" Geryn. "This chapel stood," says the late Mr. Thomas Wakeman near the Upper Grange Farm House, in the parish of Magor (Monmouthshire); its remains have not been removed many years." 1 Magor is on the Caldicot Level, near the Severn Sea, and may have been a Martyrium raised to the honour of S. Geraint who fell at Llongborth. The "Gerein or "Geryn" of the name stands for "Geraint," as in "Dingereint," which occurs in Brut y Tywysogion 2 as the name of the castle built by Gilbert de Clare in 1108, generally known as Cilgeran Castle, on the Teify. Among the "Sayings of the Wise " and the "Stanzas of the Hearing," we have the following: Hast thou heard the saying of Geraint, Son of Erbin, the just and experienced ? "Short-lived is the hater (or hated) of the saints." He is the Geraint of the romance, Gereint and Enid.4 3. A Gerennius, King of Cornwall, is mentioned in the Life of S. Teilo.5 When that Saint fled from the Yellow Plague in 547 to Armorica, he passed through Cornwall and was well received by the king there, Gerennius, and he promised the prince that he would visit and communicate him when he, Gerennius, was dying. Teilo returned from Armorica in 555 or 556. As he was about to embark, Teilo ordered his followers to convey to the ship a stone sarcophagus which he had provided as a present for the king. They declared their inability to get it down to the beach, and objected that its weight would overburden their boat. Teilo then harnessed to the stone coffin ten yoke. of oxen, which drew it to the shore, where he launched it on the tide ; and the stone cist swam before the vessel, and reached the Cornish coast before them. They landed at Dingerein, the round fort in the parish of S. Gerrans; and Teilo at once proceeded to visit the king, whom he found alive indeed but very ill, and who, after having received the communion, straightway expired, and his remains were laid in the sarcophagus provided for him. We will call this prince Geraint II. He was probably grandson of Geraint I, who fell at Llongborth. He died about 556. Supplementary Notes to Liber Landavensis, 1853, p. 16; also Mrs. Harcourt Mitchell, Some Ancient Churches of Gwent, 1908, p. 21. Willis, however, in his Survey of Llandaff, 1719, append., p. 7, says of it, Site unknown, otherwise than it stood near Tintern Abbey." " 2 Bruts, ed. Rhys and Evans, p. 289. There is a Cilgeraint also in the parish of Llandegai, Carnarvonshire. 3 Iolo MSS., p. 255; Myv. Arch., p. 128. 4 Mabinogion, ed. Rhys and Evans, pp. 244-295. 5 Book of Llan Dâv, pp. 108, 113-4. VOL. III. E 4. There was another Domnonian Geraint, to whom S. Aldhelm wrote a letter in 705 urging the abandonment of Celtic peculiarities of religious use in his realm, and conformity to the Roman rule.1 This Geraint fought against Ina, King of the West Saxons, at Taunton in 710.2 5. There was again a Geraint ab Carannog, of the race of Cadell Deyrnllwg, who was a prince of Erging, or Archenfield, in Herefordshire. The Welsh pedigrees make him the father of S. Eldad or Aldate, Bishop of Gloucester, who was slain by the Saxons, probably in 577.3 In the Life of S. Meven we read that this saint was a son of Gerascenus, King of Orcheus, a district in Gwent.4 We can hardly doubt that Orcheus is a misscript for Erchens for Erging, and that Gerascen is an affected form of Geraint—this same Geraint. Meven was a nephew of S. Samson of Dol, and we may suspect that the sister, who is so harshly spoken of in the Life of that Saint because she declined to embrace the religious life, was the wife of this Geraint. 6. A Geraint, "generous and resolute," is spoken of in the Gododin of Aneurin, as engaged in the Battle of Catraeth, in the Scottish Lowlands. That battle occurred between 586 and 603. This Geraint was a Strathclyde chieftain.5 He cannot be identified with any of the others who bear his name. 7. A Gerran is mentioned by Albert Le Grand in his Life of S. Sezni (Setna), but this Life is a deliberate appropriation of that of Ciaran of Saighir, and the chieftain named Gerran in that is none other than S. Ciaran of Clonmacnois." The church of S. Gerrans is most probably dedicated to Gerennius (No.3). The palace of Geraint, Din Gerrein, is in the parish, and the earthworks remain. This is probably the Dinurrin from which Bishop Kensteg hailed, who made his submission to Archbishop Coelnoth in or about 866.7 It is hardly probable that the patron of S. Gerrans can be Geraint ab Erbin (No. 2). 