It is possible that Alleccus may have been with Gildas at an early period in Ireland, till the latter was recalled by the murder of his brother Huail.

The day of S. Gallgo, or Alleccus, is given as November 27 in most of the Welsh Calendars from the fifteenth century; also by Nicolas Roscarrock. Oilleoc, or Oileac, of Cluan Etchen, is venerated in the Irish Calendars on July 24.

The Wake at Llanallgo was, however, held on the first Sunday in May. Near the church is Ffynnon Allgo, his holy well. Its waters, which are strongly impregnated with sulphate of lime, were formerly held in high veneration for the cures ascribed to them, and are still, we believe, regarded as highly beneficial in some chronic diseases. Adjoining the west end of the church is Capel y Ffynnon, the Well Chapel, a small edifice anciently appropriated to the use of the votaries of the patron of the spring.2

S. ALLEN, Confessor

S. ALLEN is the name of a parish in Cornwall in the Deanery of Pyder. The name is given in the Exeter Episcopal Registers as Allun or Alun. In that of Bishop Bronescombe, 1261, the church is Ecclesia Sti. Alluni; in that of 1274 Ecclesia de St. Aluno; so also in 1274, 1284; in that of B. Bytton, 1302; in the Taxation of Pope Nicolas, 1288-91; in the register of B. Stapeldon, 1314; and in those of B. Grandisson, 1349, and B. Brantyngham, 1376, 1383, 1384, 1392.

Leland (Itin., ii, 77; iii, 2) gives the forms Aleine, Alaine and Alein. It is not possible, with any approach to confidence, to determine who the Saint was who is patron of the parish. He can hardly be Alan, son of Emyr Llydaw.

The Feast at S. Allen is on February 22; but also on the Fifth Sunday after Easter. Whether he be the Elwyn, one of the Irish immigrants who came over with Breaca, may be doubted. See under S. ELWYN.

S. ALMEDHA, see S. EILIWEDD

S. ALUD, see S. EILIWEDD

S. AMAETHLU, see S. MAETHLU

1 Nicolas Owen, Hist. Anglesey, 1775, p. 57; Ang. Llwyd, Hist. Anglesey, 1833, p. 215.

2 Ang. Llwyd, op. cit., p. 215.

S. AMBROSIUS, Abbot, Confessor

THE Church of Amesbury claimed to have been founded by one Ambrosius, but whether this were an abbot, or whether he were Aurelius Ambrosius who headed the revolt against Gwrtheyrn; whether this latter, after having led the Britons to battle against the Saxons, in his old age became a monk and founded a religious house over which he ruled as abbot at Amesbury, is all uncertain, and never will be cleared. up; but the latter supposition is not improbable. Aurelius Ambrosius, or Ambrosius Aurelianus, is the only one of his countrymen against whom the venomous Gildas does not inveigh. 'After a certain length of time the cruel robbers returned to their home "-he is speaking of the Saxons. "A remnant, to whom wretched citizens flock from different places on every side, as eagerly as a hive of bees when a storm is threatening, praying at the same time unto Him with their whole heart, and, as is said, 'Burdening the air with unnumbered prayers,' that they should not be utterly destroyed, take up arms and challenge their victors to battle under Ambrosius Aurelianus. He was a man of unassuming character, who alone of the Roman race chanced to survive in the shock of such a storm (as his parents, people undoubtedly clad in the purple, had been killed in it), whose offspring in our days have greatly degenerated from their ancestral nobleness. To these men, by the Lord's favour, there came victory." 1

In the Welsh Pedigrees, Ambrosius is Emrys Wledig, or as Nennius calls him, Embreis Guletic.

Nennius tells the marvellous tale of Vortigern being unable to lay the foundations of his castle in Gwynedd, and sending to find a boy whose father was unknown in order to sprinkle his blood on the foundations to make them firm. Messengers were sent throughout the Isle of Britain in the quest, and they came to a place in Glywyssing where they heard boys playing at ball, and a dispute having arisen among them, one sneered at the other, "O boy without a father, thou hast no good at all." The messengers asked, "Whose son is the lad to whom this is said?" Those who were playing ball replied: "We know not. His mother is here." The mother of the boy of whom this was spoken said: "I know not that he has a father, nor do I know how he happened to be conceived in my womb."

Then the messengers took the lad to the king, who would have sacrificed him, according to the counsel of his Druids, but he escaped by telling Vortigern that the reason why his foundations gave way was

1 Gildas, De Excidio Brit., ed. H. Williams, p. 61.

that they were laid in a morass wherein were red and white dragons or maggots in deadly contest.

Then the boy said, "Ambrosius is my name... my father was a Roman consul, and this shall be my fortress." Then Vortigern left the castle to Ambrosius, and also the government of all the east of Britain, and went with his Druids to the land of Gwynnwesi, in the north, and built a fortress there, which city is named Caer Gwrtheyrn.1

The fable is foisted in clumsily, and is incoherent. The boy's father is known. Ambrosius knows it, his mother does not. All we can make out of it is that Vortigern seems to have thrown himself on the still strong Pagan element among the Britons, and to have sought the death of Ambrosius, who headed the Romano-British party, and that he was defeated.

The Caer of Ambrosius is near Beddgelert, and is called Dinas Emrys, on a height, and contains foundations of a number of cytiau. After the expulsion of Gwrtheyrn from the position of Pendragon or chief, Ambrosius assumed it, and obtained considerable success against the Saxons and Jutes.

