June XXII

Saint Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, C.

From his own works, St. Austin, St. Jerom, &c., collected by l’Abbé Le Brun Desmarettes, who died in 1731, in the end of his edition of the works of this father, printed at Paris in 1685, in 2 vols. 8vo., and a Verona in 1736. See also Tillemont, t. 14, p. 1, Ceillier. t. 10, p. 543, and Remondi of the congregation of Somasco, in his second Tome delia Noiaoa Ecclesiastica Storia, in which he gives us the life of Saint Paulinus, with an excellent Italian translation of his works, especially his poems, dedicated to Pope Benedict XIV. at Naples, 1759, in folio.

A. D 431.

Pontius Meropius Paulinus was born at Bourdeaux in 353. In his pedigree, both by the father and mother’s side, was displayed a long line of illustrious senators; and his own father, Pontius Paulinus, was præfectus prætorio in Gaul, the first magistrate in the western empire. But the honors and triumphs of his ancestors were eclipsed by his superior virtues, which rendered him the admiration of his own and all succeeding ages and excited St. Martin, St. Sulpicius Severus, St. Ambrose, St. Austin, St. Jerom, St. Eucherius, St. Gregory of Tours, Apollinaris, Cassidorus, and others to vie with each other in celebrating his heroic actions, and to become the publishers of his praises to the corners of the earth. Besides the pre-eminence of his birth and riches, he received from nature a penetrating and elevated understanding, and an elegant genius, with other excellent accomplishments of mind and body, by which he was qualified for the highest attainments, and seemed born for every thing that is great. These talents he cultivated from his infancy, by the closest application to the study of all the liberal arts, and he acquired the most extensive compass of useful learning. He had for master in poesy and eloquence the famous Ausonius, the first man of his age in those sciences, whose delicacy and wit would have ranked him among the greatest poets, if industry, evenness of style, and the purity of the Augustan age had not been wanting in his writings.* That professor, merely for his literary abilities, was honored by Valentinian with the dignity of præfectus prætorio, and by Gratian, whose preceptor he was, with that of consul. Under such a master Paulinus fully answered the hopes which his friends had conceived of him, and, while young, harangued at the bar with great applause. “Every one,” says St. Jerom,¹ “admired the purity and eloquence of his diction, the delicacy and loftiness of his thoughts, the strength and sweetness of his style, and the liveliness of his imagination.” Such were the acquirements of Paulinus in his youth, while a desire of pleasing men yet divided his heart. Probity, integrity, and other moral virtues were endowments of his soul still more admirable than his learning. His merit was soon distinguished by those who had the administration of the state, and by the emperors themselves, by whom he was raised, yet young, to the first dignities, and declared consul before his master Ausonius; consequently before the year 379. He took to wife a Spanish lady of sincere piety, and one of the most accomplished of her sex; her name was Therasia, and she brought him a great estate in land. The prudence, generosity, affability, and other social and religious virtues of the young statesman, attracted veneration and esteem wherever he came, and gained him many friends and clients in Italy, Gaul, and Spain; in all which countries he had displayed his talents during fifteen years in the discharge of various employments and affairs both public and domestic. But God was pleased to open his eyes to see the emptiness of all worldly pursuits, and to inspire him with a more noble and innocent ambition of becoming little for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

The conversation of St. Ambrose at Milan of St. Martin, whom he had met at Vienne, and of St. Delphinus, bishop of Bordeaux, gave him a relish for retirement, and strong sentiments of a more perfect virtue. The last-mentioned holy prelate, being bishop of the native city and most ordinary residence of Paulinus while he remained in the world, made good use of the opportunity which his situation gave him, and being charmed with the saint’s happy dispositions, often spoke to him on the necessity and happiness of giving himself to God without reserve. Paulinus had made some advances in virtue, but was not yet perfect. He was always an enemy to vanity or the love of human applause, than which passion nothing can be more unworthy of virtue, or more beneath a generous soul: though all the heathen philosophers shamefully disgraced their attainments by this base weakness. Tully was not ashamed to boast of it, and Demosthenes was delighted to hear a poor old woman whisper, “This is the great Demosthenes.” Paulinus seemed always raised by his own greatness of soul above this abject passion, and showed that geniuses which are truly great, are superior to their own abilities. But still he found how difficult a task it is for a man to preserve a perfect disengagement and purity of heart in the midst of worldly honors and blandishments, and to stand his ground against the incitements of the softer passions. While every thing goads him on, and his senses and his own heart betray him, to shield his soul from the penetrating caresses of pleasures must be little short of a continued miracle. Moreover, by serious meditation on the vanities of the world, Paulinus had possessed his mind with a sincere conviction that its pleasures are empty, treacherous, and fraught with deadly poison. Certain shocks which he felt in his fortune through revolutions that happened in the empire, contributed to give him a more feeling sense of the instability of earthly things, and that bitterness which is inseparable from worldly affairs in high life, helped to increase this disgust and contempt of the world, and to discover to him the falsehood of its gilded bubbles which dazzle the eyes of men at a distance. His wife, though yet young, and in a condition to enjoy the world, was the first to excite him to a contempt of whatever is not God; and they mutually encouraged one another to forsake all, that they might more perfectly follow Christ. In this resolution they retired first into Spain, and passed four years in a little country solitude, from 390 to 394, in exercises of penance and devotion. There they lost their only son, an infant, whom Paulinus calls a holy offspring, because he had been purified by baptism. They buried him at Alcala, near the bodies of the martyrs Justus and Pastor. The holy couple lived from that time, by mutual consent, in perpetual chastity; and Paulinus soon after changed his dress, to signify to the world his resolution of forsaking it, and he determined to renounce the senate, his country, estate, and house, and to bury himself in some monastery or wilderness. He was very rich, and Ausonius² grieved to see the kingdoms of Paulinus the father, as he calls his vast estates, divided among a hundred possessors.* The saint sold all his estates, and distributed the price among the poor; as he did also the estate of his wife, with her consent, who aspired with no less fervor to Christian perfection. This action was much extolled by all true servants of God,³ but severely condemned by the slaves of the world; who called his piety folly, hating God in the works of his servant, because contrary to theirs. The rich forsook him: his own slaves, his relations, and brothers, refused to pay him the common duties of humanity and charity, and rose up against him, so that he became as one unknown to his brothers, “and as a stranger to the children of his mother” God permitted this persecution to befall him, that by it he might be more perfectly weaned from the world, and might learn to contemn its trowns. If I please men, says the apostle, I should not be a servant of Christ.⁴ And Christ himself assures us, that no man is worthy to be called his disciple, who hath not courage to despise human respects. Paulinus, instructed in this school, rejoiced to hear men bark at him, and all his own friends conspire to tear him to pieces, and to accuse his retreat of melancholy, hypocrisy, and every other sinister motive. His short, but golden answer to their invectives was comprised in five words:* “O happy affront to displease you with Christ;” as he wrote to St. Aper to comfort and encourage him under a like persecution of the world, because, though a person who by his eloquence, learning, and dignity of judgment, held an eminent rank among the first magistrates of the empire in Gaul, he preferred to these advantages the obscurity of a religious state, which he and his wife embraced by mutual consent, soon after which he was promoted to priest’s orders. Paulinus’s old master, Ausonius, who had always the most tender love and the greatest esteem for him, regretted extremely that he should lose a nobleman whom he knew capable of being an honor to the greatest dignities; and in verses and letters yet extant, which discover how deeply his heart was rooted in a worldly spirit, reproached him in the most bitter terms, arraigning his action of madness and extravagance. He employed the most tender entreaties and the harshest invectives, in hopes to overcome his resolution, and complains that Bilboa or Calahorra should possess and bury the glory and pillar of the Roman senate and empire.^† The saint, without the least emotion, wrote him back, in beautiful verse, a mild and elegant answer, in which he testifies, that it was to him the highest pleasure to meet with reproaches for serving Christ; and that he regarded not the opinion or railleries of men, who pursue opposite views, provided his actions might gain the approbation of the Eternal King, whom alone he desired to please.^‡ Thus while the world despised him, he justly and courageously despised it again, and gloriously trampled it under his feet. His persecutors and uporaiders, seeing him regardless of the censures of a world to which they were themselves enslaved, became in a short time his admirers, and loudly extolled his modesty and meekness no less than his greatness of soul and the purity of his intention. In his poverty and obscurity he became the admiration of the universe, and persons of the first rank travelled from the remotest boundaries of the empire to see Paulinus in his little cottage, as St. Austin and St. Jerom witness. Therasia confirmed him in these good resolutions, and was not inferior to him in virtue. Having joined with him in selling her estate, she was not ashamed to appear in mean clothes, being persuaded that an humble dress suits penitent minds, and that humility is not easily to be preserved under rich attire.

