tionate prefix given to the boy, Mo-lacca. By this he is known, what his baptismal appellation was is not recorded.1

Domnoc, or Modomnoc, another Irishman, was for a long time with David. He cultivated flowers in the monastic garden, and attended to the bees. When about to return to his native land, as he mounted the boat at Porth Mawr, the bees swarmed and settled on the boat. So Modomnoc took the swarm with him to the Emerald Isle, and it is said that these were the first bees introduced into Ireland. 2 Later on, Molacca, by fair means or foul, got hold of this hive and carried it off to his own monastery, which thenceforth received the name of Lann Beachaire, or "The Church of the Bees."

This Modomnoc was brother of S. Domangart, and son of Saran, fourth in descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages. He died at the close of the sixth century.

That all in David's monastery was not "sweetness and light" may be inferred from the fact of his steward attempting to murder David's favourite disciple Aidan, and from the cellarer trying to poison David himself. The Penitential Code of David shows that much wild blood was to be found in his and other monastic settlements of the period. Severe penalties had to be adjudged in cases of drunkenness, murder, and attempted murder, and other gross crimes. Kissing a girl had to be expiated by three days' penance.3 But we shall have more to say on the Penitential Code later.

Except when compelled by unavoidable necessity, David kept aloof from all temporal concerns. He did not attend the Synod of Llanddewi Brefi when convened by Dyfrig. As no agreement could be arrived at relative to matters in dispute, Paulinus, with whom David had studied, advised that he should be sent for, and Dyfrig and Deiniol went in quest of him, and insisted on his attending the Council. On his arrival, David found the Synod gathered in a very incommodious place, the old Roman station of Loventium, and by his advice it was removed a little distance to Llanddewi Brefi, where was a mound, upon which the speakers could stand and be heard by those whom they desired to address. Such, we may take it, is the meaning of the legend which represents David having mounted a heap of clothes, whereupon the earth swelled under it into a mount.

1 Vita S. Molacci in Colgan's Acta SS. Hib., p. 150. In the original it is not said that the Irishman killed the boy by a blow, but that the boy was killed by the judgment of God for having used impertinent language. But the wrath and resentment of David clearly show that the Irishman had actually killed the boy. 2 Vita S. Modomnoci in Colgan's Acta SS. Hibern., p. 336; Vita S. David in Cambro-British Saints, p. 134.

3 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, etc., i, p. 126.

Rhygyfarch and Giraldus both misrepresent the Council as one convened for the suppression of the Pelagian heresy. But it was. really called together to enact canons of discipline for the clergy and laity. The canons have been preserved in a MS. in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. 1

A second Council was held later, the Synod of Victory, in 569, according to the Annales Cambria, but, as we have shown in dealing with S. Cadoc, the date of the Council of Brefi must be put before the outbreak of the Yellow Plague, probably in 544 or 545.

The canons passed at these synods reveal a very low state of morals among clergy and laity. It may be as well here to quote the weighty. words of Professor Hugh Williams on Penitentials. "The Church,

for purposes of discipline, had developed various modes of correction. in the case of lapses into sin, as well as of reconciliation by absolution, As we approach the sixth century, we find a long development of very varying procedures along independent lines. . . . In one point, however, there seems to have been universal agreement, viz., that acts of contrition and confession, together with the reconciliation which followed, were purely ecclesiastical. While, for the most part, such acts of penance were, in the West, not public but private, they certainly were subject to the judgment of the bishop; he, or the presbyter representing him, was always the ministrant. Yet in Britain and Ireland there had grown up a different system; the disciplinary measures were conducted from the cloister. Different sins began to be catalogued after the manner of penal enactments, with the corresponding penance to be undergone before reconciliation. . . . Books containing such rules, by which sins and the appointed penances were thus arranged in order, were called Penitentials. They seem to have had their origin in Britain and Ireland, but, after the seventh century, they are found both in the English

