‘Early English’ versus ‘Anglo-Saxon’

Some cultural-academic news this past week has not been without interest to me, given that it involves a handful of mostly-American professors – beginning with Dr Mary Rambaran-Olm, formerly of the ISAS, but now including also John Overholt at Harvard – calling for the retirement of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ from polite academic usage, based on the history of the term in racialist circles and its continuing use to marginalise women and scholars of colour. On the other side (of the pond, mostly) are scholars who believe that the politicisation of the term is silly. For academics living in the UK including Tom Holland, ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is a value-neutral term that simply refers to the cultural and political period of their own history that preceded the Norman Conquest.

As is usual with these sorts of cultural-politics fights, I seem to be lacking a dog. (Don’t let the blog’s title fool you!) That’s not because of any lack of interest in things English and old, either, as my gentle readers will well be able to attest. In the interests of full disclosure, my preferred usages are ‘Old English’ (which is a readily-understood and handy term that is taken from linguistics to refer to all the related dialects spoken in the kingdoms of pre-Conquest England) and ‘pre-Schismatic English’ (because I happen to be Orthodox Christian and the Great Schism is a readily-available and -apt point of historical reference).

So I don’t really have any skin in the game for preferring to keep the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’, both because I don’t use it too often, and because (I admit) I laboured under the mistaken impression that it was an anachronism, imposed by later observers on a culture that considered itself ‘Ænglisc’. And yet my perspective, which comes from having studied Old English hagiography and other literature fairly intensely over the past year, comes closest to that of Dr Michael Wood.

Dr Wood agrees in the broad strokes with Dr Rambaran-Olm that something needs to change in how we study history in general. He does see certain problems in the ethnic makeup of university history and antiquities departments; he also sees some significant problems in the way these academic fields communicate with laypeople in the broader culture. The lexical differences between the way ‘Anglo-Saxon’ was used in the academy, and the way it was used in political discourse to shore up the illusion of ‘whiteness’, are reason enough not to dismiss Rambaran-Olm’s concerns out-of-hand.

But then he also notes that the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is in fact useful in the former setting, because it was authentic to how the Old English thought of themselves; because it was not an ethnic signifier; and because it indicates that the culture and outlook of pre-Conquest England was neither monolithic nor xenophobic. It was a land ‘of many different languages and customs’. ‘We may drop “Anglo-Saxonists”, then,’ Wood writes, ‘we may prefer “Early English” – but we cannot dispense entirely with “Anglo-Saxons”.’

The original migration consisted of settlers from three different places and tribes in Europe, for one thing – and then they were joined by Italians, Germans, Norsemen, Irish and Scots. He also dwells rather strongly on my very favourite point about Old England, which was that it had a deeply cosmopolitan and culturally-humble outlook. The Orthodox saints of Old England looked outward not only to Rome but also to Greece, to Palestine, to Syria, to Ægypt and to Africa. (Dr Wood name-drops both Saint Hadrian and Saint Theodore, and focusses on their paramount importance as educators in Old England!) The Old English did not pride themselves on being any better than anyone else; quite the contrary! They were eager to learn from their spiritual elders no matter where they came from – even from the Greek- and Syriac-speaking Christian East.

Dr Wood gently (a bit too gently, if you ask me) pushes back on what he seems to view as a certain streak of regressive fatalism in Dr Rambaran-Olm’s argumentation. He looks at the scholarship on Old England and does not necessarily see a field that is damnably mired in white supremacy. Instead, what he sees is a teachable moment in academia where studies of late-antique and mediæval Europe can really gain some traction in the broader culture – and not merely to bolster the nationalist-cæsarist turn in global politics. Here, I agree completely with him. It’s a dire necessity of our time to learn from the cultures that witnessed and survived the fall of Western Rome. We need to be examining carefully the coöperative solutions (the real Benedict Option!) and ascetic demands they made on themselves in order to do so. We shouldn’t be making concessions in the humanities to the radical-right sans-culottes and their myth-building exercises. Speaking as a descendant (and student) of these people – and also as a descendant of people who were very much not Anglo-Saxons – I think we need to be firmly on guard against engaging in this kind of erasure based on the surface-level political concerns of the moment. If there is any chance that ‘Anglo-Saxon’ might be reclaimed for its earlier, humbler, outward-facing meaning cited by Dr Wood, then that chance ought not to be thrown away.

