OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Saxon Saints

  • Saint Gerald of Mayo, March 13

    March 13 is the commemoration of Saint Gerald of Mayo, a Saxon saint who travelled to Ireland with Saint Colman of Lindisfarne following the Synod of Whitby. Saint Colman established a monastery on the west coast, only to find that there was tension between the English and the Irish monks and eventually the English got their own foundation at what is still known as ‘Mayo of the Saxons’. Our saint was the first abbot of this monastery and below is an excerpt from a paper on the Diocese and Abbey of Mayo which describes Saint Gerald and his times. I have ended the account with the 13th-century suppression of the diocese and its incorporation into the see of Tuam, but if you are interested in the later history of Mayo the paper can be read in full online.

    THE DIOCESE AND ABBEY OF MAYO

    ONE happy result of the Synod of Whitby, in 664, was the foundation of the Abbey of Mayo, in Ireland, by St. Colman. Most readers are familiar with St. Bede’s account of the famous convention at Whitby, in the North of England, under the presidency of King Oswy, when the Roman method of keeping Easter was adopted. St. Wilfrid’s arguments were peculiar. Indeed the late Rev. Dr. MacCarthy, the distinguished editor of the Annals of Ulster, says that ‘Wilfrid’s farrago of fictitious tradition and fabricated testimony can hardly fail to excite a smile.’ Yet, for the sake of peace though the matter was purely disciplinary St. Colman bowed to the decision of King Oswy and resigned his see of Lindisfarne, retiring to Iona with such of his Irish and English disciples as chose to follow the Irish usages. Between the years 665 and 667 St. Colman founded several churches in Scotland, but, at length, set sail for Ireland, accompanied by thirty faithful followers, settling in the island of Inisbofin, off the coast of Mayo. This was in the year 668, according to the accurate chronology of the Annals of Tighernach.

    The island of Inisbofin, i.e., the island of the White Cow (from a pagan legend of a white cow), is a little over five miles west of Renvyle Point, in Connemara, and contains 2,300 acres. Here, in 668, St. Colman and his community of Irish and English monks built a monastery, the chief ornament of which was the reliquary of St. Aiden of Lindisfarne. However, as St. Bede tells us, after a couple of years there was dissension between the Irish and the English monks, and so St. Colman travelled about, and at length fixed upon, Mayo (Magh-eo=the Yew Plain) where he placed the English brethren. Thus arose ‘Mayo of the Saxons.’

    St. Colman spent the remainder of his days in Inisbofin with his Irish monks, but he continued to rule both monasteries till his death in 675, or, as some say, 676. All are agreed that his festival is observed on the 8th of August. To this day the ruins of his little oratory are to be seen in the townland of Knock, in Inisbofin.

    We are safe in dating the foundation of ‘Mayo of the Saxons’ as of the year 670, and St. Colman appointed St. Gerald an English monk as first abbot. Though a comparatively young man he proved a wise ruler, and governed his monastery till 697, when he resigned in favour of St. Adamnan (Eunan of Raphoe), who had come over from Iona. St. Adamnan celebrated the Roman Easter at Mayo in 703, and then went to Skreen, in Hy Fiachrach. After his departure the monks prevailed on St. Gerald to resume the care of the abbey, and the worthy Saxon saint continued to guide the destinies of Mayo for over a quarter of a century. The Annals of Ulster chronicle his death in 731, and his feast is commemorated on March 13.

    Mayo under St. Gerald became an episcopal see and the monastery was naturally selected as the Sedes episcopalis. St. Bede, writing in 730, says:

    That monastery is to this day colonized by English monks and, growing up from a small beginning to be very large, is generally called Mayo (Magh Eo). As matters have long since been reformed, it contains an exemplary body of monks, who are gathered there from England, and live by the labour of their hands, after the example of the venerable Fathers, under a rule and canonical Abbot, leading chaste and single lives.

    Usher, quoting from the Book of Ballymote, says that, at the opening of the eighth century, there were one hundred Saxon monks at Mayo. The Litany of Aengus the Culdee invokes the fifty saints of Leyny who found their place of resurrection at Mayo, whilst Cuana of Mayo is named in the Martyrology on the 27th of March.

    Under date of 773 the Annals of Ulster chronicle the death of Aedhan, Bishop of Mayo. Ten years later, viz., on Saturday, August 2, 783, Mayo was burned by lightning. Towards the middle of the ninth century Turgesius burned the church of Mayo, and, apparently, the monastery suffered much during the Danish invasion. Again, in 905, Temple Gerald (the church of St. Gerald) was burned. From these entries Dr. Petrie concluded that the monastic buildings were of wood, and so proved an easy prey to fire.