St. Ambrose, St. Austin, St. Jerom, and St. Martin, gave the due praise to this heroic virtue of St. Paulinus, knowing they might safely do it to one dead to the applause no less than to the censures of others. St. Austin, being then only priest, in 392, commended his generous resolution, calling it, The glory of Jesus Christ.⁵ And exhorting Licentius, a young nobleman who had formerly been his scholar, to a contempt of the world, he wrote thus to him, “Go into Campania; see Paulinus, that man so great by his birth, by his genius, and by his riches. See with what generosity this servant of Christ has stripped himself of all to possess only God. See how he has renounced the pride of the world to embrace the humility of the cross. See how he now employs in the praises of God those riches of science, which, unless they are consecrated to him who gave them, are lost.”⁶ Our saint could not bear applause. Greater by his humility than by all his other virtues, he sincerely desired to be forgotten by men, and begged his friends to refrain from their compliments, and not add to the load of his sins by praises which were not his due. “It surprised me,” said he, “that any one should look upon it as a great action for a man to purchase eternal salvation, the only solid good, with perishable pelf, and to sell the earth to buy heaven.” Others called him perfect in virtue; but his answer was, “A man that is going to pass a river by swimming is not got on the other side when he has but just put off his clothes. His whole body must be in action, and his limbs all put in motion; he must exert his utmost strength, and make great efforts to master the current.”⁷ The saint had indeed, for the sake of virtue, forsaken all that the world could give; he had despised its riches, honors, and seducing pleasures, and had trampled upon its frowns, and all human respects. Courted in the world by all that would be thought men of genius, and caressed by all that valued themselves upon a fine taste, he had courage to renounce those flattering advantages; and with honors and riches he had made a sacrifice also of his learning and great attainments only that he might consecrate himself to the divine service. Yet this was only the preparation to the conflict. Wherefore not to lose by sloth the advantages which he had procured to himself, he labored with all his strength to improve them to his advancement in virtue. He made it his first endeavor to subdue himself, to kill the very seeds of pride, impatience, and other passions in his heart, and to ground himself in the most profound humility, meekness, and patience. If any one seemed to admire the sacrifice he had made in renouncing so great riches and honors, in the number of captives he had ransomed, of debtors whom he had freed from prison by discharging their debts, of hospitals he had founded, and of churches he had built, he replied that the only sacrifice which God accepted was that of the heart, which he had not yet begun to make as he ought: that if others had not given so much to the poor, they excelled in more heroic virtues; for the gifts of grace are various; that his sacrifice was too defective in itself, and only exterior, consequently of no value, but rather hypocrisy. These and the like sentiments he so expresses as to show how perfectly he considered himself as the most unprofitable and unworthy of servants in the house of God, and saw nothing in himself but what was matter of compunction, and a subject of the most profound humiliation. To the practice of interior self-denial, by which he bent his will, he added exterior mortification. And so great was the poverty in which he lived, that he often was not able to procure a little salt to his herbs or bread, which the most austere hermits usually allowed themselves. Yet the holy cheerfulness of his pious soul was remarkable to all who had the happiness to enjoy his acquaintance; and we sensibly discern it in a constant vein of gayety which runs through all his writings.

Paulinus would not choose a retreat at Jerusalem or Rome, because he desired to live unknown to the world. His love of solitude, and his devotion to St. Felix, determined him to prefer a lonely cottage near Nola, a small city in Campania, that he might serve Christ near the tomb of that glorious confessor, which was without the walls of the town. He would be the porter of his church, to sweep the floor every morning, and to watch the night as keeper of the porch; and he desired to end his life in that humble employment.⁸ But he was promoted to holy orders before he left Spain. The people of Barcelona seized on him in the church on Christmas-day, in 393, and demanded with great earnestness that he should be made priest. He resolutely opposed their desire, and only at length consented on condition that he should be at liberty to go wherever he pleased. This being agreed to, he received holy orders from the hands of the bishop. The citizens of Barcelona were, indeed, in hopes to fix him among them; but the next year, 394, after Easter, he left Spain to go into Italy. He saw St. Ambrose at Milan, or rather at Florence, who received him with great honor, and adopted him into his clergy, but without any obligation of residing in his diocese. The saint went to Rome, and met with great civilities from Domnio, a holy priest of that church, from St. Pammachius, and many others. But pope Siricius did not appear equally gracious, and the saint made no stay in that capital, being in haste to arrive at Nola, the place of his retirement.* There stood a church over the tomb of Felix, half a mile from the walls of the city, and to it was contiguous a long building of two stories, with a gallery divided into cells, in which Paulinus lodged the clergymen who came to see him. On the other side was a lodging for secular persons, who sometimes visited him; and he had a little garden. Several pious persons lived with him, whom he calls a company of monks,⁹ and he practised with them all the rules and austerities of a monastic state. They celebrated the divine office, were clad with sackcloth, and abstained for the most part from wine; though Paulinus himself, on account of his infirmities, drank sometimes a little, diluted with a great quantity of water: they fasted and watched much, and their ordinary diet was herbs; but they never ate or drank so much as to satisfy hunger or thirst. St. Paulinus says,¹⁰ that every day he labored to render to St. Felix all the honor he was able; yet he strove to outdo himself on the day of his festival, to which he added every year a birthday poem in his honor, as a tribute of his voluntary service, as he styles it. We have fourteen, or as others count them, fifteen of these birthday poems of St. Felix, composed by St. Paulinus, still extant.*

