His Passio assigns him two disciples, Maximian (Maxien, Maximien) and Julian (Julien), who were decapitated with him on the hill of Montmille.

[2] The details of his life are largely unknown; the date of his death was moved backwards in time in order to lend his see more antiquity, a common practice during the Middle Ages.

As Hippolyte Delehaye writes, "To have lived amongst the Saviour's immediate following was...honorable...and accordingly old patrons of churches were identified with certain persons in the gospels or who were supposed to have had some part of Christ's life on earth.

According to Rolandus, the author of Acta Sancti Luciani, he retired to a mountain near the city, living as a hermit on grass and water.

Having crossed the river Thérain at Miauroy (Beauvais lies at the foot of wooded hills on the left bank of the Thérain at its confluence with the Avelon), Lucian stopped within a quarter mile of Beauvais, and died there, thus indicating to his followers that he wanted to be buried on that very spot.

This part of his legend thus makes Lucian one of the legendary cephalophores, whose number also include his alleged companion, Denis.

[6] According to the legend, the angels themselves attended the funeral of the saint, and according to local tradition, vermilion-coloured rosebushes blossomed on the spot where Lucian's blood had run.

Around 583, at the request of Dodo, bishop of Beauvais, and Saint Evrou (Evrost), Chilperic I ordered the building of a new basilica and monastery on the same site.

The abbey was destroyed in 845 during the Norman invasions, but a new one was built in the 12th century, serving also as a burial place for the cathedral canons.