He opened many fountains in dry places, healed many brackish streams, raised many dead to life, and had many visions of God and of Angels. In one of these visions he was warned that he should depart, March 1st. Thenceforth he was more zealous in the discharge of his duty: on the Sunday before his death he preached a sermon to the assembled people, and after consecrating and receiving the Lord's Body, he was seized with a sudden pain: then turning to the people he said, "Brethren, persevere in the things which ye have heard of me: on the third day hence I go the way of my fathers." On that day, while the clergy were singing the Matin Office, he had a vision of his Lord; then, exulting in spirit, he exclaimed, "Raise me after Thee." With these words he breathed his last.
He was canonized by Pope Callixtus II., A.D. 1120; who is also said to have granted an indulgence to all those who made a pilgrimage to his shrine. Three kings of England--William the Conqueror, Henry II., and Edward I.--are said to have undertaken the journey, which when twice repeated was deemed equal to one pilgrimage to Rome; whence arose this saying:--
"Roma semel quantum, dat bis Menevia tantum."
A noble English matron, Elswida, in the reign of Edgar, transferred his relics, probably in 964, from S. David's to Glastonbury.
S. David's plain but empty shrine stands now in the choir of S. David's Cathedral to the north of Edward Tudor's altar tomb.
[S. Albinus seems to have enjoyed an amount of popularity as a saint which it is difficult to account for. Besides receiving great veneration at Angers, where his feast is a double, and in Brittany, where it is a semi-double, in Gnesen, in Poland, it was observed as a double. His name appears in most Martyrologies, as those of Usuardus, Hrabanus, Wandelbert, &c. Authority:--His life written by Fortunatus, a priest, his contemporary.]
S. Albinus, or _S. Aubin_, as he is called in France, belonged to an ancient family at Vannes, in Brittany. He embraced the religious life in the abbey of Cincillac, called afterwards Tintillant, near Angers. At the age of thirty-five, in the year 504, he was chosen abbot, and twenty-five years afterwards, bishop of Angers. In the 3rd Council of Orleans, in 538, he caused the thirtieth canon of the Epaone to be revived, which declared excommunication to those who contracted marriage within the first or second degree of consanguinity. His life is singularly devoid of incident which could mark it off from that of many another abbot and bishop, and it is therefore difficult to account for his undoubted popularity in France in ancient times.