In the late 10th century, Folcuin wrote that Abel had been a monk in Lobbes Abbey (modern day Belgium) while Bishop Ermino (d. 737) served as abbot, and had been born in Ireland.

The modern historian Wilhelm Levison has suggested there were two individuals with the same name, but Eugen Ewig accepts the identification by Boniface as more accurate.

[1] Abel is next named in the sources as one of Boniface's 'fellow bishops' who around 746 sent a letter of exhortation to Æthelbald, king of Mercia as part of his wider missionary efforts.

In 751, Boniface once more addressed a letter to Pope Zacharias, in which he lamented the injustices of lay control over the church, but his erstwhile ambitions to change this were not realised in his lifetime.

The 9th-century Life of Saint Remigius, written by Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, claims that Milo had driven Abel out from the see in favour of Tilpin.