CONCERNING THE HOLY MARTYRS INDRACTUS, DOMINICA, AND NINE COMPANIONS, AT GLASTONBURY IN ENGLAND
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY.
Preliminary Commentary.
Indractus, Martyr, at Glastonbury in England (Saint) Dominica his sister, Martyr, at Glastonbury in England (Saint) Nine Companion Martyrs, at Glastonbury in England
By G. H.
Section I. The homeland of these Saints: places made illustrious by their pilgrimage. The era of Saints Indractus, Guthlac, and King Ine.
[1] Before St. Indractus, or Indrectus, and afterward, several persons of the same name lived in that same Ireland. Indrectus, son of Dunchad, King of Connacht, died in the year 705. Various persons called Indractus among the Irish. Another Indrectus, King of Connacht, son of Muredius, perished in the year 791. Indrectus, Bishop of Kill-mac-duach, died in the year 814. Indractus, nephew of Finactan, Coarb of St. Columba of Kells, was killed by the Anglo-Saxons on March 12, 852. Indrectus, Abbot of Bangor, died in the year 901. Indrectus, Abbot of Terryglass, was slain in his own monastery in the year 917. These are reported by John Colgan at February 5, number 3, in his account of the Life of this Indractus.
[2] Through the pilgrimage of Saints Indractus and his companions, several places in Britain, or modern England, [Places in Britain made illustrious by the visit and death of Saints Indractus and companions,] were rendered more celebrated. The first place, where an oratory was built, is among the Dumnonii, on the river Tamar, which separates the regions of Cornwall and Devon, where Tamerunta arose — according to Camden, Tamerworth — perhaps also the castle of Trematon, the seat of a distinguished Barony, on the southern shore not far from the town and port of Plymouth. Other places among the neighboring Belgae are in the county of Somerset: there Shapwick was ennobled by the slaughter and martyrdom of Indractus and his companions, in the district, commonly called the Hundred, of Whitley. In the same area is Petherton, the seat of St. Ine, King of the West Saxons, from which place he learned by divine revelation the spot where the sacred bodies lay hidden in a pit. Petherton, called by others Pedridan, the royal seat of Ine, is now Petherton, still celebrated for its market and fairs, in the southern part of the province on the river Pedred, which gave it its name or received it from it. Finally Glastonbury, that most celebrated and most ancient monastery, renovated by the holy King Ine, as we set forth more fully on February 6 concerning his feast day: to the church of which monastery these sacred relics were honorably conveyed. In a manuscript codex of that same monastery, under the title "Concerning the Saints resting therein," we read this: "There rests St. Indractus the Martyr with his seven companions. These were indeed of the royal line of the Irish: how they were martyred is clearly written in their Acts." Then under this title, "Names of the Saints resting in the Church of Glastonbury, briefly collected," it is thus written: "St. Indractus with his companions."
[3] The time of the martyrdom we gather approximately from the Life of the holy King Ine, whom we have shown at his Life to have ruled the West Saxons from the year 689 to the year 728. They were killed during the reign of St. Ine. He is called King in the Acts, and is said to have arranged for the sacred relics to be buried at Glastonbury, a place he adorned with various privileges, granted in the years 693, 704, 721, and 725. Colgan interprets the miracle of the boy Guthlac, who at the sepulchre of St. Indractus was suddenly imbued with the knowledge of reading, as referring to St. Guthlac, later a Hermit, St. Guthlac the Hermit, whose Life, written by his contemporary Felix, we shall give on April 11. In that Life the various prodigies and miracles that befell him while still enclosed in his mother's womb, then at his very birth and throughout the rest of his boyhood, are most carefully related, without any mention of this infused knowledge. Colgan's sole argument is the boy did not receive infused knowledge at their sepulchre, that it is not likely that so great a miracle, and one otherwise not so necessary, would have been performed concerning some infant, except in view of his future holiness. But unless it suffice that the glory of God be manifested in His servant St. Indractus, certainly very many great miracles, and ones otherwise not so necessary, would have to be expunged from the Acts of the Saints of Ireland. Secondly, since of the four places listed by us above Colgan indicated only Glastonbury in his Notes, he implies that he did not inquire as carefully into English histories concerning the various Guthlacs as we praised him above for doing concerning the Irish Indractuses. But neither is it necessary here to demonstrate into what sort of man this boy later developed. It suffices to show that he was not that celebrated St. Guthlac, first because of the silence of all authors, including the Malmesbury writer, both in this Life of St. Indractus and in his Deeds of the English Bishops, where he treats of both — book 2 concerning St. Indractus and book 4 concerning St. Guthlac. Secondly, the parents of St. Guthlac dwelt far away among the Middle Angles, sprung from a royal line, so that they do not seem to have undertaken so distant a pilgrimage into a foreign kingdom with a small boy still of tender age; born among the Middle Angles, which