saints are marked with an asterisk to distinguish them from saints of the Roman calendar. ZB. Welsh almanacks of the latter part of the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century give the festivals of Welsh and other saints more or less fully. The first Welsh almanack was that published for 1680, at Shrewsbury. We have consulted a great many from that for 1692 down. From about 1780 these festival entries became fewer and fewer, and have gradually disappeared almost entirely from the ordinary Welsh almanack. Zc. Wm. Roberts (Nefydd), in his Crefydd yr Oesoedd Tywyll, Carmarthen, 1852, gives the festivals of such Welsh saints as occur in the Welsh almanacks of the eighteenth century. ZD. The calendar in Williams ab Ithel, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of the Cymry, London, 1844, pp. 301–3. It is based upon the festivals given in Rees, Essay on the Welsh Saints, 1836, and is not always correct. To these may be added the following, which, however, contain but few Celtic or Welsh entries: A Welsh Martyrology in Trinity College, Dublin, Library (MS. 50), of which Mr. H. Bradshaw speaks with enthusiasm in his Collected Papers, pp. 477-8. "It turns out to be one of the most precious monuments of the Welsh Church yet discovered." It was written by Ithael, and the initial letters were painted by Johannes, brother of Rhygyfarch (died 1097). It is actually the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, with entries of Celtic saints, Irish and British. The MS. was once in the possession of Bishop Bedell, who lent it to Archbishop Ussher, and it was owing to this happy accident that it was saved from the destruction which befell almost the whole of Bishop Bedell's library after the outbreak of the Civil War in 1641. We are indebted to Mr. R. Twigge for kindly examining this Martyrology for us. It unfortunately contains no other entries of Celtic saints than these: March 17, S. Patrick; July 28, S. Samson; September 17, "In Britannis Socris et Stephani"; December 17, "Depos. Judichaili Confess." A Martyrology of British Saints, very peculiar," in the Bodleian Library, of the fourteenth century (MSS. Gough Coll., 1833), imperfect; from March 17 to May 23 is all that exists. A Llanthony Abbey Calendar, in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. We give below a calendar of the Welsh saints carefully compiled from the foregoing, noting in each case the particular calendars which contain the commemoration. They often vary, but the oldest calendars may be presumed to be the most reliable. |