1 In MSS. Lat. 3182, printed in Haddan and Stubbs, i, pp. 117-8; Wasserschleben, Bussordnung. der Abendländ. Kirche, pp. 103-4. Also some Canons attributed to S. David, De libro Davidis, Haddan and Stubbs, i, pp. 118-20. As Rhygyfarch admits that all copies of the Acts of these Councils had been destroyed at S. David's, his statement that the Synods were convened against Pelagianism was merest guesswork. Dewi's so-called "Sermon "or" Prophecy," delivered at the Brefi Synod before "22,000 hearers," occurs, with variations, in several Welsh MSS., and has been printed, e.g., in Trysorfa Gwybodaeth, 1770, ii, pp. 79-80, and Y Seven Ogleddol, 1835, i, p. 68. It is a late tract concerned with neither Pelagianism nor penitential regulations, but is a "prophecy" of abomination of desolation, which would be set right by the Reformation. See Myv. Arch., pp. 134, 755, for the late mediæval poem referring to the Synod, beginning :-

"" Pan oedd Saint Senedd Brefi

Yn ol gwiw bregeth Dewi."

Church and in Churches far and wide over the Continent. . To me, these Penitentials are reminders of the fierce conflict waged against the wild immorality of olden times: a conflict which, with many failures, proved that the clumsy method of these rules turned out to be for good." 1

One biographer of S. David could not withhold his hand from a piece of characteristic bombast in his description of the closing of the Synod of Brefi. It was unanimously decreed that "as God has set a governor in the sea over all kinds of fishes, and a governor on the earth over the birds, so has He given David to be a governor over men in this world. In the same manner as God set Matthew in Judea, and Luke in Alexandria, and Christ in Jerusalem, and Peter in Rome, and Martin in France, and Samson in Brittany, so has He given S. David to be in the isle of Britain ... and on that day all the Saints of this island, and all the kings, fell on their knees to do homage to David, and they granted to him to be the sovereign over the Saints of the island of Britain." 2

The account of these Synods, as given by David's biographers, is purely fabulous, written with the object of establishing the apocryphal supremacy of the Saint and his see over the entire British Church.

The date of the Council of Brefi has been already considered. We have given reasons for supposing that it was assembled before the outbreak of the Yellow Plague. Cadoc was highly incensed at the Synod being assembled whilst he was out of the island, and he especially resented the prominent part taken in it by David. He was with difficulty brought to a better mind by Finnian of Clonard, who died in 548 of the Yellow Plague.

The terrible Pestis Flava broke out in 547. It took its name from the yellow and bloodless appearance of those who were attacked by it. Its appearance was heralded by a watery column, with its head in the clouds, that trailed over the earth and discharged heavy rain. 3 This had nothing actually to do with the disorder, but it was supposed to be its originator. The physicians knew not how

1 Gildas, Cymmrodorion Record Series, 1901, pp. 272–3.

2 Llyfr Ancr, p. 115; Cambro-British Saints, p. 113. Rhygyfarch is not so profane as this. Giraldus (Itin. Camb., i, c. 5), in his ambition to get an Archbishopric of S. David's for himself, supplements this. “The Archbishop Dubricius ceded his honours to David of Menevia, the metropolitan see being translated from Caerleon to Menevia, according to the prophecy of Merlin Ambrosius, 'Menevia pallio urbis Legionum induetur.'" The re-establishment" of S. David's as a metropolitan see was one of the proposals for the pacification of Wales which Owen Glyndwr requested Charles VI of France to submit to the Pope. His letter, dated March 31, 1406, is at the Record Office.