    In 1110 we meet with the following entry, which goes to prove that a stone church (damhliag) was then built: The Saxons of Mayo granted the tithes of their city to God and St. Michael, and they made a damhliag in it for the pilgrims of God for ever. And the family of Maelfinneoin proceeded to destroy it, and that damhliag fell on the people and killed men and cattle. After this came the senior, that is, Cathasach, and he renewed that temple in the reign of Ruaidhri and his son Toirdelbhach, and it was confirmed from that out for pilgrims for ever.

    Ruaidhri (Roderic O’Conor), King of Connacht, abdicated in 1092, and was succeeded by his son Toirdelbhach (Turlogh), who ruled from 1106 to 1156.

    The native Annals are silent as to Mayo during the first half of the twelfth century, but, under date of 1169, we read: ‘Mayo with its church was burned.’ At this time Gillaisu O’Mailin was Bishop of Mayo, whose obit is chronicled by the Ulster annalists in 1184. During his episcopacy the ancient fame of Mayo attracted pilgrims, and there is evidence that many distinguished persons desired to lay their bones in the cemetery of St. Gerald. Thus, under date of 1176, the Four Masters record the death of Domhnall (son of Turlogh) O’Conor, Prince of North Connacht, who was interred at ‘Mayo of the Saxons.’

    In 1210, Cele O’Duffy, Bishop of Mayo, died, on whose death, Felix O’Ruadain, O.Cist., Archbishop of Tuam, endeavoured to annex the see of Mayo to that of Tuam. The dispute continued for over six years, and on December, 1217, the Pope issued a mandate to examine into the case. At length, in 1221, the Papal Legate, Master James, decided in favour of suppressing the see of Mayo, and its incorporation with that of Tuam.

    William H. Grattan Flood, ‘The Diocese and Abbey of Mayo’ in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 21, 1907, 603-609.

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  • A Celtic Weather Saint: Cewydd of the Rain

    The summer of 2012 was one of the wettest on record and so I enjoyed this nineteenth-century antiquarian account of a ‘Celtic’ challenger to the claim of the Saxon Saint Swithin to be chief of the ‘weather saints’. Scholars are unable to trace the exact origins of the legend that if it rains on the feast of Saint Swithin, celebrated on July 15, it will rain for forty days.  In the notes and queries section of the 1888 volume of the Welsh journal, Archaeologia Cambrensis, however, writer M. L. Dawson argued that Cewydd, an obscure saint of Anglesey, has a prior claim. I enjoyed the way in which the author starts by saying that it would be foolish to challenge Saint Swithin’s standing, yet obviously relishes the chance to demonstrate that the Saxon saint was just a johnny-come-lately compared with those of the natives. Saint Cewydd is furnished with a splendid pedigree which even includes the family of King Arthur, particularly interesting to me is that he also claims to be the brother of the Irish saint, Aidan (Maedoc) of Ferns, whose feast we will celebrate at the end of next month: 


    A Celtic Weather Saint. — Most countries possess their special weather saint, whose festival, according as it is dry or wet, decides the meteorological character of the following forty days. St. Swithin has now so long reigned supreme as the weather saint of Great Britain, that it would, perhaps, be vain to denounce him as the Saxon usurper of the rights of a Celtic weather saint, who presided over the rainfall of our country as far back as the time of King Arthur. Nevertheless, it seems probable that the honourable distinction of weather saint belongs rather to the Celtic “St. Cewydd of the Rain” than to the Saxon bishop of comparatively modern times.

    St. Cewydd was one of a remarkable family, being the son of Caw, lord of Cwm Cawlwyd or Cowllwg, who, according to Achau y Saint, was “deprived of his territories by the Gwyddyl Ffichti, or, as the general term may be interpreted, by the Picts and Scots; in consequence of which he and his numerous family retired to Wales. He settled at Twrcelyn, in Anglesey, where lands were bestowed upon him by Maelgwn Gwynedd; and it is also said that lands were granted to some of his children by Arthur in Siluria”. Most of them distinguished themselves in one way or another, and founded churches, of which they became the patron saints. St. Cewydd’s eldest brother, Hywel, was killed in a civil war by King Arthur; his brother Aneurin, otherwise known as Gildas, became the most celebrated scholar of the day; another brother, Aeddan, was first Bishop of Ferns; while his sister, Cwyllog, was married to King Arthur’s nephew, the traitor Modred. Unfortunately, we know but little of the history of St. Cewydd himself, beyond the fact that he founded churches at Diserth, Aberedwy, in Radnorshire, and at Llangewydd, in Glamorganshire. Local nomenclature, however, would lead us to suppose that he lived in the neighbourhood of Diserth, for a farm in Llanfihangel Bryn Pabuan is still called Cil gewydd, i.e., the Cell of Cewydd, while a mountain- track above Llandeilo Graban, once trodden by the feet of the saint, perhaps, as he journeyed over the hills to visit his brother Maelog at his monastery of Llowes, yet bears the name of Rhiw Gewydd, i.e., Cewydd’s Hill. But no tradition remains to tell us how the saint won his title of “Cewydd of the Rain”, as he is called in old Welsh writings, and we are indebted to Lewis Glyn Cothi for our knowledge of the popular superstition which connected the rainfall with the festiyal of the saint. In a poem, or rather an elegy, written by him on the death of Morgan, son of Sir David Gam, he compares the tears shed over the departed hero to the forty days’ rain which fell after St. Cewydd’s festival:

    “Gwlad Vrychan am Vorgan vydd
    Ail i gawod wyl Gewydd.
    Deugain niau davnau dwvr
    Ar ruddiau yw’r aweddwvr.
    Deugain mlynedd i heddyw
    Yr wyl y beirdd ar ol y byw.”