Venerable Lebuin of Deventer, Apostle to the Saxons

Saint Lebuin of Deventer

Today in the Holy Orthodox Church we commemorate another Northumbrian holy man, Saint Lebuin [also Wine, Leofwine, Lebuïnus or Livinus] of Deventer. Originally a monastic disciple and spiritual son of Saint Wilfrið of Ripon, he was called to become a missionary among the continental Saxons, keeping aloft the heavenly beacons of Saint Willibrord and Saint Boniface in those regions. He preached and taught among the Saxons who lived along the river IJssel and in Westphalia.

Apart from his association with Saint Wilfrið, we know very little indeed about Lebuin’s early life. However, we see from his Vita that he was called multiple times to serve the Lord on the Continent, among the Saxons of the IJssel. As seems to be typical of Orthodox saints (particularly the Desert Fathers, but also the later Russian monastics) Lebuin did not at once act on his visions, fearing that they might be delusions of pride and vainglory. It was only after the same vision came to him a second time, and then a third, and after he asked leave from the abbot at Ripon, that he was convinced to board a ship for the continent and present himself to Saint Gregory of Utrecht, who had been a disciple of Saint Boniface among the Germans in the southern regions of Hessen and Thüringen.

Saint Lebuin took counsel with the holy abbot as to whether these visions of his were true or delusional, and how he ought to act upon them. The holy man listened to him with care and weighed the young monk’s words. Being convinced that these visions had not come from the Evil One but instead from the Lord, Saint Gregory welcomed Lebuin and invited him to take up residence in the spot which had been mentioned to him in the vision. He also entrusted to Lebuin a spiritual companion and brother, a former disciple of Saint Willibrord named Markhelm. He was then commended to the care of a pious Frisian widow named Eberhild, who fed and housed the two monks for some time.

They made their way up the IJssel; and stayed at a chapel in Wilp (now part of the town of Voorst in Gelderland) on the western bank of that river which had been built by the Christians of that place. Later they built a larger kirk in Deventer on the eastern bank of the IJssel, with a hermitage that served as a residence for the two monks, and from which Saint Lebuin and Markhelm could venture into Saxon territory to preach the Gospel and do good works. One of the Saxons who early accepted baptism from Saint Lebuin were a man named Folcberti, and his son Helco. However, the Saxons were largely hostile to Lebuin’s preaching, accusing him of using evil magic to drive folk mad. They formed a mob, burned down his church and chased him and the converts he had made back over the IJssel.

At this time, the Saxons still held to a fairly democratic tribal system of government, which was centred on the þing, which holds the meaning of ‘meeting’ or ‘assembly’. (Indeed, the parliaments of the Nordic countries are still called, for example, ‘Folketinget’ or ‘Alþingi’.) At these yearly meetings, the Saxons of free or noble status would gather to uphold the customary laws, render judgement on civil and criminal cases, quarrel, fight, make peace, forge alliances, make marriages or prepare for war. As is mentioned in various anthropological treatments of the Teutonic peoples (including Tacitus and Jordanes), they were generally not ruled by kings during peacetime. The Saxons of the Continent were no exception. They would only call forth an army-leader, or heretug (the modern word for ‘duke’ in the Teutonic languages) in times of war or political crisis, usually at the þing. Folcberti’s son Helco was bound for one such þing at the settlement of Marklo (modern-day Hoya in Germany), together with some of his friends, but before Helco left his father took him aside, and said to him: ‘I feel anxious about [Lebuin], and I am afraid that if he meets with those who hate him they will either kill him or drag him to the þing and have him killed there.’

Just then who should show up but Lebuin? The dogs at the front of the hall had begun barking at the holy man, and he was warding them off with his walking-stick when Helco found him and called the hounds off. Helco brought Lebuin gladly before his father, who hugged Lebuin to him and greeted him warmly, and then they began to speak with each other. Lebuin told Folcberti of his intention to go to the þing at Marklo, and Folcberti answered him:

You are on friendly terms with many of us, dear Wine, and what you say gives pleasure even to me! But I hear that there are many insolent young fellows who insult and threaten you. Listen to me and be on your guard against them. Do not go to the meeting, but return home to your friends. Once the meeting is over you may go about with less danger. You can come here in safety and we shall listen to your words with very great pleasure!

But Lebuin answered his host:

I must not fail to make myself shown at the meeting, for Christ Himself has commanded me to make known His words to the Saxon folk.

‘You will not be able to flee,’ said Folcberti.