1 See the letter in Migne, Patr. Lat., lxxxix, p. 87; Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, etc., iii, p. 268. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, sub anno. 3 Iolo MSS., p. 131. 444 Orcheus autem pagus in Guenta provincia hunc protulit, terris generatum patre nomine Gerasceno. Ex qua eadem provincia Sancti Samsonis mater extitit nata." Vita S. Meveni, ed. Plaine, p. 3. Skene, Four Ancient Books, ii, p. 89. There are several other Geraints mentioned in Welsh literature as having lived at an early period-Geraint Hir and Geraint Feddw in the Triads, Geraint Fardd Glas, and the three Geraints in Geoffrey of Monmouth. Moel y Geraint, or Barber's Hill, is near Llangollen. • Vies les Saints de Bretagne, ed. Kerdanet, 1837, p. 530. Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, etc., i, p. 674. On the coast, in the parish, is Killygerran Head. Geraint's tomb was shown at Carn Point, where he was traditionally held to lie in a golden boat, with silver oars. When the tumulus was opened in 1858 a kistvaen was discovered with bones, but no precious metal. In the registers of the Bishops of Exeter, S. Gerrans is always called Ecclesia Sti. Gerendi. In Anthony, in Roseland, is Kill-Gerran, the cell of Geraint. In Philleigh parish was a chapel, now ruined; but the wood in which it stood still bears his name. Gerran's Bay and Gerran's Point also recall him. In Brittany S. Géran formerly received a cult, but tradition is silent concerning his parentage and history; and we cannot be sure whether Géran is the Cornish Gerran, the Geraint of the Welsh. S. Géran near Pontivy had a minihi, or place of sanctuary, always à mark of, a considerable and head foundation. But the parish has sunk to a mere tref of S. Noyala. S. Géran had a chapel at Cleguerec. In Belle Ile, at Le Palais, the parish church bears his name, and there he is commemorated on March 5. In Brittany the utmost uncertainty reigns as to who and what he was. In the 1589 Breviary of Vannes he is given as a Bishop, on March 5. At S. Géran he has been supplanted by S. Guirec or Curig. Lobineau conjectures that he was a soldier, the S. Gereon of the Theban Legion at Cologne. Kerviler sets him down as a regionary bishop, companion of S. Patrick. But no such a person is known to the Irish, or named in the Lives of the Apostle. He probably depended on the following ballad, preserved by Luzel, as sung at S. Géran. S. Géran went to Rome, not hopeless, nor proposing to tarry, S. Patrick when he saw him, went forward to meet him. See, said he, this little bell! See this little bell. Go forward with it over the land, Go, and where it soundeth, there tarry. On a height near the swelling moors, the bell sounded. The angel of God came down to clear the soil of wood and stones. It is possible that when British colonists migrated to Armorica, they set apart portions of land as domains for their hereditary royal chiefs at home, and that the Island of Belle Ile and the district of S. Géran by Pontivy may have been so given, and that Geraint may 1 Annales de Bretagne, Rennes, T. ii (1886). have transferred them, or portion of them, to become ecclesiastical settlements. It is rather remarkable that the descendants of Geraint, King and Martyr, have left their names throughout this part of Brittany. The day of S. Geraint is uncertain. The village feast at S. Gerrans is on August 10. The pardon of S. Géran in Cleguerec is on the first Sunday in August. But that at S. Géran near Pontivy is on the third Sunday in October. At Le Palais, as already said, it is on March 5. S. GERMANUS OF AUXERRE, Bishop, Confessor THE main authority for the Life of this great Saint is a Vita by Constantius, priest, apparently