The saint testifies that no motive so strongly excited him to the greatest fervor in the divine service as the consideration of the infinite goodness of God, who, though we owe him so much, demands only our love to pay off all debts, and to cancel our offences. Poor and insolvent as we are, if we love, this clears off all the score. And in this no man can allege the difficulty, because no man can say he has not a heart. We are masters of our love; if we give this to the Lord, we are quit. The excess of his goodness carries him still further, for he is pleased that by paying him our poor love, we should be moreover entitled to his greatest favors, and of our creditor should make him our debtor.¹¹ St. Paulinus had spent fifteen years in his retirement, when, upon the death of Paul the bishop of Nola, about the end of the year 409, he was chosen to fill the episcopal chair. Uranius, a priest of that church under our saint, who has given us a short relation of his death, to which he was an eye-witness, testifies that the holy prelate, in the discharge of his duties, sought to be beloved by all rather than feared by any. No provocations were ever able to move him to anger, and in his tribunal he always joined mildness with severity. No one ever had recourse to him who did not receive from him every kind of comfort of which he stood in need. Every one received a share in his liberalities, in his counsels, or in his alms. He looked upon only those as true riches which Christ hath promised to his saints, saying that the chief use of gold and silver consists in affording means to assist the indigent. By his liberality in relieving others he reduced himself to the last degree of penury.* The Goths in their plunder of Italy in 410, besieged Nola, and, among others, Paulinus was taken prisoner. In this extremity, he said to God with confidence: “Suffer me not to be tortured for gold and silver, for you know where I have placed all that you gave me.” And not one of those who had forsaken all for Christ was tormented by the barbarians. This is related by St. Austin.¹² A virtuous lady called Flora, having buried her son Cynegius in the church of St. Felix, consulted St. Paulinus what advantage the dead receive by being buried near the tombs of saints. Paulinus put the question to St. Austin, who answered it by his book, On the Care of the Dead, in which he shows that pomp of funerals and the like honors are only comforts of the living friends, not succors of the deceased; but that a burial in a holy place, proceeds from a devotion which recommends the soul of the deceased to the divine mercy, and to the saint’s intercession. St. Paulinus lived to the year 431. Three days before his death he was visited in his last sickness by Symmachus and Acyndinus, two bishops, with whom he entertained himself on spiritual things, as if he had been in perfect health. The joy of seeing them made him forget his distemper. With them he offered the tremendous sacrifice, causing the holy vessels to be brought to his bedside.¹³ Soon after, the priest Posthumian coming in, told him that forty pieces of silver were owing for clothes for the poor. The saint, smiling, said some one would pay the debt of the poor. A little after arrived a priest of Lucania, who brought him fifty pieces of silver, sent him for a present from a certain bishop and a layman. St. Paulinus gave thanks to God, gave two pieces to the bearer, and paid the merchants for the clothes. He slept a little at night, but awaked his clergy to matins according to his custom, and made them an exhortation to unanimity and fervor.—After this he lay silent till the hour of vespers, when, stretching out his hands, he said in a low voice: I have prepared a lamp for my Christ, Psalm 31. The lamps in the church were then lighting. Between ten and eleven at night, all who were in his chamber felt a sudden trembling as by some shock of an earthquake, and that moment he gave up his soul to God. He was buried in the church he had built in honor of St. Felix. His body was afterwards removed to Rome, and lies in the church of St. Bartholomew beyond the Tiber.

The world by persecuting St. Paulinus served only to enhance the glory of his victory, and to prepare him a double crown. This enemy is much less dangerous if it condemns than if it applauds us. To fear its impotent darts is to start at shadows. Itself will in the end admire those who for the sake of virtue have dared to despise its frowns. To serve men for God as far as it lies in our power is a noble part of charity; but to enslave our conscience to the mad caprice of the world is a baseness, a pusillanimity, and a wickedness, for which we cannot find a name. In other things we serve you, said the Hebrews to king Pharaoh, when his slaves in Egypt; but we must be free to go into the wilderness to sacrifice to the God of Israel. In the indispensable duties of religion, in the service of God, in the affair of eternity, we are essentially free; the dignity of our nature, and our allegiance to God, forbid us in this ever to become slaves. Here we must always exert an heroic courage, and boldly profess, by our conduct, with all the saints, that we know no other glory but what is placed in the service of God, and that we look upon ignominies suffered for the sake of virtue as our greatest gain and honor. We are his disciples who hath told us,—If the world hateth you, know that it hated me first, John 15:18.

St. Alban, Protomartyr of Britain

From Bede, Usher’s Collections, &c., his Ancient Life, and the English-Saxon abstract of it, in Bibl Coton. Julius, a. x.

A. D. 303.

The Christian faith had penetrated into England in the times of the apostles, and had received an increase by the conversion of king Lucius, in the year 180. But the first persecutions seem not to have reached this island, where perhaps the Christians, in times of danger, retired to places distant from the Roman colonies; or the mildness of their governors, in a province so remote as to seem another world, might sometimes shelter them. But the rage of Dioclesian penetrated into these recesses, and many of both sexes here received, by unheard-of torments, the crown of martyrdom, as Gildas and Bede testify. The first and most renowned of these Christian heroes was St. Alban, whose death was rendered more illustrious by many miracles and other extraordinary circumstances, and whose blood was an agreeable sacrifice to God, a glorious testimony to the honor of his name, and to his holy faith, and a fruitful seed of divine blessings on this country. So great was the glory of his triumph, that his name was most famous over the whole church, as Fortunatus assures us.¹ A copy of the ancient Acts of his Martyrdom was published by bishop Usher, and the principal circumstances are mentioned by St. Gildas, and recorded by venerable Bede.²