‘He who sent me shall help me,’ answered Lebuin.

When at last came the day of the þing, all of the high-born Saxons were there, including twelve of the leading landowners. Once they had gathered together, they offered up bedes and blót to the heathen gods – Wódan, Þunar and Frikko among them – and asked them to protect their land and guide them in making laws pleasing to them and useful to the folk. When they had made a ring, they began to talk.

Of a sudden, Lebuin showed himself in the midst of their ring, clad in his priestly garb with a cross in his hand and a copy of the Gospels under his arm. He raised his roust and cried out to them:

Listen! I am the messenger of Almighty God and to you Saxons I bring His command. The God of heaven and Ruler of the earth and His Son Jesus Christ, commands me to tell you that if you are willing to be and to do what His servants bid you He will confer life upon you such as you have never heard of before. As you have never had a king over you before this time, so no king will lord over you and enthrall you to his will. But if you are unwilling to accept God’s commands, a king nearby has been made ready who will beset your lands, despoil them and lay them waste, and sap your strength in war; he will lead you into exile, deprive you of your birthright, slay you with the sword, and hand over your belongings to whom he has a mind: and afterwards you will be thralls both to him and to his offspring.

The Saxons, who in bemusement had held their tongues until this point, at this last utterance began crying aloud against this ‘wild charlatan’ and his ‘fantastic nonsense’, and began to demand that he be bound and put to death. The wiser and elder of the Saxons, who held to the old ways of hospitality, tried to prevent it, but the hot-headed younger folk rooted up stakes from a nearby fence and flung them like javelins at Lebuin, to pin him down so that they might slay him. But just as suddenly as he had come, he vanished like smoke. Then all of the Saxons began to upbraid those who had thrown the stakes, saying they had gone too far. One of them, a man named Bodo, stood on the stump of a tree and cried out:

Heed me – all of you who have any sense of right! When the Northmen or the Wends or the Frisians or any other folk send messengers among us, we greet them in peace and listen with respect to their words. But now when a messenger of God comes to us, look what scorn we fling at him! The ease with which he fled us ought to show you beyond all doubt that he spoke truth, and that the threats he uttered will not be long in happening.

And so it went, that the Saxon þing decided, remorseful at what they had done, to allow Saint Lebuin to go his way unharmed if he should ever appear again. Once this decision had been reached, the þing continued with other business; and Saint Lebuin was thereafter able to travel throughout Saxony, preaching as the Holy Spirit led him. This he did until he met his repose, and he was buried at the kirk at Deventer which had been burned before. This kirk was again burned down by a Saxon war band, who looked for Saint Lebuin’s body for three days but were unable to find it. That church would later be rebuilt by Saint Liudgar, sent by Abbot Albric the successor of Venerable Gregory. Lebuin himself, appearing in a vision to Liudgar, told him where his bones might be found; and when the kirk was rebuilt, Saint Liudgar took pains that the foundations of the new kirk would be extended around his resting-place so as not to disturb them. Thereafter many healing wonders took place at this new kirk. Holy and venerable Lebuin, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!

Lebuïnuskirk in Deventer, Netherlands

Holy and Right-Believing Elaeth ‘Frenin’, Monk of Anglesey

St Eleth Church, Amlwch, Wales

On the eleventh of November we celebrate the feast of Elaeth of the Welsh Age of Saints, a sixth-century Brythonic king of the Old North who lost his kingdom and subsequently became a monk on the holy island of Ynys Môn. He is venerated today primarily in northern Wales, and is associated closely with the other saints of Anglesey.

Elaeth ‘Frenin’ ap Meurig ap Idno belonged to the chieftains of Yr Hen Ogledd, who apparently did not have a particularly sterling reputation among the bards of old Britain in the years that they ruled, as Elaeth’s father Meurig is ‘clearly vilified’ in the Black Book of Carmarthen – a compilation in which two poems are attributed to Saint Elaeth himself. Their reputation apparently suffered on account of their inability to hold off the Picts. Elaeth was born to Meurig and his wife Onnengreg, probably at some point in the 610s or 620s, and acceded his father as a king or sub-king in Yr Hen Ogledd. He lost his kingdom, however, to the invading Picts and had to flee west and south into northern Wales.

