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S. AFRAN

REES gives Llantrisant, Anglesey, as dedicated to "SS. Sannan, Afran, and Ieuan." Angharad Llwyd, again, in her History of Anglesey,2 gives the church as dedicated to "SS. Afran, Iefan and Sanan.” The only Welsh saint with a name approximating Afran is Gafran, if we are to include him among the saints. We have here clearly a mistake for Afan. Browne Willis 3 enters against the church the following, "Fanum tribus Sanctis dicatum, viz. S. Sanan, June 13, S. Afan, Dec. 17, S. Ievan or John, Aug. 29"; and in Peniarth MS. 147, circa 1566, there is a list of the parishes of Wales, in which is added to the parish-name Llantrisant, “Sannan and Afan and Evan.” 4

S. AIDAN of Ferns, Bishop, Confessor

THIS saint, in the Welsh Genealogies of the Saints, is called Aidan, Aeddan and Aeddan Foeddawg. By this latter name he is mentioned in the Myvyrian alphabetical catalogue of Welsh Saints.5 Another authority gives him as Aidan y Coed Aur, and the same says further that Aidan's Bangor had seven choirs with 2,000 members, called after the seven days of the week."? The name Aidan is a diminutive. Professor Rhys makes the Old Irish Oed, later Aedh, Aodh, Haodh, Anglicised Hugh, represent the Welsh Udd Dominus.8

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Aidan occurs also under the form Madoc, Mo-aid-oc; the suffix oc is a diminutive equivalent to an; and the prefix mo is an Irish term of endearment, of very frequent occurrence. This double form of name has led to confusion. S. Eltain of Kinsale is also called Moelteoc; and Luan is the same as Moluoc.

The genealogists have entered him twice, once under the form Aidan ab Caw, and again as Madog ab Gildas ab Caw, or rather, ab Aneurin ab Caw; but Gildas and Aneurin are identical. Further confusion has arisen through his identification with a second of the

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1 Welsh Saints, p. 324.

3 Survey of Bangor, p. 279.

2 p. 279 (Ruthin, 1833).

4 Dr. J. Gwenogfryn Evans, Report on Welsh MSS., i, p. 912.

5 Myv. Arch., pp. 420-1.

Ibid., p. 151.

9 Iolo MSS., pp. 83, 108, 137.

same name, who was also Bishop of Ferns, but lived some thirty years, or a generation, later. In the Irish Martyrologies there are some twenty Aeds commemorated, and some twenty-three Aidans, and some of these were from the same part of Ireland as Aidan of Ferns. It is not possible to admit that Aidan was son of Caw; he must have been grandson, as his chronology makes him live a generation later than Gildas ab Caw.

The main authority for his life is a Vita beginning, "Fuit vir quidam." Colgan published this from a parchment copy obtained from Kilkenny.1 It is also given by the Bollandists from two MSS. in the Acta Sanctorum, Jan., t. ii, pp. 1112-1120. The same exists among the Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum, Vesp. A. xiv, and has been published by Rees in his Cambro-British Saints, pp. 232-50. It is also published in the Vita SS. Hibern. from the Salamanca Codex, 1888, cols. 463-488. A condensation likewise by John of Tynemouth in Capgrave's Nova Legenda Angliæ.

Mention is also made of him in the Life of S. David,2 and in that of S. Cadoc.3 In the Book of Llan Dâv, an Aidan is spoken of, a companion to S. Dyfrig, but this is certainly a different man. There is further mention of him in the Life of S. Molaisse, of Devennish.5

In the Book of Leinster he is given among the Saints who had double names.6 In the Vita Scti. Davidis he is spoken of as "Maidoc qui et Aidanus ab infantia", and in the Acta Sti. Edani in the Salamanca Codex as Edanus qui et Moedoc dicitur." 8 Capgrave, from John of Tynemouth, says, Sanctus iste in Vita Sti. Davidis Aidan' vocatur, in vita vero sua, ut superius patet Aidus' dicitur, et apud Meneviam in ecclesia Sti. Davidis appellatur 'Moedock' quod est hibernicum." 9

The epithet Foeddawg in the Welsh Genealogies is a reduplication of his name.