Alban* seems to have been a Roman name, and this saint seems to have been a person of note, as some ancient monuments quoted by Leland, Usher, Alford, and Cressy affirm. He was a native of Verulam,^† which was for many ages one of the strongest and most populous cities in Britain, till having suffered much by sieges under the Saxon conquest, it fell to decay, and the present town of St. Alban’s rose up close by its ruins, of which no vestiges are now to be seen, except some broken foundations of walls and checkered pavements; and Roman coins have been often dug up there.³ The river Werlame ran on the east, and the great Roman highway, called Watling-street, lay on the west side of the town. Alban travelled to Rome in his youth to improve himself in learning and in all the polite arts, as appears by authorities which the judicious Leland produces. Being returned home he settled at Verulam, and lived there with some dignity; for he seems to have been one of the principal citizens of the place. Though a stranger to the Christian faith he was hospitable and compassionate, and in recompense of his charitable disposition God was pleased to conduct him to the light of the gospel, and to discover to him the inestimable jewel of immortal life. He was yet a pagan when the edicts of the emperors against the Christians began to be put rigorously in execution in Britain. A certain clergyman, called by some writers Amphibalus, sought by flight to escape the fury of the persecutors, and Alban afforded him a shelter, and kindly entertained him in his house. Our saint was much edified by the holy deportment of this stranger, and admired his faith and piety, and in particular his assiduity in prayer, in which the faithful servant of God watched night and day. Alban was soon engaged to listen to his wholesome admonitions and instructions, and in a short time became a Christian. And with such ardor did he open his heart to the divine grace, that he was at once filled with the perfect spirit of this holy religion, and rejoicing that he had found so precious a treasure, he no longer regarded any thing else, despising for it the whole world and life itself. He had harbored this apostolic man some days when an information was given in to the governor, that the preacher of the Christian religion, after whom the strictest inquiry was making, lay hid at Alban’s house. Soldiers were dispatched thither to make diligent search after the man of God; but he was then secretly fled. Christ promises that he who receives a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall meet with the recompense of a prophet. This was fulfilled in Alban, who, by entertaining a confessor of Christ, received the grace of faith, and the crown of martyrdom. He exchanged clothes with his guest, that the preacher might more easily escape in that disguise to carry the news of salvation to others; and himself put on the stranger’s long robe, called Caracalla.* Alban earnestly desiring to shed his blood for Christ, whom he had but just learned to know, presented himself boldly in this habit to the soldiers, and was by them bound and led to the judge, who happened at that very time to be standing at the altar, and offering sacrifice to his idols. When he saw Alban he was highly provoked at the cheat which the saint had put upon him by substituting himself for his guest, and ordering him to be dragged before the images of his gods, he said: “As you have chosen to conceal a sacrilegious person and a blasphemer, the punishment which he should have suffered shall fall upon you, in case you refuse to comply with the worship of our religion.” The saint answered with a noble courage, that he would never obey such an order. The magistrate then asked him of what family he was. Alban replied: “To what purpose do you inquire of my family? If you would know my religion, I am a Christian.” The judge asked his name; to which he answered: “My name is Alban, and I worship the only true and living God who created all things.” The magistrate said: “If you would enjoy the happiness of life, sacrifice instantly to the great gods.” Alban replied: “The sacrifices you offer are made to devils, who neither help their votaries nor grant their petitions. Whoever shall sacrifice to these idols, shall receive for his reward the everlasting pains of hell.” The judge, enraged beyond measure at these words, commanded the holy confessor to be scourged; and seeing him bear with an unshaken constancy, and even with joy, the most cruel tortures, he at last condemned him to be beheaded. An exceeding great multitude of people went out to behold his execution, and the judge remained almost alone in the city without attendance. In the road was a river, and the stream in that part, which was pent up by a wall and sand, was exceeding rapid. So numerous was the crowd that was gone out before, that the martyr could scarce have passed the bridge that evening had he waited for them to go before him. Therefore, being impatient to arrive at his crown, he went to the bank, and lifting up his eyes to heaven made a short prayer. Upon this the stream was miraculously divided, and the river dried up in that part, so as to afford a passage to the martyr and a thousand persons.

This river must have been the Coln, which runs between Old Verulam and new St. Alban’s. The executioner was converted at the sight of this miracle, and of the saintly behavior of the martyr, and throwing away his naked sword, he fell at the feet of the saint, begging to die with him, or rather in his place. The sudden conversion of the headsman occasioned a delay in the execution. In the mean time the holy confessor, with the crowd, went up the hill, which was a most pleasant spot, covered with several sorts of flowers, about five hundred paces from the river. There Alban falling on his knees, at his prayer a fountain sprung up, with the water whereof he refreshed his thirst. A new executioner being found, he struck off the head of the martyr, but miraculously lost his eyes, which fell to the ground at the same time. Together with St. Alban, the soldier who had refused to imbrue his hands in his blood, and had declared himself a Christian, was also beheaded, being baptized in his own blood. This soldier is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology. Capgrave calls him Heraclius; some others, Araclius. Many of the spectators were converted to the faith, and following the holy priest, who had converted St. Alban, into Wales, to the number of one thousand, received the sacrament of baptism at his hands, as Harpsfield’s memoirs relate; but these converts were all cut to pieces by the idolaters for their faith. The priest was brought back and stoned to death at Radburn, three miles from St. Alban’s, as Thomas Radburn, who was born in that place, Matthew Paris, and others affirm, from ancient records kept in St. Alban’s abbey. This priest is called by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and others, St. Amphibalus, though bishop Usher conjectures that Greek name to have been borrowed from his garment, the Caracalla. Bede testifies, that St. Alban suffered martyrdom on the 22d of June; some say in the year 286, but most in 303, when Dioclesian began his great persecution, to which Constantius put a stop in Britain the year following. Some moderns are offended at the above-mentioned miracles; but the ingenious Mr. Collier writes thus concerning them: “As for St. Alban’s miracles, being attested by authors of such credit, I do not see why they should be questioned. That miracles were wrought in the church at that time of day, is clear from the writings of the ancients. To imagine that God should exert his omnipotence, and appear supernaturally for his servants, in no age since the apostles, is an unreasonable fancy. For since the world was not all converted by the apostles, why should we not believe that God should honor his servants with the most undisputed credentials? Why then should St. Alban’s miracles be disbelieved, the occasion being great enough for so extraordinary an interposition?” &c. These miracles of stopping the river, and of the spring rising in the place where St. Alban was beheaded, are expressly mentioned by Gildas, Bede, and others. The place was called in the Anglo-Saxon language, Holm-hurst, Hurst signifying a wood, and this place was once overgrown with trees, as bishop Usher proves. In aftertimes it obtained the name of Derswoldwood, and was the spot on which the present town of St. Alban’s is built. In the time of Constantine the Great, a magnificent church of admirable workmanship was erected on the place where the martyr suffered, and was rendered illustrious by frequent great miracles, as Bede testifies.⁴ The pagan Saxons destroyed this edifice; but Offa, king of the Mercians, raised another in 793, with a great monastery, on which he bestowed most ample possessions.* Several popes honored it with the most singular privileges and exemptions, and all the lands possessed by it were freed from the payment of the Rome-scot or Peter-pence. The church is still standing, having been redeemed from destruction when the abbey was suppressed under Henry VIII. It was purchased by the townsmen to be their parochial church, for the sum of four hundred pounds, which, according to the present value of money, would be above seven times as much.^† Our island for many ages had recourse to St. Alban as its glorious protomartyr and powerful patron with God, and acknowledged many great favors received from God through his intercession. By it St. Germanus procured a triumph without Christian blood, and gained a complete victory both over the spiritual and corporal enemies of this country. Of the rich shrine of St. Alban, most munificently adorned by Offa by his son Egfrig, and many succeeding kings and others, nothing is now remaining, as Weever writes,⁵ but a marble stone to cover the place where the dust of the sacred remains lies. Over against which, on a wall, some verses are lately painted, says the same author, to tell us there was formerly a shrine in that place.* A village in Forez in France, a league and a half from Rouanne, bears the name of St. Alban, famous for mineral waters abounding with nitrous salt, described by Mr. Spon and Piganiol, t. 2, p. 9, ed. 3, ann. 1754.