The Welsh accounts make Ambrosius son of Cystennin, whom they derive from Cynan Meiriadog,2 brother of Elen, wife of Maximus; and they make Cystennin Gorneu the brother of Aldor, or Audroen, father of Emyr Llydaw, the ancestor of a noble army of Saints who drifted about between Armorica and South Wales. They make, moreover, Emrys, or Ambrosius, brother of Uthyr Bendragon, the father of Arthur. 3

The name

Much confusion has arisen among the Constantines. seems to have been greatly affected by the Britons or Romanised Britons. There was a Constantine who was a common soldier in the Roman army stationed in Britain, who assumed the purple in 407, and was put to death in 409; consequently it is not possible that this can have been the Constantine, father of Ambrosius and of Uthyr. If there be any reliance to be placed on the Welsh pedigrees, much disturbed and vitiated by Geoffrey of Monmouth's fabulous narrative-then the father of Ambrosius Aurelianus was Cystennin Llydaw, or Bendigaid, a petty prince of Armorica.4

1 Irish Nennius, ch. xix; Latin Nennius, cc. xl-xlii.

2 Geoffrey's Brut, ed. Rhys and Evans, p. 126; the thirteenth century Mostyn MS., 117 (Evans, Report on Welsh MSS., i, p. 63).

3 Geoffrey's Brut, ibid., p. 126; Triads in Red Book of Hergest in Mabinogion, ed. Rhys and Evans, p. 298.

The Welsh pedigrees attribute to Maximus and Helen a son named Constantine. Perhaps this was the Tyrannus.

Professor Hugh Williams sums up all that we can obtain from Gildas concerning Ambrosius Aurelianus. (1) He was a Roman, a member of one of the few old aristocratic families then remaining in Britain. (2) His ancestors had worn the Imperial purple; he may have been a descendant of some tyrannus who had assumed the title of Augustus in Britain. (3) He was a vir modestus, which implies kindness of disposition with unassuming manners; the mention of this quality goes far to prove that the information had come to Gildas from some one personally acquainted with the victorious leader. (4) His descendants, grandchildren probably, were intimately known to Gildas.1

Bede 2 merely reproduces what was said by Gildas. There is no mention in the pedigrees of Ambrosius having been married and having a family, and it would be in accordance with the character of the man as sketched by Gildas, that in his old age he should become a monk. If so, then he may perhaps be regarded as the traditional founder of Amesbury. Camden, in his Britannia, so regards him, and as having died at Amesbury.3

Dr. Guest conjectured that Ambrosius was the father of Owain Finddu, who is usually given as a son of Maxen, and he tries to identify him with the Natan-leod of the Chronicle, who was killed in 508, but the attempt is not successful.

The monastery, according to Camden, contained three hundred monks, and was destroyed by "nescio quis barbarus Gormundus." This Gormund was Gorman, son of Cormac Mac Diarmid, king of the Hy Bairche, who in the middle of the sixth century destroyed Llanbadarn Fawr and other churches, and did much havoc in Britain. Geoffrey of Monmouth converted him into a king of Africa.

Nicolas Roscarrock enters him as "S. Ambrias, Abbot, Confessor, founder of Amesbury, which was destroyed by Gormund; there were three hundred monks in the monastery." He does not give the day on which the founder of Amesbury was culted.

1 De Excid. Brit., p. 60.

2 Hist. Eccl., i, c. 16.

3 44 Ambresbury, i.e. Ambrosii vicus . . . ubi antiquos quosdam Reges sitos esse historia Britannica docet, et Eulogium ibi trecentorum monachorum cœnobium fuisse refert, quod nescio quis barbarus Gurmundus diripuit . . . Ambrosius Aurelianus qui nomen fecit, Romano imperio jam prope confecto, purpuram, ut P. Diaconus testatur, in Britannia induit, patriæ labenti suppetias tulit, et tandem collatis in hac planitie signis, animam patriæ reddidit.” Britannia, 1594, p. 186.

...

S. AMBRUSCA, Virgin

IN Crantock village, Cornwall, according to Dr. Oliver's Monasticon (p. 438), a chapel dedicated to S. Ambrusca formerly stood in the churchyard; and an ancient covered well, dedicated to the Saint, existed near the village. The well has been destroyed, and a modern villa called S. Ambrose occupies the site; the water still rises, and is led by a pipe to supply a drinking fountain beside the road. Old people remember the Holy Well in its original position. On the further side of the road is a boggy meadow in the midst of which is the site of the chapel.

Who was S. Ambrusca? Whether Dr. Oliver has given the name correctly, which is by no means certain, as he was not always accurate, we are unable to say. She may have formed one of the company of S. Carantoc. Her name does not occur in any Welsh or Irish or Breton Calendars. The root of the name is ambhr, strong.

S. AMO, see S. ANNO

S. AMPHIBALUS, Confessor

THE authority for the Life of S. Amphibalus is the account of the Martyrdom of S. Alban (which see). But Capgrave in his Nova Legenda Angliæ gives a separate account of him, extracted from the Vita S. Albani printed in the Acta SS. Boll., Jun. v, p. 131.

The story has been already given under the heading of S. Alban. Gildas, in De Excidio Brit. (c. xi),1 relates that Alban of Verulam, having given hospitality to a confessor of Christ flying the pursuit of the soldiery, was so touched by the grace of God, that he presented himself before the persecutors in the sacerdotal vestment of the confessor, and suffered martyrdom in his room.

The story in Bede (Hist. Eccl., I, vii) is not an amplification of the words of Gildas, but taken from original Acta. The vestment in Gildas is vestes, in Bede caracalla. Till Geoffrey of Monmouth

1 Ed. Hugh Williams, for the Cymmrodorion Society.