From the fusion of the two Aidans, both Bishops of Ferns, into one in the Vita, great anachronisms have ensued. Aidan is represented as a boy hostage with King Ainmire, 568-571, and as being associated

50.

1 Acta SS. Hibern., ii, pp. 208 et seq.

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2 Cambro-British Saints, pp. 106, 108–9; as Aidus in the same, pp. 2323 Ibid., p. 48.

4 Book of Llan Dâv, p. 80.

5 Sylva Gadelica, London, 1892.

6 Book of Lismore, Anecd. Oxon., p. 301. Aed otherwise Maidoc of Ferns.

7 Cambro-British Saints, p. 133.

Acta SS. Hibern., Salamanca Codex, col. 463.

Ed. 1901, p. 22. The Life" in Capgrave is a condensation of that be

ginning, "Fuit vir quidam."

with S. Ruadhan in the cursing of Tara in 554, when an established saint not under thirty years of age. He is further represented as contemporary with Guair Aidhne, King of Connaught, who died in 662. His confessor was Molua of Clonfert, who died in 591 according to the Annals of Tighernach, or 604 according to those of the Four Masters. He was intimate in his relations with Brandubh, King of Leinster, who died in 601, and whom he survived.

What increases the difficulty of discrimination between the Acts of the first and the second of the name, both Bishops of Ferns, is that the second, though some thirty years younger, was for some time the contemporary of the elder, and probably was associated with him. at Ferns.

The Annals of the Four Masters put his death as occurring in 624. The Chronicon Scotorum gives two dates, 625 and 656, thereby distinguishing two saints of the same name, and the Annals of Tighernach give also 625. He is not to be confounded with Aed Mac Bricc who was Bishop of Kilaire, and who died in 588.

We will now endeavour to take the Life of S. Aidan in order, putting aside what obviously refers to the second of the name at Ferns, who was the son of Setna of the sept of the Colla Uais, and whose mother was Eithne, granddaughter of Amalghaid, king of Connaught.

At an early age Aed ab Gildas was committed to S.David,at Cilmuine, for instruction. An anecdote is told of his early submission to orders. One day he neglected to bring indoors the book in which he had been studying, and rain came on. David was very angry at the prospect of the book being injured, and ordered Aed as punishment to prostrate himself on the sand of the shore, probably at Porth Mawr. Then he forgot all about him, till some time later, when he noticed his absence, and asked where the boy was. His pupils reminded him of the penance he had imposed on Aed, and David at once sent for him, but only just in time to save him from being covered by the rising tide.1

When the Irish settlers were expelled from the portion of Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire that lies between Milford Haven and the mouth of the Towy, S. David seems to have been invited to make religious settlements there, and he took with him his disciple Aidan, who was still young. According to the story, the steward of S. David entertained a lively dislike for Aidan, and annoyed him in many ways. On one occasion, when David was building, probably Llanddewi Velfrey, near Narberth, he despatched Aidan with a waggon and a pair of oxen to bring back the material he needed from beyond the Cleddeu. The steward furnished him out of spite with a yoke that did not fit the 1 Cambro-British Saints, p. 236.

necks of the beasts; nevertheless, Aidan succeeded in his task, and this is recorded as miraculous. He did more, he discovered a ford across the eastern Cleddeu, namely that where now stands Llawhaden Bridge. Aidan here founded the church that, under the above corrupt form, still bears his name. The steward next bribed one of Aidan's fellow students to murder him while they were together in the forest felling trees.

David was privately informed of what was proposed, and, starting from his bed, ran with only one foot shod in the direction taken by the woodfellers, and caught them up at the river, where he sharply interrogated the companion of Aidan and brought him to confess his purpose.1 A cross was erected on the spot, and it is possible that this may be the cross of an early character now standing in the east wall of Llawhaden church.