Specifically, he fled to the isle of Anglesey, and sought shelter at Penmon Priory where Saint Seiriol ‘Gwyn’ was the reigning abbot. This happened around the year 640. Seiriol took a liking to the exiled king, and at the latter’s wish to quit the sæcular world gave him the monastic tonsure. It was probably after he became a monk that he wrote seven exhortatory poems under the title of ‘Cyngogion Elaeth’, collected in the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales.

Saint Elaeth also founded, according to tradition, St Eleth Church in Amlwch, which today belongs to the (Anglican) Church in Wales. Nearby this church is Ffynnon Elaeth, a holy well whose waters were held to have great healing powers, and which remained a common site of pilgrimage on Anglesey to the present – in the words of Angharad Llwyd, ‘the ancient well… is still held in some degree of repute’. Saint Elaeth lived out the rest of his life as a monk on Anglesey, and reposed probably shortly before the year 700. Holy Father Elaeth, king and poet and monk, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion of Saint Elaeth, Tone 8:

Thou didst exchange armed combat with the heathen
For the spiritual warfare of the monastic life, O Father Elaeth.
Look on those who now hymn thee,
O thou who didst praise God with thy poetic talents He gave thee,
And intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Holy Hierarch Justus, Archbishop of Canterbury

Rochester Cathedral

Today is the feast-day of Saint Justus, the first Bishop of Rochester and the fourth Archbishop of Canterbury. He was one of Roman missionaries, along with Saints Laurence and Mellitus, sent in the second group by the saintly Pope Gregory Dialogos to Britain in 601 to support the mission of Saint Augustine of Canterbury to the folk of Kent. As with many of the early saints of England, what we know about Saint Justus comes largely from the heroic historiographical work undertaken by Saint Bede.

Bede is somewhat elliptic about Justus’s virtues, though he notes that he was one of the ‘most outstanding’ clergy among the second missionary group sent by Pope Gregory. He notes that within three years Augustine had made Justus the Bishop of Rochester – a small but symbolically-important see that was seated within a walled town on Watling Street. Saint Justus was probably a sæcular priest, not a monk, before he was ordained a bishop. He may have received the tonsure concurrently with the bestowal of his bishopric, as several later Cantuarian monks claimed him as a member of their order.

Saint Justus affixed his name to a letter, written jointly with Saints Laurence and Mellitus and preserved by Saint Bede, addressed to the Celtic Christians of Scotland and Ireland. The letter chides them for having broken brotherly hospitality to the missionaries among the English and not having conformed to the standard Roman Liturgical uses and practices. Being rather brusque and peremptory in tone, the letter did not have the desired effect on its Celtic readers.

After the death of Æþelberht King and the persecution of the Church under his heathen successors, Saint Mellitus conferred with Saints Justus and Laurence about leaving the mission and returning to Gaul. Justus accompanied Mellitus in his flight; only Laurence stayed behind, and at that only temporarily. It was only after Saint Peter appeared to Laurence in a vision, and upbraided him harshly for abandoning his charge, that the last was able to convince Éadbald King of the truth of the Christian faith and prevail upon his brethren to return to England.

Indeed, Saint Justus returned to Rochester and, as Bede recounts, was received back by the folk of Rochester gladly. This is direct contradistinction to Saint Mellitus, who was rejected by the people of London. Justus had a reputation in Rochester for even-handedness, devotion, diligence and care as an ecclesiastical governor. He served there for eight years. At that point he succeeded Saint Mellitus as Archbishop of Canterbury, who had by the time of his repose served five years in that office.

Saint Justus consecrated one Romanus as bishop of Rochester in his place, and received the omophor from Pope Boniface V of Rome, along with a warm and heartfelt letter of high commendation from the Pontiff – which has been preserved in full in the History of the English Church and People. He also consecrated Saint Paulinus as a missionary bishop among the Northumbrians, and sent him along with Æþelburg to the court of her bridegroom Éadwine.

Saint Justus reposed in the Lord and was ‘taken up into the heavenly kingdom’ on the tenth of November, 634. He was thereafter succeeded in office by Saint Honorius, who was consecrated in extremis by Saint Paulinus (who had come south on the perilous road through heathen Mercia into Lincoln for the purpose). Holy father Justus, righteous and gentle archbishop, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Venerable Pabo ‘Post Prydain’, King and Hermit

Eglwys Pabo Sant, Llanbabo

The ninth of November is the feast-day of a pre-Schismatic Western saint of Britain, Saint Pabo, who was king of the Pennines in northern Britain. He converted to Christianity in his adulthood and, as seems to have been a trend among the British kings, he retired from his throne in favour of a hermitage in his old age.

