Celtic and Old English Saints 9 April =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= * St. Dotto of the Orkney Islands * St. Madrun of Wales * St. Theodore of Croyland & his Companion Martyrs * St. Hedda of Peterborough and 84 Monk Martyrs =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
St. Dotto, Abbot ---------------------------------------------------- 6th century. Saint Dotto is said to have been the abbot of a monastery in the Orkney Islands that is named after him and to have lived to a very venerable age (Benedictines, Husenbeth). St. Madrun (Materiana), Widow ---------------------------------------------------- 5th century; a second feast is celebrated on October 19. According to a dubious "vita," Madrun was the daughter of Vortimer and wife of Ynyr Gwent, ruler of the area around Caerwent (Monmouthshire). Following the battle described by Nennius in which Vortigern was killed, Madrun fled with the youngest of her three children, Ceidio, first to Carn Fadryn and then to Cornwall. She was either Welsh or Cornish, and churches are dedicated to her honour in Tintagel and Minster (near Boscastle), where she was buried (Benedictines, Farmer). Another Life: The church perched on the cliffs above Tintagel, with its fine Norman windows and lichen covered gravestones, buttressed against the Atlantic gales, is dedicated to St. Materiana. The village, lying below in a more sheltered spot, now makes a living from visitors to the headland, with its romantic remains of castle and monastery. The headland is Tintagel, the village, in fact, Trevenna, and the church an outlying Chapel of the old Priory at Minster, in which was the shrine of St. Materiana. The Austin Friars have gone, and so has the shrine, but the Priory Church continues as the mother church of Boscastle. Materiana was more a refugee than a missionary, but that has been one of the ways the faith has been spread since the earliest days of the Gospel. We read in the Acts of the Apostles, after the martyrdom of S. Stephen: "Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word", and that appears to be the case with St. Materiana. She was the daughter of Vortimer, marrying Ynyr Gwent, who ruled that part of Monmonthshire east of the Usk river and in Wales was called Madrum or Madryn. Her sister Anna married Cynyr and was the mother of St. Non. Ynyr was responsible for establishing St. Tathan and his school at Caerwent, and the holy man became the family's spiritual director. No doubt Madrum learnt a great deal from St. Tathan but her daughter Tegiwg grew up a self willed young lady and ran off with a handsome young carpenter. The carpenter, however, deserted her, and she was found dead by St. Beuno's shepherds. The good bishop resuscitated her, and she then was persuaded to enter a convent. Soon after this, the native Britons rose in revolt against the Irish landowners, and Ynyr fled with his wife Madrun to the fortress of Vortigern in Carnarvenshire, in a valley beneath Snowdon. The rebels besieged and set fire to the castle, Ynyr was killed and Madrun escaped with her son Ceidio in her arms and made a new home in Cornwall. In Wales, Trawsfynydd, and in Cornwall, both Minster and Tintagel claim her as their foundress. Her day in Wales and Cornwall is April 9th (Baring Gould, Fisher, C R John, Bowen). St. Theodore and Companions, Martyrs ---------------------------------------------------- Died c. 870. This is another group martyred by the invading Danes. Theodore, abbot of Croyland, and several others of his large community were mentioned by name: Askega, prior; Swethin, subprior; Elfgete, deacon; Savinus, subdeacon; Egdred and Ulrick, acolytes; Grimkeld and Agamund (Argamund), both centenarians (Benedictines). St. Hedda (Haeddi) and Companions, Martyrs ---------------------------------------------------- Died c. 870. Hedda was the abbot of Peterborough (Medehampstead). He and 84 monks of his community were slain by the Danes, who that same year killed Saint Edmund of East Anglia (f.d. November 20). Hedda and his monks are venerated as martyrs. In the later Middle Ages the "Hedda stone" stood in the cemetery over the grave of the martyrs. Holes were cut into the slab to hold candles for using it as an altar at which to say Mass--a custom started by abbot Godric. In the 17th century, pilgrims would put their fingers into the holes, perhaps to take dust as a souvenir (Benedictines, Farmer). Sources: ======== Baring-Gould,S & Fisher, J.The Lives of the British Saints (4 volumes: Charles J Clarke, 1907) Benedictine Monks of St. Augustine Abbey, Ramsgate. (1947). The Book of saints. NY: Macmillan. Bowen, Paul. When We Were One: A Yearbook of the Saints of the British Isles Complied from Ancient Calendars. Farmer, D. H. (1997). The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Husenbeth, Rev. F. C., DD, VG (ed.). (1928). Butler's Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints. London: Virtue & Co. John, C. R. The Saints of Cornwall (1981). Lodenek Press Ltd. For All the Saints: http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/ss-index.htm An Alphabetical Index of the Saints of the West http://www.orthodoxengland.btinternet.co.uk/saintsa.htm These Lives are archived at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/celt-saints ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