* Ausonius having taught rhetoric at Bourdeaux about thirty years, was called by Valentinian I. to his imperial court at Triers, and made preceptor to his son Gratian, who was then Augustus in 367. He was raised to the first dignities in the empire. After the death of Gratian in 383, Ausonius returned to Bourdeaux, and died in the year 394, the eighty-fifth of his age, the fourth after the retreat of St. Paulinus. He was esteemed the first man of his age in polite literature, and the ablest master. St. Paulinus expresses his gratitude to him for his care in his education in strong and tender terms.

Tibi disciplinas, dignitatem, litteras,

Linguæ, togæ, famæ decus,

Provectus, altus, Institutus debeo,

Patrone, præceptor, pater, &c. Carm. 10, v. 93.

Gratia prima tibi, tibi gloria debita cedet, &c.

Ausonius had a great deal of wit, a natural genius for poetry, and a very ready pen, but many of his compositions are very slovenly and unfinished pieces. Others show what he was capable of, especially some of his little poems, and in the first place his tenth Idyllium, which is a description of the Moselle, which is published apart with large commentaries by Morquardus Freher. If the Latin had been more pure, and of the Augustan standard, his panegyric on Gratian, with thanks for the honor of the consulship which he received from him in 378, would have been a finished piece. Some take him for an Idolater; but his Idyllium on Easter, and his Ephemeris, (or pious poem for the instruction of his scholars how to perform all the actions of the day with a pious prayer,) invincibly prove him to have been a Christian. The shameful obscenity of some of his poems shows him to have been a stranger to the spirit of his religion; but it is hoped that the example and excellent letters of St. Paulinus excited him to a sincere conversion to God in the end of his life. The best edition of Ausonius’s works is that published for the use of the great dauphin in 1730, by Souchay and abbé Fleury, canon of Chartres.

¹ St. Hler. ep. 101, 102.

² Ep. 23.

* It appears from several letters of Paulinus, &c., that he had an estate and a country house where as often resided, at Ebromagus, near the Garonne, now Burg, according to Samson, or rather Bram, upon the Lers, which falls into the Garonne, according to Dom. De Vic. and Dom. Vaisette, in their history of Lanpsedoe, t. 1, note 39, p. 634; another estate near Bordeaux, still called Le Puy Paulin; others at A engoues, now Langon, on the Garonne, thirty leagues from the mouth of the river; others near Narbonne; others about Fundi and Cæcubum, in Latium, &c.; and doubtless in many other places.

³ St. Ambrose, ep. 30. St. Jerom, ep. 13, 34. St. August. 1, de Civit. Dei, c. 10, ep. 30, olim 36, ep. 26, ol. 30, ep. 27, ol. 32, &c. Uranius, § 5. S. Gregor. Turon. de Glor. Conf. c. 107. Sulpic. Sever. Vit. S. Martini, c. 21, et 26. Fortunatus, &c.

⁴ Gal. 1:10.

* O beata injuria displicere cum Christo. St. Paulin. ep. 38, ol. 29, p. 228, et Veron.

^† Ergo meum patriæque decus, columenque senati

Bilbilis, aut hærens scopulis Calagurris habebit?

Hic trabeam, Pauline, tuam, Latiamque curulem

Constituis, patriosque istic sepelibis honores?

Ausonius, ep. 25, ad Paulinum, v. 56, &c., p. 361.

^‡ Christi sub nomine probra placebunt.

Carm. 10, v 186, p. 369.

Stuitus diversa sequentibus esse

Nil moror, æterno mea dum sententia Regi

Sit sapiens.

Ib. v. 265..

Si ptacet hoc, gratare tui spe divite amici,

Si contra est, Christo tantum me linque probari.

Ib. v. 285. p. 376.

⁵ St. Paulin. ep. 31.

⁶ St. Aug. ep 26, olim 39, ad Licent.

⁷ St Paulin. ep. 24, n. 7. p. 151. See other admirable instances of his sincere humility. Ib. n. 20, ep. 32, n. 3, ep. 4, n. 4. ep. 40, n. 11.

⁸ Carm 12.

* St. Paulinus in his poems testifies that from his tender age he had been particularly devoted to St. Felix, and ascribes to the prayers of that saint his conversion from the world, and other favors. Muratori most probably thinks with Chifflet, that he was substituted to Valens in the consulship after his death in 378, the twenty-fifth of his age. Pagi thinks he was only honorary consul, but is evidently mistaken; for Paulinus thanks St. Felix that by his patronage, when honored with the consulate, he had put no one to death. Muratori, Diss. 9, p. 816. St. Paulinus, the year after his consulate, was made consular of Campania, the first among the consular provinces, the government of which was given to the most illustrious ex-consuls. Paulinus entered upon this charge in 379. and in it assisted at the feast of St. Felix, at Nola in 380, as he testifies in a poem he wrote fifteen years after, (Nat. 2.) During this the he resided not as Capua, as usually the governors did, but at Nola, and he caused a road to be paved to St. Felix’s church, an aqueduct to be built for the use of the city and church, &c. It is clear from his writings that he had also been at Nola when a child, then dedicated his heart to God through the patronage of St. Felix, and always retained a singular devotion to hat saint. See Muratori, Diss. 10, p. 817. Diss. 13, p. 823.

⁹ Ep. 23, n. 8.

¹⁰ Ep. 28, n. 6.

