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Biography

Lambert of Saragossa

Portrait of Lambert of Saragossa

About Lambert of Saragossa

Lambert of Saragossa is remembered as a Christian servant killed by his Muslim master. The Catholic Church in Norway places this received account around 900 and lists April 16 as his commemoration.

His chronology is disputed. Jesús Criado Mainar rejects the early Roman setting proposed by later writers because ancient sources do not mention Lambert. Earlier critics instead proposed the sixth century or the period of Muslim rule. The surviving evidence does not establish a year of death.

The cult is clearer than the life. A notarial record names a place associated with Lambert in 1371, and a 1440 breviary preserves his Passion. A Trinitarian foundation followed in 1522, with a documented relic transfer in 1571. In Aragón, farming fraternities placed themselves under his protection, especially from the seventeenth century.

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