(died 3C)
Venerated as Britain's earliest Christian martyr. The first known version of his story, dating from the 6C, relates that he was a Roman living in Britain who was executed for sheltering a fugitive Christian. *Bede improved on this by making him a Roman soldier who saved a priest's life by dressing in his clothes and dying in his place. There have been many learned guesses at the precise year in which this may have happened; all that is certain is that by 429 there was a church on the traditional site of his martyrdom (around it grew up the city of *St Albans). His feast day is June 22, but as the result of an ancient confusion was in the past commemorated in the Church of England on June 17.
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