St. Quintin

Quintin is remembered as a missionary and martyr in northern Gaul. The account followed by Butler makes him a Roman who travelled with St. Lucian of Beauvais. They preached together before taking different fields of work, Quintin remaining at Amiens. His ministry and the conversions attributed to it brought him to the attention of the authorities.

The traditional passion describes his imprisonment, repeated examinations, and refusal to abandon the Christian faith. Taken from Amiens into the territory of the Vermandois, he was put to death. Butler places the martyrdom on October 31 in the persecution associated with Maximian. At the beginning of the entry, however, he warns that the writer of the acts had added material from popular traditions of unequal authority.

The history of Quintin’s shrine is an important part of his memory. Butler recounts the search for his relics under St. Eligius and the later churches and monasteries that honoured him. The town now known as Saint-Quentin took his name. This long-established veneration should be distinguished from certainty about every detail of the torture narrative.