William of St Albans ( fl. 1178) was a

Benedictine monk The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict ( la, Ordo Sancti Benedicti, abbreviated as OSB), are a Christian monasticism, monastic Religious order (Catholic), religious order of the Catholic Church following the Rule of Saint Benedic ...

and

hagiographer A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...

who wrote a history of the

martyrdom A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

Saint Alban Saint Alban (; la, Albanus) is venerated as the first-recorded British Christian martyr, for which reason he is considered to be the British protomartyr. Along with fellow Saints Julius and Aaron, Alban is one of three named martyrs rec ...

, the first such work to name Amphibalus after

Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth ( la, Galfridus Monemutensis, Galfridus Arturus, cy, Gruffudd ap Arthur, Sieffre o Fynwy; 1095 – 1155) was a British cleric from Monmouth, Wales and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography ...

. Simon, abbot of St Albans (1167–1188) asked William to write ''The Passion of St Alban'' (''Passio sancti Albani''), according to the book's preface. The book mentions that the body of Amphibalus had yet to be found: this occurred in 1178, suggesting that the work was written before this date. William drew on the stories of Alban as told by Bede and

, the latter of whom he acknowledges in the preface. He frames the work as a translation of an

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

book, similar to Geoffrey's claim that his ''

De gestis Britonum ''Historia regum Britanniae'' (''The History of the Kings of Britain''), originally called ''De gestis Britonum'' (''On the Deeds of the Britons''), is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. I ...

'' was a translation of an ancient work. Ralph of Dunstable later made a versification of William's ''Passion''; the ''Vie de seint Auban'' by

Matthew Paris Matthew Paris, also known as Matthew of Paris ( la, Matthæus Parisiensis, lit=Matthew the Parisian; c. 1200 – 1259), was an English Benedictine monk, chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey ...

is another adaptation of the work.

References

Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Christian hagiographers 12th-century English writers English male non-fiction writers 12th-century Latin writers {{UK-historian-stub