Saint Gwenolau of Landévennec
On the third of March in the Orthodox Church we venerate Saint Gwenolau, the founding abbot of Landévennec in Brittany, France. He is a popular saint in Brittany and has a familial connexion with Devon and Exeter on the other side of the English Channel. In Brittany, Saint Gwenolau has gained a reputation as a helper in matters of the heart and of the home; his intercessions are invoked by girls seeking sweethearts and by wives hoping to conceive children. He also has a cultus in Cornwall, centred on the church at Gunwalloe.
Saint Gwenolau [also Winwaloe, Guénolé, Guignolé, Gunwalloe or Winnold] was himself the son of a holy husband and wife: Saint Fragan and Saint Gwen ‘Teirbron’. He had a half-brother, Cadfan, by his mother’s first marriage, and three full siblings as well: Gwyddnog, Iago and Creirwy – all of whom have been glorified as saints. Gwenolau’s two older brothers, the twins Gwyddnog and Iago, were certainly born in Britain. Thus it may be the case that Gwenolau was the first child of Saint Fragan to be born in Brittany, after he came a refugee from disease and war to Ploufragan. Britons were made welcome in Brittany at the time; as some of the land had already been settled by the troops of Magnus Maximus about a century and a half before.
Saint Gwenolau was destined from an early age for a life consecrated to God, as he was Gwen Teirbron’s third child by Fragan. Both parents doted on their third child, however, and for that reason tarried to place him in a monastery for his education. Even so, they took care not to spoil him but to raise him in a right awe of God. When they were still children, Saint Gwenolau defended his younger sister Creirwy from a goose that was trying to peck out her eyes. Her eyes being spared from this anatine attack, Saint Creirwy would come to have a great compassion upon the blind, and thereafter would be remembered as their patron.
Thus Gwenolau reached adulthood, and his father Fragan conducted him, spurred by compunction, to the Île-de-Bréhat where dwelt Saint Beuzeg, to whom Gwenolau was entrusted. Saint Beuzeg, who had opened a school for youth on the Île-de-Bréhat, took a liking to young Gwenolau, who was a quick study and a ready wit, as well as being temperamentally well-suited to being a monk. He progressed in his studies, took the tonsure, and was sent by Saint Beuzeg with eleven disciples under him to go out and to found another monastery.
Saint Gwenolau did so. He and his disciples tried first on the Île-de-Tibidy in l’Hôpital Camfrout. They built there an oratory which they kept for three years, but the island’s weather proved so inhospitable that Gwenolau and his monks moved across the rivière du Faou to a jut which was sheltered by the hills to the west. This was Landévennec, where Gwenolau and his monks built their monastery at last. The local king there, Gralon, granted both Landévennec and the Île-de-Tibidy to Saint Gwenolau, probably at the prompting of Saint Corentin. The two abbots, Gwenolau and Corentin, were very close friends and very much associated one with the other.
Saint Gwenolau observed a strict rule of asceticism, which owed much to the Celtic rules before him – particularly that of Saint Columbán of Luxeuil – and the spirituality of the Desert Fathers, whom he sought to emulate. Regardless of the season or weather, he always wore clothes made out of goat-skins, and below that a hair shirt. At Landévennec, white bread and wine were allowed only for the Divine Gifts. For their daily fare, the monks at Landévennec, Abbot Gwenolau included, ate only barley bread, root vegetables and herbs, except on Saturdays, Sundays and feast-days when the monks would be allowed cheese and fish. Of these Abbot Gwenolau himself did not partake. The abbot himself ate his barley bread baked in ashes, and he would eat only twice a week during Great Lent. He slept in the elements, resting on a bed of raw timber or beach-sand, with a stone for his pillow. Saint Gwenolau was known also for his fervent, continuous prayer, which was spoken through all his waking hours.
Saint Gwenolau probably did not reach seventy years of age, his body having been weakened in his ascetic labours. He reposed peacefully in the Lord in the company of his monks at Landévennec on the third of March, 529. Saint Gwenolau was interred in the monastery, which at the time of his repose was still constructed from wood. Gwenolau was glorified as a saint locally very soon after his death. His following among girls seeking lovers and wives seeking children may have arisen from his familial association with his fertile mother, or – equally likely – it may have arisen from a linguistic confusion over his name. Though his name is Brythonic, a French misspelling of that name, Guignolé, may have become linked with the Latin infinitive verb gignere (‘to beget’).
Of course, his cultus was centred on the old monastery of Landévennec, which followed Saint Gwenolau’s rule until 818 when it was brought into conformity with the Rule of Saint Benedict. He did have a hand in establishing other churches, and his cultus did reach across the Channel. The church in the Cornish town of Gunwalloe is dedicated to his memory, as is that in Tremaine – this latter has the distinction of being physically the smallest parish church in Cornwall. His relics are venerated broadly in France and in Flanders as well. Holy abbot Gwenolau, heroic in asceticism and kindly in healing the sick, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!
As an example of monks and a support to the king,
Thou wast, o Gwenolau, one of the three rays
Of the Light of Salvation illuminating Cornwall.
Ascetic untiring, you bore everywhere the word of the Saviour, the Friend of Man.
Pray to Him without ceasing, that He may save our souls!
Ancienne Abbaye Landévennec, Brittany
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