Pabo was the son of Cenau, the son of Coel Hen. As a ruler, he was a fierce warden of his land and – at first – a stout believer in the old Celtic trow. His cognomen, ‘Post Prydain’ or ‘Pillar of Britain’, indicates that he had achieved renown as a successful defender of the Romano-British North – Yr Hen Ogledd – against the invading Picts and Scots. He was the father of the proud princelings Dynod Bwr and Sawyl Ben Uchel, and by them respectively, the grandfather of Saints Deiniol of Bangor and Asa of Tegeingl.

Pabo converted to Christianity late in his life, and that conversion appears to have had a significant impact on his life. He bequeathed his inheritance yet living upon his sons, who split the kingdom between them in the traditional legal custom of cyfran, or gavelkind – and so ‘died to the world’. He took up the wandering life and made his way south and west through the kingdom of Gwynedd to Ynys Môn (or Anglesey), where he founded a hermit’s cell for himself at Llanbabo, which became the Church of Saint Pabo. It was there that he reposed in the Lord on the ninth of November, 530 – obscure in the eyes of the world but glorious in the eyes of Christ.

Holy and righteous Pabo, king and confessor, pray to Christ our God for us sinners!

Saints Cybi ‘Felyn’ and Tysilio of Brittany

Saint Cybi Felyn and Saint Seiriol Gwyn

The eighth of November is the feast-day of two great British saints of late antiquity, the prince and founder of churches Cybi Felyn (or ‘the Tawny’) of Caer Gybi on the Holy Isle of Anglesey, and Holy Father Tysilio of Ille-et-Vilaine in Brittany.

Cybi Felyn was born in Cornwall to the British warrior-prince Selyf and his wife Gwen. The two of them raised him in the Christian faith and gave him a fine education – he quickly developed a pious and studious disposition as a result. At the age of twenty-seven, Cybi made pilgrimages to Rome and to Jerusalem, and while on pilgrimage became a priest. When he returned home, he found that his father Selyf had died, and that he had been left as the legal king of Cornwall. However, he was set on continuing a life of holiness and relinquished his claim to the throne, leaving Cornwall in the care of the British kingdom of Dumnonia to the east.

Saint Cybi founded four churches in Cornwall: Duloe, Tregony, Cubert and Landulph. After founding these four churches, he travelled northward across the Bristol Channel into Llanddyfrwyr in the company of his uncle, Prince Cyngar ap Geraint, where he set about preaching and teaching as a mendicant priest. He fell foul (as Welsh saints seem wont to do) of the local kinglet, Edelig ap Glywys, who tried to have him kicked out of his demesne. Cybi confronted Edelig, and scolded him so roundly that Edelig was cowed into giving him two parcels of land, on each of which he founded a church: one at Llanddyfrwyr-yn-Edeligion and another at Llangybi-on-Usk (which, as seen, took its name after him). The two men were not long able to stay in southeastern Wales, and soon sought the shelter and aid of Saint Dewi.

Saints Cybi and his followers, including Saint Cyngar, set sail for Ireland where they undertook the establishment of yet more churches – including ones in Aran Mor, Meath and Mochop. Yet again, however, they were hounded out by local potentates and elders, and were forced to make their way back to Wales. They landed in the Eifionydd region of Gwynedd; and Saint Cybi lived and established a Christian community in Llangybi near Pwllheli. There was a holy well there, Ffynnon Gybi, which tradition holds was able to give maidens inspired advice on their love lives. A girl looking to know if her swain was truthful would throw her handkerchief in the well. If the wind blew the handkerchief to the south side of the well, she would know his intentions were honourable. If the wind blew it to the north side, she would know he was toying with her affections.

Saint Cybi again came across the local king of Gwynedd, Maelgwn Hir ap Cadwallon, while he was out hunting a wild goat. The goat ran across Cybi’s path and he was quickly followed by the king. The king, though angry at finding a Christian settlement on his land without his permission, was quickly calmed and persuaded by Saint Cybi’s deft diplomatic tongue. As with Edelig, Maelgwn was convinced to give Saint Cybi one of his palaces on Holyhead, which became Caer Gybi. Saint Cybi and his followers settled in this dwelling and converted it into a thriving monastery.