* The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth, were imperfect even in Le Brun’s edition; but Muratori, historian to the duke of Modena, has given them complete in his Anecdotes of the Ambrosian library, and they are printed in the edition of St. Paulinus’s works at Verona, with Muratori’s Dissertations on St. Paulinus. We have several other poems of our saint’s composition. The three first were written while he was yet in the world, as appears from their subjects: the tenth and eleventh were addressed to Ausonius to justify his retreat from the world, to whom he says (Carm. 10) that he ought rather to have congratulated with him, because till then he had only fed on the viands of death, and had no relish but for things which are a folly before God. His poem to Jovius was written to prove a providence; that to Julian, on the occasion of his marriage, contains excellent advice to married persons. His poems are thirty-two, which with fifty-one elegant epistles make up his works, of which the most complete edition is that given by Le Brun, at Paris, 1685, in one volume 8vo. with his life; and that in folio, printed at Verona in 1736, corrected from a great number of MSS., enriched with the notes and dissertations of several authors, and with four entire poems of this father, published before by Muratori, and for this edition again revised by the same hand; three being on St. Felix, the fourth upon the follies of idolatry. St. Paulinus’s epistles gained him the same of “the delight of ancient Christian piety.” St. Austin (ep. 27) writes, that they flow with milk and honey, and that the faithful in reading them are transported with their charms, and that it cannot be expressed with what sweetness and ardor they are inspired by them. They represent to our view the true picture of his holy soul, being the natural effusion of the abundance of his heart, and of the fervor with which he sought God. He finds allusions to piety and religious sentiments in every thing; as in being shaved, he meditated on the cutting off the superfluities of sin and passions in his heart; in a coat of camel’s hair he considers the motivés of compunction, &c. St. Jerom (ep. ad Paulin.) extols the art and eloquence of his panegyric of the emperor Theodosius, which is now lost; but we may apply those praises to his discourse on alms. His poems are sprightly, and full of gayety and sweetness; the thoughts are beautiful, the comparisons noble, and well adapted; the poet never flags; never suffers his reader to sleep. His master Ausonius confesses, that he yields to him the palm in poesy, (ep. 20, ad Paulin.;) and says, Le knew no modern Roman who could vie with him, and that he is the only poet who joins brevity with per splcuity, (ep. 19, ad Paulin.) St. Paulinus expresses a great devotion to the saints. He testifies that their relics were used in the consecration of altars and churches, (ep. 23, ad Sever., p. 204,) the faithful not doubting that they serve for a defence and a remedy. He mentions that their shrines were adorned with flowers, (poem 14,) that crowds flocked to them, (poem 13,) being attracted by the miracles wrought by them; for by the intercession of the martyrs (poem 18) lost things were found, and the sick were cured. He speaks as an eye-witness of a raging fire, which had mastered all the power of human industry, but was extinguished by a little chip of the holy cross, (poem 25.) He sent to Sulpicius Severus a chip of that holy wood enchased in gold, calling it “a great present in a little atom; a defence of our temporal, and a ledge of eternal life.” (ep. 32.) He made every year a journey to Rome to visit the tombs of the apostles, ep. 45, ad Augustin., p. 270,) and to assist at the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, (ep. 17, ad Sever.) All his poems on St. Felix are full of testimonies of his confidence in the merits of that saint. He prays him to recommend his petitions to God, and to be his protector before the throne of his divine majesty, especially at the day of judgment, (poem 14, p. 43.) He declares that in the holy eucharist we eat the same flesh of Christ which was fastened to the cross.

In cruce fixa caro est, quâ pascor; de cruce sanguis.

Ille fluit, vitam quo bibo, corda lavo.—Ep. 32, p. 204.

He speaks often of holy images, and describes in the church of St. Felix at Nola the pictures of all the histories of the Pentateuch; also of Josue, Ruth, Toby, Judith, and Esther, (poem 24 and 25.) He says they were the books of the ignorant, (poem 24, p. 156.) He begged the prayers of his friends for the soul of his brother, deceased, and doubts not but they will procure him refreshment and comfort if he suffered any pains in the other life. (Ep. 35, ad Delphin. et 36, ad Amand., p. 224.) Nothing can be stronger, more affecting, or more tender, than many parts of the writings of St. Paulinus, where he expresses his sentiments of humility and compunction, his gift and esteem of holy fear, and his ardent love of God. See ep. 83, p. 146, &c.

¹¹ St. Paulin. ep. 23, ad Sulpic Sever., n. 46, 47.

* St. Gregory the Great (Dial. l. 3, c. 1) recounts, that Paulinus of Nola sold himself to the Vandals to redeem the son of a poor widow, having before employed all he could raise in the ransom of other captives, and that he labored as a slave working in a garden, till his master, discovering his merit, and that he was endued with a gift of prophecy, gave him his liberty. Some think this happened under the Goths, who sacked Nola in our saint’s time. Ceillier says that this history belongs to our saint’s successor, whose name, according to some catalogues, was Paulinus II., and who died in 442. For before that year the Vandals had made descents into that part of Italy. Nor does St. Austin, Uranius, or any other author mention any such thing of our saint. Many deny that the saint’s immediate successor was called Paulinus. But all agree that there was a bishop of Nola called Paulinus the Younger, and Paulinus II., or according to others III., who lived in 520, as Muratori observes, p. 446, of whom St. Gregory, who wrote his dialogues about the year 540, most probably is to be understood. The Vandals entered Africa in 427. Papebroke, t. 4; Junij, p. 193; Append., de 3. Paulinus distinguishes three Paulinus’s of Nola, and that it was the third, called the younger, who sold himself to the Vandals before the year 535. He is mentioned in an epitaph found in the cemetery of Nola. See Ferraric 1 Thesauro, Eccl. Nolan., anno 1644. This Paulinus foretold the death of Thrasimund, who died in 511. St. Gregory the Great was informed of this good bishop’s voluntary captivity by eye-witnesses.

¹² L. de Cura pro mortuis, c. 17.

¹³ Uranius do Obltu Panlini.

¹ Fortun. Poëm.

² Hist. l. 1, c. 1.

* Called in English 1-Saxon Albaner.

^† Verulam was called in the English-Saxon. Watlinga Ceaster.

³ See the map and description of the ancient Verulamium, published by Dr. Will. Stukelie in the among the prints of the Society of Antiquaries.

* The Caracalla was a long garment like the habit of a modern monk, sometimes with and sometimes without a hood or cown. It was originally Gaulish; Antoninus Bastanus, son of the emperor Severus, was surnamed Caracalla, because he introduced the frequent use of this kind of garment at Rome. See Aurelius Victor, Ferrarius de Re Vestiaria Rom. Hoffman Lexic. Univ.