the authors also would not have omitted to mention if Divine goodness had deemed it worthy of so great a favor. Finally, the very age of St. Guthlac, compared with the years of the life of the holy King Ine, clearly demonstrates that it is not his boyhood that is indicated in these Acts. Guthlac departed this life in the year 714, on the Wednesday of Easter, April 11, the solar cycle being 25, the dominical letter G, and the lunar cycle 12, the day of Easter falling on April 8. He had lived, moreover, to his twenty-fifth year of age when he assumed the ecclesiastical habit and was numbered among the clergy; two years thereafter he entered the wilderness and led a solitary life for fifteen years, dying in the forty-second year of his age, around the year 673, born around the year 673. At which time it is certain that King Ine had by no means reached adult age; for he, after sixteen years had elapsed from then, was made King, and administered the kingdom by the counsel and instruction, or, as others report, the exhortation and teaching of his father Cenred, when St. Ine was king, as Ine himself writes of himself in the preface to his Laws, which Spelman records among the British Councils at the year 692, the fourth of his reign. Moreover, upon careful examination of his last pilgrimage to the threshold of the Apostles, in which, as the Malmesbury writer relates in book 1, chapter 2, of his Deeds of the English Kings, he grew old secretly at Rome, covered in plebeian garb, it will not easily be judged that he left his kingdom when older than sixty
in the year of Christ 728: so that he appears to have been born around the year 668, while he was still a boy, only five years older than St. Guthlac: and consequently that he was about ten years old at the time of the slaughter of St. Indractus, when that knowledge was infused into the little boy Guthlac — if indeed that miracle is proved, and occurred soon after the relics were translated, and not after the passage of many more years.
Section II. The Acts of St. Indractus composed. Sacred worship. The number of companions.
[4] The same Malmesbury writer, surnamed Somerset, among his other historical works, wrote a book on the Antiquities of the monastery of Glastonbury, and Lives of certain Saints, whose sacred relics rest in the church of that monastery: The Life of these Saints was written by the Malmesbury writer, namely Saints Dunstan, Patrick, Benignus, and Indractus, as John Bale, century 2, number 73, and John Pits, number 201, report concerning the writers of Britain, and Gerard John Vossius in book 2 on Latin Historians, chapter 51. This Life of St. Indractus, moreover, which we give from the Legenda of Capgrave on the Saints of England, is very likely, in the judgment of Colgan as well, to have been written by the Malmesbury author, because in it he reports that Patrick the Great, Apostle of the Irish, completed his life in a good old age among the people of Glastonbury: as he also relates in book 2 of his Deeds of the English Bishops, and elsewhere treats of the same, under the title on the Bishops of Wells, under whom Glastonbury was; and describing it there, he adds this: "There lies Patrick, if it is worthy of belief, a Briton by nation, a disciple of the Blessed Germanus of Auxerre, whom Pope Celestine, having ordained him Bishop, sent as Apostle to the Irish. When for many years he had made no small progress in the conversion of that nation — through his own labor, with the grace of God cooperating — at last, warned by the weariness of his aged pilgrimage and approaching old age, thinking it right to return to his homeland, he closed his last day there. The master was followed by Hindrachus, the son of an Irish King (than whose disposition nothing was sweeter, nothing holier), and seven Counts of that land, men of distinction. These, slain there when robbers rushed in, and reports they were formerly regarded as Martyrs: a credulous antiquity consecrated as Martyrs." That is to say, they were not properly Martyrs, killed in hatred of the faith of Christ: which is nevertheless reported below in the Salisbury Martyrology. Yet those slain on a similar occasion, when they afterward become famous for miracles and are enrolled in the catalogue of Saints, are customarily classed with the Martyrs, because robbers are very often incited to slaughter by hatred of a holier life or of the monastic habit. Pope St. Celestine held the See from the year 423 to the year 432, when he died on April 6: having previously consecrated St. Patrick as Bishop, sent by St. Germanus of Auxerre, whose Life we shall give on July 31. St. Patrick survived to the year of Christ 493, when, how is St. Patrick to be considered Indractus's Master? on the seventeenth day of March, a Wednesday, he departed this life: so that St. Indractus had him as Master in no other way than as the common Teacher and Apostle of the ancient Irish in bringing that island to the faith of Christ. Among the disciples instructed by St. Patrick is reckoned, according to Jocelin in his Life of Patrick, number 186, another St. Patrick, his spiritual son, confused with the younger Patrick, who, returning to Britain after the death of his Father, departed this life and was honorably buried in the church of Glastonbury. The people of Glastonbury seem to have confused this Patrick with the former: his feast day is assigned to August 24. But concerning the various Patricks we shall treat in their proper place.