3 Vita S. Teliaui in Book of Llan Dáv, p. 107.

to deal with it; vast numbers of all conditions and ages died; and the very beasts and .reptiles also perished. The panic was universal. The idea got about that the sole means of escape from the disorder was to be found in flight across the seas. Accordingly all who could fled, some to Ireland (where, however, the plague raged with equal violence), the majority to France.1

Teilo feigned that he had received a revelation from heaven bidding him go. Accordingly he ran away, along with some of his suffragan bishops, and men and women of different orders and ranks, and took refuge in Armorica, after having passed through Cornwall. That David also went is probable enough. He and Teilo were close friends. The biographer of S. David does not say that he then went, but he does relate how that David, Teilo and Padarn departed together on a pilgrimage and went to Jerusalem, where David was consecrated bishop by the patriarch. The story of this fictitious journey to Jerusalem occurs in the Lives of David, Teilo and Padarn, with notable variations. But the object of its manufacture is obvious enough. It was invented to establish the independence of the Welsh bishops from the see of Canterbury, by showing that they were consecrated at Jerusalem

We may dismiss this pilgrimage to Jerusalem as interested fiction; but there may remain this basis of fact, that David, Teilo and Padarn did abandon their monasteries at one and the same time and cross the seas together.

Both Teilo and Padarn went first to Cornwall when leaving Wales, and we may suppose that David did the same, and that on this occasion he may have picked up his mother, who was residing on one of the lands that had been granted to her by her brother-in-law, Solomon or Selyf, and carried her on with him to Armorica.

Teilo,, we know, went into Armorican Cornubia, to King Budic. Whether Padarn went any further than Cornwall may be doubted. But David went into Léon, and during the years of his absence, till after the complete cessation of the Yellow Plague, he founded churches in Léon; and his mother was settled at Dirinon, near Landerneau, where she is thought to have died, and where is now shown her tomb. His principal foundation in Léon is S. Divy, near Landerneau, but he had his locus penitentia at Loquivy, near Lannion. He is also culted at Dirinon. Here are two holy wells, one of S. Non, the other of S. David.

1

We cannot say with any assurance that the period when David

Quorum quidam perrexerunt in Hiberniam; plures vero ducente eo in Franciam" (Ibid., p. 108).

was in Léon was that during which the Yellow Pestilence raged in Britain, 547-550; but we consider it probable, and if so, it is not unlikely that it was during this period that S. Non died.

This residence in Léon may have misled Giraldus into supposing that David was at one time in Caerleon, and so have given rise to the preposterous fable that he had been archbishop there

If it be allowed that David was in Léon at this time, then his return would be about 551

After the devastation wrought by the plague, he had doubtless much to do to bring his Menevian monastery into order once more. It is not unlikely that his energy impelled him to go about much at this time and to labour throughout South Wales to re-establish religion. We have churches bearing the name of Dewi in Herefordshire, in Monmouth, Brecknock, and Radnor, as well as in Ceredigion and Pebydicg, and those parts of Glamorgan and Carmarthen over which he had exercised influence for some time, Gower and the country between the Tawe and the Towy. It is not easy to explain this extension of his foundations, unless we allow of many journeys and much labour in establishing religious centres, or that some of them were "colonies" planted by monks from his monastery during or after his lifetime.

At home, at Glyn Rhosyn, his rule was too strict to please all the monks. The steward, the cook and his deacon planned to remove him by poison, and some poisonous ingredient was inserted in the bread given to David at table. S. Scuthin,1 from Ireland, was there at the time on a visit, and for some reason or other, entertained suspicions that an attempt was being made on the life of the venerable abbot-bishop. Starting up from table, he exclaimed, 'To-day none of the brethren shall wait on the father but myself." Then the deacon, fearing that the plot was discovered, turned pale and retreated in confusion. The bread offered to David was thrown away; some of it was eaten by a dog, that died almost immediately, as did also a crow that had come down from an "ashtree," in which it had its nest, to carry off the crumbs. An investigation was held. "And all the brethren arose and lamented, and cursed those deceitful persons, the steward, the cook, and the deacon, and with one voice damned them and their posterity, that they should forfeit their place in the kingdom of heaven for ever."

In 565 Ainmire mounted the throne as High King of Ireland.

"

1 In Giraldus (p. 392), Swithunus, qui et Scolanus dictus est." Rhygyfarch (p. 131) also gives the alias Scolanus. Bedd Yscolan occurs in the Welsh Life (p. 109).