Thomas Walsingham assures us, that this large woollen garment of St. Alban was kept in the church of Ely, in a great chest; which was opened in the reign of Edward II. in 1314. The upper part appears set stained with the martyr’s blood, which looked as tresh as if it had been but just spilled.

⁴ See Analecta Henschenii de S. Albano, and Papebroke, t. 4, Junij.

* Offa, king of Mercia, founded the monastery of St. Alban’s in the year 793, of his reign thirty-three; and in a council held at Celchyth in his dominions, in which were present fifteen bishops, with several kings, governors, and noblemen, he endowed the same with many large estates. See Stow’s Chronicle. In the journey of devotion which he made after this to Rome, he excepted the lands of this abbey from paying the Peterpence, when he engaged each family in his kingdom which enjoyed the yearly revenue of above thirty silver pence, to pay one silver penny a year to the see of Rome, Adrian I. being then pope. His dominions then comprised the counties of Hereford, Worcester, Gloucester, Warwick, Statford, Derby, Chester, Salop, Nottingham, Northampton, Oxford, Buckingham, Leicester, Bedford, Huntingdon. Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Middlesex, and half Hertfordshire. See the MS. life of king Offa, quoted by Spelman and Wilkins, p. 159.

^† The abbot of St. Alban’s took the first place among the mitred abbots in the parliament: the others sat according to the seniority of their summons. This precedency was granted to St. Alban by pope Adrian IV. in 1154. “Sicut B. Albanus protomartyr est Anglorum, ita et Abbas, sui monasteril sedem priroam habet in parliamento,” which was confirmed by several kings. See Reyner, Stevens, vol. 1, p. 170, and Monast. Angl., vol. 1, p. 80; Dr. Brown Willis’s Hist. of Mitred Abbeys, vol. 1, p. 13.

Before the dissolution of monasteries in England, twenty-seven abbots, sometimes twenty-nine, and two priors, almost all Benedictins, held baronies, and sat in parliament. The abbeys which enjoyed this privilege were: 1. St. Alban’s, valued at the dissolution, according to the king’s books in Dugdale, at 2102l per ann. according to vulgar computation; in Speed, at 2510l. per ann. 2. Glastenbury, dedicated to the B. Virgin, valued at 3311l. in Dugdale; at 3500l. in Speed. 3. St. Austin’s at Canterbury, which was returned into the exchequer to be endowed with 1413l. per ann., the cathedral-priory of Christ’s-church in that city being valued at 2387l. 4. Westminster-abbey, valued at 3471l. in Dugdale; at 3977l. in Speed. Maitiand, Hist. of London and Westminster, p. 391, observes, that 3977l. at the time of the dissolution was a sum equal to 20,000l. at present; and that Westminster abbey was with this yearly income far the richest in all England. It also surpassed all the other abbeys by its surprising treasure of rich plate and precious ornaments. 5. Winchester-abbey, founded by St. Byrinus and Kyoegilse, the first Christian king of the West-Saxons, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, but in later ages called St. Swithin’s, was valued at 1507l, 6. St. Edmund’s-bury, built by king Canutus. valued at 1659l. in Dugdale; at 2336l. in Speed. 7. Ely, where the valuation of the abbey restored by St. Ethelwold was 1084l., that of the bishopric 2134l. 8. Abingdon, founded by Cedwaila and Ina, kings of the West-Saxons, in honor of the B. Virgin, valued at 1876l. 9 Reading-abbey, built by king Henry I., valued at 1938l. 10. Thorney, in Cambridgeshire, refounded by St. Ethelwold, in honor of the B. Virgin Mary, valued at 508l. 11. Waltham, which was founded a noble collegiate church by earl Harold, in 1062, and made by Henry II. a royal abbey of regular canons of St. Austin, under the title of the Holy Cross, was valued at 900l. in Dugdale; at 1079l. In Speed. 12. Saint Peter’s in Gloucester, founded by Wulfere and Etheired, kings of Mercia, valued at 1550l., made a cathedral by Henry VIII. 13. Tewksbury, valued at 1598l. It was founded in 715, by Doddo, a prime nobleman of Mercia, who became a monk at Pershore. 14. Winchelcomb in Gloucestershire, valued at 759l. It was founded by Offa and Kenuiph, kings of Mercia. 15. Ramsey in Huntingdonshire, founded by Ailwyne, alderman of England, and earl of the East-Angles, in honor of the B. Virgin and St. Bennet, rated at 1716l. 16. Bardney in Lincolnshire. After being demolished by the Danes in 870, who slew there three hundred monks, it was rebuilt by William the Conqueror. 17. Crowland, valued at 1087l. in Dugdale: at 1217l. in Speed. 18. St. Bennet’s in Hulm, in Norfolk, founded about the year 800, valued at 585l. This abbacy was given by Henry VIII. to the bishops of Norwich, in exchange for the estates formerly belonging to that see, then valued at the yearly income of 1050l. From which time, the bishops of Norwich remain the only abbots in England. The great monastery of the Holy Trinity in Norwich was valued at 1061l. per ann. 19. Peterburgh-abbey, begun by Peada, king of Mercia, in 665; rebuilt by Adulf, chancellor to king Edgar, who became himself a monk, and died abbot of this house. The revenues of this abbey were rated, in the twenty-sixth year of Henry VIII., at 1921l. according to the clear value, in Dugdale. and at 1972l. according to the computed value. Henry VIII. spared this church, out of regard to the ashes of his injured queen Catharine, and converted the abbey into an episcopal see, which is now charged in the king’s books, worth 414l. 20. Battel-abbey in Sussex, founded by William the Conqueror, in honor of St. Martin, valued at 880l. 21. Malmesbury in Wiltshire, valued at 803l. 22. Whitby, anciently called Streanosbalch, founded by king Oswy in favor of St. Hilda in 657. It was destroyed by the Danes, but rebutit for monks after the Conquest, in honor of St. Peter and St. Hilda. 23. Selby in Yorkshire, begun by William the Conqueror, in honor of St. Peter and St. Germanus, rated at 729l. 24. St. Mary’s at York, built in the reign of William Rufus, valued at 2085l. in Speed. The other mitred abbeys were those of Shrewsbury, Cirencester, Evesham, Tavistock, and Hide at Winchester. See Brown Willis’s History of Mitred Abbeys. Also two priors had seats in the House of Lords, namely, of Coventry, and of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. This last was styled Primus Angliæ Baro, and was the first lay-baron, though a religious man See bishop Tanner’s Notitia Monastica, according to whose most exact calculation, at the suppression of religious houses in England, the sum total of the revenues of the greater monasteries amounted to 104,919l.; of the lesser, 29,702l.: of the head house of the knights hospitallers, or of Malta, in London 2385l, of twenty-eight other houses of that order, 3026l.; of seven houses of Trinitarians, (which are all we find the valuation of, the rest probably having no real foundations,) 287l.

