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From Stained Glass at Ploermel

S. Asaph. From Fifteenth-Century Glass in Chancel Window Llan

dyrnog Church, Denbighshire

S. Aude. From Statue at Guizény

S. Austell. Statue on West Front of Tower, S. Austell

S. Beuno's Head. From Window at Penmorfa, Carnarvon
Well, Clynnog

S. Beuno's Chest at Clynnog

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S. Arthmael. From Stained Glass at S. Sauveur, Dinan.

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S. Brendan's Chapel and Statue. Inisgloria, Co. Mayo

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S. Brychan. From Stained Glass Window, S. Neot, Cornwall

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S. Azenor and S. Budoc From Carving at Plourin

334

Finnau, yn llesgedd f henaint,
Hoffwn, cyfrifwn yn fraint,

Gael treulio yno [Enlli] mewn hedd
O dawel ymneillduedd

Eiddilion flwyddi olaf

Fy ngyrfa, yn noddfa Naf.

Byw arno, byw iddo Ef

Mwy'n ddiddig mewn hedd-haddef ;

A dal cymundeb â'r don,

Byd ail, o wydd bydolion.

Heb dyrfau byd, heb derfyn

Ond y gwyrddfor, gefnfor gwyn.

O'n holl fyd, Enlli a fo

Iach wlad i'm haul fachludo.

ISLWYN, Saint Enlli.

Introduction

I. THE WELSH AND CORNISH SAINTS

SINCE 1836, when appeared An Essay on the Welsh Saints, by the Rev. Rice Rees, nothing has been done in the same field, although material has accumulated enormously. That work was an attempt made, and successfully made, to throw light on a subject hitherto unstudied and dark. Archbishop Ussher had, indeed, in his Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, Dublin, 1639, dealt with the early history of the Church in the British Isles in a masterly manner. But he was unacquainted with the Welsh language, and the Welsh MSS. were not accessible to him. Nevertheless, with really wonderful perspicuity he arrived at results that were, in the main, correct. He dealt with only such of the Welsh Saints as had had the good fortune to have their Lives written in Latin, and of such there are few, and of these few all were not accessible to him. Moreover, these Vita do not always tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The importance of the saintly pedigrees is not to be ignored. Ecclesiastical preferments were made according to tribal law. The family to which a saint belonged had to be fixed, and this was done by the pedigrees. Then a claimant to a foundation or benefice of the saint had to establish his descent from the family of the saint, without which he was deemed ineligible to enter upon it.

This condition of affairs existed at the time of Giraldus, at the end of the twelfth century, for he bitterly inveighs against the hereditary tenure of ecclesiastical benefices.1 And he says that the same condition of affairs existed in Armorica. S. Malachi (d. 1148) complained of the same abuse in Ireland.

It was with ecclesiastical property as with that which was secular.

1 Description of Wales, Bk. II, ch. vi. All members of the family, lay as well as cleric, had a right to support out of the benefice. Willis Bund, The Celtic Church of Wales, 1897, PP. 284 et seq.

VOL. I.

1

B

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