Caer Gybi Church and Fort at Holyhead

As for Saint Cybi Felyn, he became a steadfast spiritual friend of the hermit Saint Seiriol Gwyn of Penmon – with whom he is often venerated together in Orthodox liturgics. Saint Seiriol lived on the Eastern Peninsula of Ynys Môn – the opposite side from Saint Cybi – but the two would nonetheless meet regularly at the Clorach Wells at Llandyfrydog, which sat at the centre of the island midway between them, and there converse in a brotherly spirit on the ways of Christ and on the holy things of Him. The two saints would set out early in the morning to walk to Llandyfrydog from their respective corners of Ynys Môn, and return to their cells in the evening. Because Cybi was walking east in the morning and west in the evening, the sun always would be on his face during his walks, and he got heavily tanned. Because Seiriol was always going west in the morning and east in the evening, the sun was never on his face, which remained pale. Thus Saint Cybi earned the cognomen ‘Felyn’, meaning ‘tawny’, and Saint Seiriol was called ‘Gwyn’, meaning ‘white’.

Saint Cybi Felyn founded another church in Ceredigion in the Welsh West, late in his life. He also attended the Synod of Llanddewi Brefi in 545, condemning Pelagianism. While there, he was visited by many Welsh priests seeking to make pilgrimage to the Isle of Bardsey, fearing attack from English pirates on the roads. Saint Cybi replied to them, that if their faith in God was firm, He would not abandon them in what they sought. Saint Cybi reposed in the Lord on the eighth of November, 555, and was buried on the Isle of Bardsey.

Saint Cybi’s kinsman, Saint Cyngar, was Cybi’s steadfast comrade in his holy work throughout most of the former’s adult life, accompanying him to Edeligion, Mywys, Ireland, Eifionydd and Anglesey. While on the island of Aran Mor in Ireland, Cyngar was afflicted with a condition whereby he could no longer eat solid food. Saint Cybi bought his uncle a cow and a calf, so that he would always have milk to drink while he was thus afflicted. At one time, however, the calf was weaned such that the cow stopped producing milk. As a result, Cyngar very nearly starved to death. Saint Cyngar founded the monastery at Holyhead jointly with Saint Cybi, and from there struck out on his own and established a hermitage and kirk at Llangefni. It was there that he reposed in the Lord, on the seventh of November during the middle of the sixth century, probably several years before his nephew did. Holy Father Cybi, founder of churches and monasteries, pray unto Christ our God to save our souls!

By thy journeyings, O Hierarch Cybi,
Thou dost teach us the virtue of making pilgrimages.
Wherefore, O Prince of Ascetics and all-praised Wonderworker,
We entreat thee to intercede for us
That Christ our God will not find our lives to be utterly worthless
And will show us great mercy.