[5] Concerning St. Indractus and his companions, the following is reported in the English Martyrology on February 5: St. Indractus and companions are venerated on February 5. "On the same day, at Glastonbury in Somerset, the solemnity of St. Indractus the Martyr, who, sprung from the royal blood of the Irish, came to Glastonbury as a pilgrim, intending to proceed to Rome to visit the bodies of the Apostles; and was slaughtered together with nine other companions and his sister Drusa at Shapwick in the same province by certain wicked West Saxons, in the year of Christ 708. Their bodies were afterward translated with great solemnity to the Abbey of Glastonbury, and there honorably committed to the earth. To indicate their innocence, God deigned to work many miracles." Ferrarius in his general Catalogue of the Saints writes: "In England, of St. Indractus the Martyr," without any mention of his companions. He cites the aforesaid English Martyrology and the Catalogue of the Saints of Britain: perhaps he means Ireland, published by our Henry Fitz-Simon, by whom, however, Indractus the Martyr is listed together with nine companions.
[6] Richard Whitford in the Salisbury Martyrology, printed at London one hundred and forty years ago, records the same on May 8 in these words: "Likewise the feast of St. Indractus, King of Ireland, and on May 8: who, having abdicated the kingdom, set out for Rome with St. Dominica his sister and various others, who all led a private life full of holiness and miracles, and at last were crowned with martyrdom for the faith of Christ." It is easy to suspect that there were several days devoted to their worship, on account of their slaughter, then the heavenly revelation of the hidden bodies, their discovery, their bodies translated, and the solemn translation, or first burial at Glastonbury: the ancient church of which, having been burned in the year 1184, the bodies of the Saints were dug up — that of Patrick on the right side of the altar, of Indractus and his companions on the left, and of St. Gildas from the pavement before the altar — and placed in shrines, as Ussher has reported from an anonymous Glastonbury Chronographer in his Origins of the British Churches, chapter 14.
[7] Hanmer also treats of the same in the Annals of Ireland, cited by Colgan in his Notes on this Life, and names the sister of St. Indractus, together with the author of the Life and Whitford, Dominica, who in the English Martyrology is called Drusa. St. Dominica, sister of St. Indractus, The Malmesbury writer and Capgrave in the Life write with Whitford that the Roman pilgrimage was completed; but Wilson in the Martyrology maintains it was only begun. Whitford also makes the sister Dominica a companion of this Roman journey, whereas the Acts show that she was left at the oratory of Tamerunta in Cornwall which they had built there. reported to have been killed along with them, St. Indractus seems to have taken his sister as a companion on his return for a pilgrimage to venerate the sacred relics of Glastonbury: the Salisbury and English Martyrologies report that she was slain together with the others on her return from there.
[8] The companions are numbered at nine in the Acts and in the English Martyrology, as also in Fitz-Simon and Hanmer, and nine companions, though the Malmesbury writer and the Glastonbury author cited above record only seven: but the former reports that they were distinguished Counts of the land of the Irish, the latter that they were sprung from the royal lineage of the Irish; so that two others must be reckoned as having been taken into their service.
Annotation* variant: Intrahtus
THE LIFE
by William of Malmesbury, from the Legenda of John Capgrave.
Indractus, Martyr, at Glastonbury in England (Saint) Dominica his sister, Martyr, at Glastonbury in England (Saint) Nine Companion Martyrs, at Glastonbury in England
BHL Number: 4272
By the Malmesbury author.
