sources claim that both Albans had been killed by beheading, and both are always depicted with their head in their hands, and their feast days are 21 June and 22 June, respectively. English Catholic hagiographer Alban Butler observed in 1759 that early modern scholars Thomas More (Confutation of Tyndale's Answer, 1532) and Thierry Ruinart (Historia persecutionis vandalicae, 1694) still equated or mixed up both Albans, while noting that Rabanus (c. 845) had distinguished them. It's also possible that some elements of Alban of Mainz's life got mixed up with those of Alban/Albin of Rome/Cologne (beheaded; feast: 22 June), Alban of Silenen (beheaded), Albinus of Angers (c. 470–550; feast: 1 March) and Albin of Vercelli (feast: 1 March). The oldest surviving substantial source about Alban of Mainz is the Martyrologium (c. 845) of Rabanus Maurus, which had two separate entries for the Mainzer Alban and the English Alban. Concerning Alban of Mainz, he wrote: The second substantial source is the Passio sancti Albani, an incomplete hagiography written in the 1060s or 1070s by schoolmaster Gozwin, who lamented that very little evidence about Alban had survived to his day. Gozwin's account is much longer and adds many elements not found in Rabanus' Martyrologium, including a prologue about the First Council of Nicaea (325) which condemned Arianism, that nevertheless persisted until Honorius and Arcadius succeeded Theodosius (395).