of Lyons. To this Life are prefixed two letters dedicatory, one to S. Patiens, Bishop of Lyons (449– circa 491),1 another to Censurius, third bishop in succession to Germanus in the see of Auxerre; there is also a prologue. Constantius professes in the second letter to have revised and amplified the earlier Life that he had written at the desire of Patiens. "The authority of the holy Bishop Patiens, your brother, has required me to retrace, in part at least, the Life and Acts of the blessed Germanus. If I did not do this as well as I ought, I did what I could. My obedience being known to your beatitude, you ordered me to plunge once more into an excess of temerity, in desiring that I should enlarge this little page, which still remained almost in obscurity, and that I should myself come forward in some sort as my own accuser and betrayer.' Censurius, to whom this letter dedicatory was written, was Bishop of Auxerre from 472 to 502. "2 Constantius is by no means an unknown man. He was the friend of Sidonius Apollinaris; his name stands at the head of a collection of eight books of letters, dedicated to him by Sidonius. His name occurs last in a letter of 480. About the year 473 he visited Clermont to allay some difficulties that had arisen there, and Sidonius speaks of him (Ep. iii, 1) then as one “ ætate gravem, infirmitate fragilem.” The original sketch of the life of S. Germanus, dedicated to Patiens, no longer exists, but the amplified Life is found in a good number of 1 Patiens died a few years before 494; his second successor Rusticus is named as dying in 501. A letter was addressed to him by Sidonius about 475. MSS. It was first published by Mombritius in Milan in 1480, in the first volume of his Sanctuarium. But this omits prologue and epilogue, and contains many misprints; it contains beside the text of Constantius, a late addition, the legend of the ass the saint restored to life. The dedicatory epistles are omitted, but that one existed in the text used by Mombritius is shown by the superscription, "Constantius ad Patientem episcopum de vita Sancti Germani episcopi Autissiodorensis." About a century later appeared an amplified Life given by Surius, in his "De probatis sanctorum historiis," iv, Colon. Agripp., 1573. The Bollandist Peter van der Bosche, in 1731, gave this same enlarged Life in the Acta Sanctorum, July, vii. This second Life contains a good deal that is not to be found in the other and earlier Life; and is, in fact, an early ninth century amplification. This is the Vita most generally used and quoted; but the other is the original text. The additions made were principally these : I. The story of S. Amator cutting down the pear tree, and the ordination of S. Germanus as priest, down to the death of Amator, and an ensuing miracle. 2. The story of the interview of Germanus with Genoveva at Nanterre. 3. The absurd legend of the conversion of Mamertinus at the tomb of Corcodemus. 4. The seeking for, finding and translation of the relics of S. Alban. 5. The legend of the revelation as to the day of the death of the Martyr Julian, made to Germanus on his visit to Brioude. 6. The greater portion of the account of the visit of Germanus to the grave of Bishop Cassian of Autun, and of a wonderful dialogue with the dead man. 7. The remarks on the act of the aged bishop carrying on his shoulders a lame man over a stream, when crossing the Alps. The Life of Germanus by Constantius in its expanded form was submitted to corrosive criticism by Schoele; but he knew nothing of the unadulterated Vita, and had no acquaintance with the MSS. He regarded the whole as a forgery of the sixth century.1 Next C. Kohler pointed out that all the passage relative to the meeting of Germanus with Genoveva was an excerpt from the Life of the latter saint thrust into that of the former.2 Two years later C. Narbey dealt with the Life, and maintained an 1 De ecclesiastica Brittonum Scotorumque historiæ fontibus, 1851. 2 Ftude critique sur le texte de la vie latine de Ste. Geneviève in Bibl. de l'Ecole des hautes études, T. xlviii, 1881. |