    The said festival took place on July 1, O.S.; therefore, allowing for the difference between Old and New Style, it now occurs on July 13, two days before St. Swithin’s. Until quite lately, a feast or wake was held in Aberedwy parish the second week in July in honour of Saint Cewydd. That the popular belief in St. Cewydd’s power over the weather was not confined to the Welsh portion of Great Britain is proved by an old English proverb, which, altogether ignoring St. Swithin’s claims, says:

    ” If the first of July be rainy weather,
    ‘T will rain more or less for a month together.”

    M. L. Dawson.

    Archaeologia Cambrensis, 5th series, Volume 5 (1888), 270-271.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.


  • Foreign Students at Ireland's Monastic Schools

    One group of saints in whom I have become very interested are those Anglo-Saxons who came to Ireland to study in monastic schools such as Rath Melsigi. While reading Fra Anselmo Tommasini’s classic book on the Irish saints in Italy I came across the following description of them. I note that the author uses the term Irish and Scots interchangeably, as was the custom in the early middle ages:

    Early in the seventh century crowds of foreigners began to flock to the schools of Ireland and to those which the Scots opened outside their island. The names of many of these studious foreigners have come down to us. They include “a certain bishop called Agilbert, by nation a Frenchman, but who had then [A.D. 635] lived a long time in Ireland for the purpose of reading the Scriptures”, and who later became “bishop of the city of Paris”; Egbert, “who long lived a monastic life … in Ireland, praying, observing continence, and meditating on the Holy Scriptures”; Wigbert, “famous for his contempt of the world … who went abroad and arrived in Friesland, preaching the word of salvation for the space of two years successively…but reaped no fruit of all his great labour among his barbarous auditors”; Willibrord, “the holy bishop of the Frissians”; Hewald the Black and Hewald the White, “both piously religious, but Black Hewald was the more learned of the two in Scripture,” and both martyred in Friesland; Haemgils the hermit, “supporting his declining age with coarse bread and water”; Chad, later bishop of Lichfield; Ethelhun, who died of the great plague in A.D. 664, and Ethelwin, his brother, later second Bishop of Lindsey; Eahfrid, the correspondent of Aldhelm, and the Northumbrian princes, Oswald, Oswy and Aldfrid. A Pictish bishop also went to study in Ireland but his name has not been preserved, and the number of English attracted to the holy city of Armagh by the renown of its schools was such that one of the three wards into which it was divided was called the Saxon third. Aldhelm, in a letter to his friend Eahfrid, whoever he may have been, but lately returned home from Ireland, refers with some bitterness to the Scotici scioli … it was the duty of Englishmen to patronise the schools at home. Another writer reckons in thousands the number of persons engaged in teaching in Ireland: Scotti multa millia paedagogorum habebant. The Scots treated their foreign pupils with rare generosity. “Many of the nobility and of the lower ranks of the English nation were there at that time [sc. A.D. 664, the year of the great plague, described in the Irish Annals as buidhe chonnuil]…who forsaking their native island retired thither, either for the sake of divine studies or of a more continent life…The Scots willingly received them all, and took care to supply them with food, as also to furnish them with books to read, and their teaching, gratis”.
    All these pupils resorted to the schools of Ireland for instruction in the art of asceticism and the learning of Holy Writ. The ‘Celtic’ churchmen, Patrick, Gildas, Columban, Cummian, Aidan, Adamnán and Sedulius, were all nourished on the Scriptures.
    The Latin Biblical texts in use among the Christian communities in Celtic countries were pre-Vulgate versions. St. Jerome’s translation was introduced gradually into Ireland and England in the sixth century and made its way under Columban, Cummian, and Adamnán. The Collectio Hibernensis, the Irish collection of canons, was compiled under Roman auspices early on the eighth century.
    Texts of the Vulgate belonging to the Irish family were not confined to the island, and manuscripts carried off to their own countries by foreigners, who had gone to study in Ireland, or by Scots emigrants, are found scattered all over the Continent, so that the pure Irish text may be read in Biblical manuscripts from such different sources as Tours, Angers, Le Mans, Epternach, St. Gall, Reichenau, and Bobbio.
    Fra Anselmo Tommasini, O.F.M., Irish Saints in Italy , translated J.F. Scanlan, (London, 1937), 106-8.

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