Church of Saint Cyngar at Llangefni

~~~

Saint Gwyddfarch of Meifod and Saint Tysilio of Brittany

Saint Tysilio [i.e. Suliac], also commemorated today, hailed from the region of Powys in Eastern Wales. The younger son of Brochwel Ysgrithrog ap Cyngen Glodrydd, King of Powys, he sought for himself a life of Christian asceticism. However, his father was most unwilling to oblige him, such that he had to flee Brochwel’s household and seek sanctuary on the altar-cloth at Meifod Abbey under the Venerable Gwyddfarch. He begged Abbot Gwyddfarch to let him become a monk. Later, a war-band from Powys sent by his father came to claim young Tysilio back, for it was his father’s intention that he lead Powys’s men in war. It was only with difficulty that Brochwel King was persuaded to let Tysilio stay with Gwyddfarch and study the ascetic life.

Under Abbot Gwyddfarch, Meifod Abbey became renowned as a centre of learning and holiness. It was during his time as a monk of Meifod that Tysilio met and befriended Saint Beuno at the court of Cynan Garwyn. However, Saint Tysilio still feared that his father’s men from Powys would come and claim him, and so he left Meifod to settle on a small island near Ynys Môn – Church Island in the Menai Strait.

(Fun language factoid: it was this church that lent one section of the outlandish name of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch to that village, about a mile west of the island itself.)

He lived on Church Island for seven years, teaching and preaching in Ynys Môn for that time. While there he established several churches in Clwyd, in Ceredigion, in Dyfed and on Ynys Môn. At the seven years’ end, he returned to Meifod to succeed the recently-reposed Saint Gwyddfarch as abbot. Saint Tysilio was a wise abbot who ruled Meifod with a gentle hand, prayed fastidiously and kept up a strict ascetic discipline for himself. He was close friends with the saintly cousins (the grandchildren of Saint Pabo), Deiniol of Bangor and Asa of Tegeingl.

Things were peaceful there, but he was soon visited by another temptation. Tysilio’s brother, who had succeeded their father Brochwel as king, died, leaving the throne of Powys empty. His beautiful sister-in-law Gwenwynwyn went to Meifod to make him two propositions: she would wed him in his brother’s place, and she would put him on the throne as king. The holy man turned down both proposals. The spurned Gwenwynwyn did not take his refusal lying down, but used her position to put substantial political pressures and burdens on Meifod Abbey. Knowing that this persecution was on account of him and his rejection of worldly luxury and power, Saint Tysilio reluctantly left Meifod and embarked on a voyage that took him to Brittany in northwestern Gaul.

Saint Tysilio landed in what is now Ille-et-Vilaine, on the inlet of Rance in Brittany, some fifty miles south of the isle of Jersey on the northern coast of France. There he established a monastery and became its first abbot. He cared deeply about the poor folk of Brittany, the Celtic cousins of the Cornish and Welsh people, and in his old age he undertook missions among them to do works of corporal mercy. He reposed in the Lord on the eighth of November in the year 640, and was buried in the Breton monastery that he founded. Holy Father Tysilio, devoted priest, monk and missionary, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!

Princely dignity was set at nought by thee, O Father Tysilio,
For thou didst put aside the glory of this world,
Preferring to serve God in monastic poverty.
Wherefore we pray thee, intercede for us,
That with courage we may renounce mammon
And live only in Christ for the salvation of men’s souls.

Church of Saint-Suliac, Brittany

Venerable Gwyddnog, Abbot of Padstow

Church of St Petroc in Padstow, founded by Saint Gwyddnog

The seventh of November is the feast-day of Saint Gwyddnog, one of the holy children of Saint Gwen ‘the Three-Breasted’ by her husband Saint Fragan of Armorica. He is closely associated with his brother, Saint Iago, as well as Saint Pedrog of Cornwall.

Saint Gwyddnog [also Goueznou, Guéthénoc, Quéthénoc or Wethenoc] was born in Cornwall, being the twin of Saint Iago. He was brought as an infant to Brittany by his parents Fragan and Gwen on account of the plagues and wars in his insular homeland, and was one of the first British refugees to settle at Ploufragan. He was educated by Saint Beuzeg of Dol, a hermit who lived on the Île-de-Bréhat.

At one time, Gwyddnog and his brother Iago went and tried to cure a beggar of his blindness. They made a paste from earth and spittle and anointed his eyes in the sign of the Cross. Baring-Gould believes this attempt failed, because the beggar raised an outcry against them and had them brought back to Saint Beuzeg for punishment. A more successful healing story is found when the two twin brothers encountered a leper and healed him by kissing his diseased palm.

Saint Gwyddnog and Saint Iago were given leave to start their own monastic community by Saint Beuzeg, and they settled at Landouart, where they stayed for several years. Gwyddnog took charge of this abbey, and under his direction it proved so successful in attracting monks that the two brothers decided to leave it again, as it was getting too crowded. Gwyddnog assisted Iago in founding a Benedictine house, L’Abbaye de Saint Jacut-de-la-Mer, a short ways up the coast from Saint-Malo.

At some point after this, Saint Gwyddnog returned to Britain and built a chapel and hermit’s cell at Padstow in Cornwall, where he lived for some time. He appears as a bishop in Padstow in the Life of Saint Pedrog, during an episode in which he had a dispute with Saint Samson of Dol, who was living as a hermit there. Pedrog, too, had a desire to settle in Padstow. He presented himself to Bishop Gwyddnog and asked to be permitted to stay, over Saint Samson’s objections. Gwyddnog made a Solomonic decision in this case, that kept the peace between the two holy men. He allowed Pedrog to stay, and made over Samson’s oratory over to him, but on the condition that Pedrog keep the place in Samson’s name and remember Samson in prayer each day.

Gwyddnog even allowed Pedrog the use of his own church. A Cornish legend has it that the two saints fought and slew a dragon together. Both of them were protected in their fight against the wyrm by wondrous vestments that were given to them from heaven. Saint Gwyddnog has been locally venerated in Padstow and also has a small cultus in Brittany on account of his association with Saint Iago in particular. Holy abbot Gwyddnog, loving brother and just judge of monks, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!