By an act which was passed it the parliament in March, 1535, by the suppression of one hundred and eighty-one lesser monasteries, a revenue of 32,000l. per ann. came to the crown, besides 100,000l. in plate and jewels. By the greater houses, suppressed in 1539, the king obtained a revenue of 100,000l. per ann. besides plate and jewels. The houses of the knights of Malta were seized by the king in 1540. After wards, in 1548, were granted to king Edward VI. and suppressed, ninety colleges, one hundred and ten hospitals, and two thousand three hundred and seventy-four chantries and free chapels. The churches in all the northern kingdoms, as Denmark, Sweden, &c., were stripped much more naked by the change of religion.

The revenues of the clergy were laid only at a fourth part of the revenues of the kingdom in the twenty-seventh of Henry VIII., as may be seen in Compl. Hist., vol. 2, p. 185. And Mr. Collier, in his Eccl. Hist., vol. 2, p. 108, saith the revenues of the monks never did exceed a fifth part; and considering the leases they granted upon small rents, and easy fines, it may truly be affirmed their revenues did not exceed a tenth part of the nation. Thus Bishop Tanner, pref., p. 7.

Monasteries in England are no more; yet justice is due to an order of men which was formerly an illustrious part of this nation, and abounded with persons eminent for birth, learning, and piety. The veil which death throws over the ashes of good and great men is sacred; and to cast dirt upon their shrine is shocking to the most savage barbarians. Yet this some have made a point of merit. Bishop Burnet says the monks were become lewd and dissolute when their order was suppressed among us. But Mr. Henry Wharton, under the name of Anthony Harmer, in his Specimen of Errors in Burnet’s History of the Reformation, answers this slander in the following words, (p. 42:) “God forbid that any professors of Christianity, much less the greatest pretenders to it, should be guilty of such monstrous wickedness, or that any others should believe it of them without evident proof. Surely if the monks had been guilty of any such thing, it could not have escaped the knowledge of their visiters, who searched and divulged all their faults with the utmost industry. Nor would it have been unknown to Bale, brought up among them; nor omitted by him in his English Votaries, wherein he hath set himself to defame the monastic order, and the unmarried clergy, with insatiable malice.” The same learned Protestant divine and historian, in answer to another charge of bishop Burnet, importing, that the monks about the end of the eighth century had possessed themselves of the greatest part of the riches of the nation, shows (p. 40) that the monks had no then probably gained possession of the hundredth part of the riches of the nation; though they afterwards, in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, increased exceedingly in number and possessions. “But after all,” says he, “they will never be found to have possessed above a fifth part of the nation and considering they were wont to lease out their lands to laymen for easy fines and small rents, they did not in reality possess the tenth part of the riches of the nation. Then for that other charge, that the best part of the soil being in such ill hands, it was the interest of the nation to have it put to better uses, it is altogether erroneous. From the beginning to the end, none ever improved their lands and possessions to better advantage than the monks, by building, cultivation, and all other methods, while they kept them in their own hands. Of this Croyland is to this day a manifest instance. And when they leased them out to others, it was the interest of the nation to have such easy tenures continued to great numbers of persons who enjoyed them. To this it may be added, that they contributed to the public charges of the nation equally with the other clergy; and the clergy did always contribute in proportion above the laity. So that we cannot find to what better uses these possessions have been since put,” &c.

Bishop Tanner also observes, that the church lands, after the Conquest, contributed to all public burdens equally with the laity. Walsingham (p. 180) and Patrick (in his addit. to Gunton, p. 321) say, that 2 Richard II., A. D. 1379, every mitred abbot paid as much to the tax as an earl; and 6s. 8d. for every monk in his monastery. In 18 Edward II., A. D. 1289, the abbot of St. Edmond’s-bury paid 666l. 13s. 4d. to the fifteenth. See Cowell’s interpreter, sub voce Quinsieme; also Rymer, vol. ii., p. 75, and Stevens, App., p. 108. See a justification and apology for monks and monastic orders in Monasticon Favershamense, or a survey of the monastery of Feversham, by Tho. Southouse, of Gray’s-Inn, Loud., 1634.

Of the Benedictin Order were all our cathedral-priories, except Carlisle, and most of the richest abbeys in England. Reyner, vol. i., p. 217, says, that the revenues of the Benedictins were almost equal to those of all the other orders. Sir Robert Atkyns says there were in England, before the reformation, 45,009 churches and 55,000 chapels; now only about 10,000. Dr. Bentley, under the name of Philoleutherus Lipsiensis, in Remarks upon a late Discourse of Free-Thinking, says that out of 10,000 parish churches, there are 6000 the yearly income of which does not exceed 50l. each. On the present state of the church revenues in England, see that treatise, and Dean Prideaux on the Original and Right of Tithes.

⁵ Funeral Monuments, p. 555

* Naught but this marble stone of Alban’s shrine is left:

The work of all form else hath changing time bereft.

Papebroke mentions another St. Alban, martyr, whose relics are honorably preserved at Burano, near Venice.

Some have thought St. Alban of Mentz, who is much honored in a famous church and monastery, founded in 804, which bear his name at Mentz, to be our English protomartyr, as appears from Sir Thomas More’s book against Tindal, and from Ruinart’s Notes on the History of the Vandalic Persecution. But Rabanus Maurus, in his Martyrology, says he was an African bishop, who being banished by Huneric for the faith, coming to Mentz, there fell into the hands of the Huns, and was by them put to death for the faith. Mabillon, Annal. Ben., I. 28, and Papebroke, Junij, t. 4, p. 68, upon this authority of Rabanus, take St. Alban ot Mentz to have been an African; but Ruinart, the most judicious scholar of Mabillon, justly calls it in Question. Monsignor Georgi, in his Notes on Usuard’s Martyrology, inclines to the opinion of Ruinart. The great col eglate church of Namur was founded in honor of St. Alban by Albert II., earl of Namur in 1347. The abbot of St. Albans near Mentz, enriched it with precious relics and it is possessed of a large portion of the cross, which was sent by Henry, emperor of Constantinople, to his brother Philip, earl of Namur, in 1205. This church was made an episcopal cathedral by Paul IV., in 1559. St. Alban of Mentz is honored on the 21st of June. See Papebroke, t. 4, Junij, p. 86, and Serarius, Rerum Mogunt cum annotationibus et Supplemento a Georgio Christiano Joannis, pp. 176, 177, printed at Frankfort in 1722.

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 2, pp. 622–635). New York: P. J. Kenedy.