While Aidan was in these parts, and Cadoc was with him, an invasion took place the biographer says of Saxons-but it is more probable that it was of Irish, endeavouring to recover the lands from which they had been expelled, though it is possible enough that Saxon pirates may have assisted them. Aidan and Cadoc gathered their countrymen together, and surrounded the enemy, who were encamped in a valley, rolled down stones upon them, and exterminated them to the last man. There is a chapel of S. Cadoc in the parish of Llawhaden.

A story is told in the Life of S. Cadoc of a quarrel with King Arthur relative to rights of sanctuary, and into this story a Maidoc is introduced; 2 but as, according to the Annales Cambria, Arthur fell in 537, we cannot allow that this Maidoc is our Aidan. The whole story is, however, probably a fabrication.

After the death of S. Patrick, the Christianity of Ireland notably declined. He and the band of ardent missionaries who had worked with him had converted the chieftains, and the obsequious clansmen had submitted to baptism. The apostle had gone up and down through the land, sowing the seed of the Word, and establishing churches. Christianity had been accepted but not assimilated; it had overflowed Ireland, but had not sunk into and saturated the soil. The first apostles, Patrick and his fellow workers, had done their utmost, but they had been a handful only of earnest men. Patrick had done a wise thing in recommending many of his most hopeful disciples to go abroad to Gaul, to Britain, to Rome, to be more fully instructed in the truths of the religion of Christ, for he had not been able to establish great nurseries of teachers in Ireland itself. As he and his fellow

1 Cambro-British Saints, p. 236.

2 Vita S. Cadoci, Cambro-British Saints, p. 48.

workers failed in health and through age, and finally obtained their reward, the Christianity which had been but a varnish, cracked in all directions, and the underlying, unchanged paganism revealed itself once more, and a national apostasy was threatened.

The evidence has been collected by Dr. Todd, in his St. Patrick,1 and it is unnecessary to reproduce it here. The fact, however, has been contested by Professor Zimmer.2 The Catalogus Ordinum Sanctorum in Hybernia secundum diversa tempora, drawn up, probably, not later than the eighth century, was first published by Ussher, and has been repeatedly reprinted. It divides the Saints into three orders: to the first belong Patrick and his assistants, three hundred and fifty in number, observing but one Mass, and with one rule as to Easter, and this order continued to the time of Tuathal Maelgarbh (533). The Second Order was monastic, and celebrated different Masses derived from S. David, S. Cadoc and from Gildas, and this order lasted from the reign of Diarmid (544) to that of Aedh, son of Ainmire, who fell in 599. Ainmire (565–71), we know, was so concerned at the decline of Christianity in the land that he invited over Gildas, and doubtless others, to revive it, and to this appeal a ready response was accorded. From the great monasteries of Menevia and Llancarfan poured a stream of zealous clergy who set themselves to recover what was lost, and to build up on the foundations laid by Patrick and the Saints of the First Order. Their method of procedure was somewhat different from his. Instead of being mere itinerant evangelists, they planted monasteries throughout the island, to which cells were affiliated, and from these centres radiated the light of the Gospel, and to them were drawn the young of the tribes to which they attached themselves, and of which they became the recognized ecclesiastical heads; and to these young people they taught the law of God. Many of those nurtured in their schools went out into secular life, bearing ever on them the impress of their early education, others remained in the monastery, and became fellow workers, and later, successors to the great abbots who had started the work.

When the summons came to the Welsh and Breton monasteries, then Gildas started, and Aidan is numbered in the Catalogue among the Saints of the Second Order.3

1 Todd (J. H.), S. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, Dublin, 1864, pp. 107-11. 2 The Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland, Lond., 1902, pp. 63-5.

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3 Ussher gives The two Finans, two Brendans, Jarlath of Tuam, Comgall, Coemgen, Ciaran, Columba, Cainech, Eoghan Mac Laisre, Lugeus, Ludeus, Moditeus, Cormac, Colman, Nessan, Laisrean, Barrindeus, Coeman, Ceran. Coman (Endeus, Aedeus, Byrchinus)." Ussher brackets the three last as not being in one of the two copies he had before him. In the Catalogue in the Salamanca Codex, the order is, “Finian, Endeus, Colman, Congall, Aedeus,