HE was of an ancient and noble family in Brittany,[1] and from his
childhood was fervent in every exercise of piety. He ardently sighed
after the happiness which a devout soul finds in being perfectly
disengaged from all earthly things. Having embraced the monastic state
at Cincillac, called afterwards Tintillant, a place somewhere near
Angers, he shone a perfect model of virtue, especially of prayer,
watching, universal mortification of the senses, and obedience, living
as if in all things he had been without any will of his own, and his
soul seemed so perfectly governed by the Spirit of Christ as to live
only for him. At the age of thirty-five years, he was chosen {495}
abbot, in 504, and twenty-five years afterwards, bishop of Angers. He
everywhere restored discipline, being inflamed with a holy zeal for the
honor of God. His dignity seemed to make no alteration either in his
mortifications, or in the constant recollection of his soul. Honored by
all the world, even by kings, he was never affected with vanity.
Powerful in works and miracles, he looked upon himself as the most
unworthy and most unprofitable among the servants of God, and had no
other ambition than to appear such in the eyes of others, as he was in
those of his own humility. By his courage in maintaining the law of God
and the canons of the church, he showed that true greatness of soul is
founded in the most sincere humility. In the third council of Orleans,
in 538, he procured the thirtieth canon of the council of Epaoue to be
revived, by which those are declared excommunicated who presume to
contract incestuous marriages in the first or second degree of
consanguinity or affinity. He died on the 1st of March, in 549. His
relics were taken up and enshrined by St. Germanus of Paris, and a
council of bishops, with Eutropius, the saint's successor, at Angers, in
556; and the most considerable part still remains in the church of the
famous abbey of St. Albinus at Angers, built upon the spot where he was
buried, by king Childebert, a little before his relics were enshrined.
Many churches in France, and several monasteries and villages, bear his
name. He was honored by many miracles, both in his life-time and after
his death. Several are related in his life written by Fortunatus, bishop
of Poitiers, who came to Angers to celebrate his festival seven years
after his decease; also by St. Gregory of Tours, (l. de Glor. Confess.
c. 96.) See the Notes of Henschenius on his life.
Footnotes:
1. It is proved by Leland in his Itinerary, published by Hearne, (t. 3,
p. 4,) that the ancestors of St. Albinus of Angers came from Great
Britain, and that two branches of his family flourished long after,
one in Cornwall, the other in Somersetshire.