Saints Acheolus (or Acheul) and Acius were early Christian martyrs in

Gaul Gaul () was a region of Western Europe first clearly described by the Roman people, Romans, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Northern Italy. It covered an area of . Ac ...

. They are associated with

Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; , or ) is a city and Communes of France, commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme (department), Somme Departments of France, department in the region ...

, where Acheolus's name was given to an ancient church, later an abbey.

Butler's account

The martyrologist

Alban Butler Alban Butler (13 October 171015 May 1773) was an English Roman Catholic priest and hagiography, hagiographer. Born in Northamptonshire, he studied at the English College, in Douai, Douay, France where he later taught philosophy and theology. He s ...

wrote in his ''The lives of the fathers, martyrs, and other principal saints'' (1821),

Miscellaneous

Acheolus and Achius are honored on 1 May. The emblem of Acheolus is an instrument resembling a

wimble A gimlet is a hand tool for drilling small holes, mainly in wood, without splitting. It was defined in Joseph Gwilt's ''Architecture'' (1859) as "a piece of steel of a semi-cylindrical form, hollow on one side, having a cross handle at one end ...

. According to

E. Cobham Brewer Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (2 May 1810 in Norwich – 6 March 1897 in Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire), was a British lexicographer and the author of '' A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar'', '' Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fabl ...

in ''A Dictionary of Miracles: Imitative, Realistic, and Dogmatic'' (1884), The saint's name survives in the

Abbey of Saint-Acheul The Abbey of Saint-Acheul () was a monastery of Canons Regular in the Saint-Acheul district of Amiens, France. It was founded in the 11th century on the site of an ancient church, and was suppressed in 1790 during the French Revolution. The build ...

in the Saint-Acheul district of Amiens, and in the commune of

Saint-Acheul Saint-Acheul (; ) is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. It is not to be confused with Saint-Acheul, a suburb of Amiens after which the Acheulean archaeological culture of the Lower Paleolithic is named. Ge ...

to the north of Amiens,

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT: Gallo-Roman saints 290 deaths 3rd-century Christian martyrs