[1] After indeed the Blessed Patrick had converted the people of Ireland to the faith of Christ by signs and wonders, crossing the sea to Britain and arriving at Glastonbury, he happily completed his life in a good old age. For the Irish, because St. Patrick had been sent to them from Rome as Apostle, were accustomed frequently to visit the town of Glastonbury as pilgrims, for the sake of prayer and devotion. Now there was in Ireland the son of a certain King, by name Indractus, St. Indractus, son of a King of Ireland, imbued with literary studies, distinguished by virtues, and conspicuous before God and men for the integrity of all his character: and so that he might merit to possess heavenly joys, he resolved to trample completely upon royal delights and the blandishments of the world with their lusts, and to flee them with all his affection. with companions of his pilgrimage, Having therefore taken with him nine companions together with his sister, by name Dominica, he set out on a journey toward Rome for the sake of pilgrimage. And when by a prosperous voyage they had landed in Britain at a port called Tamerunta, in Britain he builds an oratory: for a long time there leading a most austere life in the service of God, they built an oratory in which they might continually devote themselves to prayers.
[2] Indractus moreover fixed his pilgrim's staff in the ground at that place, and without delay it put forth roots, he is distinguished by miracles: branches, and
leaves in the sight of all, and in the course of time grew into a very large and shady oak. He also made a certain small pond, from which he took fish each day according to a fixed number; and he always found in the pond neither more nor fewer, but fish without diminution of the number. It happened, however, that one of his companions, yielding to a diabolical temptation, presumed to steal one fish on a certain day, and because the Lord was offended, one was diminished daily from the number until all the fish were gone. Seeing which, the man of God Indractus was amazed, leaving his sister there, he goes to Rome: and fearing that his delay in that place was no longer pleasing to God, by the unanimous consent of the Brothers he bade farewell to his sister and hastened quickly to Rome with his companions.
[3] Returning, however, to Britain, he resolved to go toward Glastonbury to St. Patrick, and to pour forth prayers to God. For in those days Ine, King of the West Saxons, held his court in a village named Petherton, on his return, in the time of Ine, King of the West Saxons, whose servants were dispersed in the small villages roundabout: among whom was a certain son of iniquity, by name Hona, who, spying on Indractus the man of God and his companions as they departed from Glastonbury, the cruel executioner supposed their bags to be filled with money. And when the servants of God, having withdrawn not far from Glastonbury, were resting in their beds at Shapwick, the aforesaid minister of Satan with his accomplices violently entered the house he is killed with his companions, in which the innocent men were sleeping, and drawing their swords they did not fear to cut their throats: and taking up the holy bodies, they concealed them in a certain deep pit, so that they might not be found.
[4] Now King Ine, being tormented one night by an excessive pain in his belly (to dispel and perhaps mitigate the distressing pains), went out from his chamber: and looking up to heaven, he saw a column like a bright fire, stretching to heaven from the place the bodies found by heavenly revelation, where the holy bodies had been hidden, whose splendor followed his eyes wherever he turned them. And when he had beheld the same vision for three nights, taking certain men with him, he came to the place, and finding the bodies of the Martyrs, he had them buried with great honor at Glastonbury. they are carried to Glastonbury, Indractus they placed at the left side of the altar, opposite the bier of the Blessed Patrick, and his companions around the pavement. The killers of the innocents, moreover, standing there with the others, were seized by demons and so monstrously tormented the robbers divinely punished, that they tore their own flesh while still alive, and with great cries wretchedly ended their lives shortly afterward.
[5] A certain woman who had served idols from infancy, and could not by any preaching be converted to the way of life, when she had seen the column seen by the King above the bodies of the Saints, many are converted to the faith: not daring to approach the bodies of the Saints, having confessed her sins to a priest and obtained the grace of baptism, she hastened to the place of the Saints with great devotion: and there, openly narrating to all what she had seen, she caused eighty persons of both sexes to receive the faith of Christ. For the King of the West Saxons, having a son struck by an incurable disease, when he ordered him to be brought to the tombs of the Saints, a sick person is healed: he was immediately restored to his former health. A certain rich man, accustomed to visit the tombs of the Saints, came on a certain occasion with his wife and a small son, scarcely able to speak, named Guthlac, to the tomb of St. Indractus; and when, weary from their vigils, they began to sleep, there appeared to the little child a man arising from the left side of the altar, fair and comely, a little boy suddenly reads perfectly, adorned with the clerical tonsure, and holding out a book to the child, he said: "Do you wish to read in this, my son?" And when the boy indicated that he wished to, he immediately taught him. The boy, awakened from sleep, related the matter to his mother as he had seen it; and when the clergy held out a codex to the boy, he immediately read it, and without any faltering of the tongue expounded what he had read.