Venerable Madryn, Abbess of Boscastle

Minster Church, Boscastle, Cornwall

The ninth of April is the feast of a Welsh holy woman who settled in Cornwall, Saint Madryn of Boscastle. After her widowhood, she established a convent there together with her servant Saint Annun. Her saintly cultus is kept not only in Cornwall, but also in Gwynedd – especially around the village of Trawsfynydd, where she and Annun received the angelic vision by which they built their monastery.

Saint Madryn [also Modrun, Madrun, Materiana or Mertheriana] was the eldest daughter of Gwrthefyr Fendigaid, and thus the granddaughter of the infamous Romano-British chieftain Gwrtheyrn who ceded so much of Britain to the heathen Germanic fœderati who in later days became the Anglo-Saxons. Her name probably derives from the Romano-British pagan goddess Matrona – which goes, unfortunately, to show the sorry state in which Christianity found itself in Britain even before the Saxons arrived. She married a certain Ynyr, or Honorius, who was himself the great-grandson of Magnus Maximus and Saint Elen of the Ways. Madryn herself may have been Ynyr’s cousin by this connexion, since Gwrtheyrn was married to Saint Elen’s daughter Severa.

She was one of those present at her grandfather’s castle at Tre’r Ceiri when it was struck by lightning consumed by ‘fire from heaven’. Gwrtheyrn was consumed by the flames; however, she, her husband Ynyr and their son Ceidio all managed to survive the conflagration. After her father’s death, she and Ynyr jointly ruled the kingdom of Gwent in the far southeast of Wales. The two of them ruled until Ynyr’s death.

The widowed Madryn went on a pilgrimage with her servant Annun to Ynys Enlli, the isle of 20,000 saints. On the way there, as they stopped in Trawsfynydd, she and Annun both beheld the same nightly vision, of an angel commanding them to go south into Cerniw – that is to say, Cornwall – build a nunnery there, and spread the Gospel of Christ among the folk there in need. The next morning the two of them told each other of their dreams, and were amazed to find that they were identical. Taking it as a true sign from God, the two of them left off their pilgrimage and went southward into Cornwall to build the cloister there as they had been told. That cloister is now St Merteriana’s Church in Minster, one of the two churches in Boscastle.

Saints Madryn and Annun took heartily to evangelising the Cornish coast; a venture in which they were joined for a time by Madryn’s son Ceidio, who also became an anchorite. Their success is indicated by another church and holy well dedicated to Saint Madryn’s memory in Tintagel. They are remembered with fondness as local saints in Cornwall. The date of Saint Madryn’s repose is unknown, but the local feast-day as it was recorded in the fifteenth century was kept on the ninth of April. Holy mother Madryn, righteous queen and anchoress, pray unto Christ our God for our salvation!