ON ST. DAVID, ABBOT OF SNEVINGE OR MUNKTORP,
IN VÄSTMANLAND, A PROVINCE OF SWEDEN.
11TH CENTURY, PERHAPS THE MIDDLE.
The day of cult, his coming from England into Sweden, the building of the monastery, the year of death uncertain.
David, Abbot and Confessor, at Snevinge in Västmanland, Sweden (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR C. J.
Johannes Vastovius, a Goth by nation, Apostolic protonotary and canon of Warmia, once of the sacred council and library to Sigismund III, king of Poland and Sweden, in his Vitis Aquilonia, as he calls it, collected
the Lives of the Saints Whether the Saint is venerated on the 15th of July, who once illustrated the kingdoms of the Goths and Swedes by Catholic doctrine and by their virtues, and in them he relates St. David, abbot and confessor, on the XV day of July. The same day is marked by Ferrarius in the universal Catalogue; by Claude Castellan in his universal Martyrology; by the English Martyrologist, edited secondly in the year 1640, from whose approbation it is learned that the first edition was made in the year 1608, the collector being John Wilson, priest. But also the proper Offices of the holy patrons of the kingdom of Sweden, drawn from ancient Breviaries of that same kingdom; and, at the instance of the most serene Sigismund III, king of Sweden and Poland, recognized and approved by the sacred Congregation of Rites, by Apostolic authority, and printed with the Plantinian types at Antwerp in the year 1631; have on no other day than the XV of July the Office of St. David the abbot, under the rite of a simple, with a third lesson proper of the Life, which seems wholly taken from the eulogy which Vastovius composed; certainly it is wholly contained in it.
[2] or whether on the 25th of June. Meanwhile, while we set about to illustrate the Acts of the Saints of July, there come to me letters from a learned man, our friend, Eric Benzelius, an inhabitant of Sweden, together with a new edition of Vastovius, published by him at Uppsala in 1708, and sent to us by his gift: by which we are warned that in the ancient Breviaries through Sweden and other ecclesiastical books the feast of St. David the abbot is announced for the XXV day of June. And we too have found his memory noted for the same day at Prague in a certain Psalter of perhaps three hundred years, which was once written in the monastery of Munkeliv near Bergen in Norway: of which I said more in volume 6 of June, page 205, letter A. Hence a doubt arises to which day the Saint ought chiefly to be ascribed by us. The warning of Benzelius avails much for the XXV of June: the cited authors also avail for the XV of July, of whom Ferrarius in his annotations to that day; and the English Martyrologist, in the margin, themselves also warn that they have their materials from the Swedish Breviaries. Therefore I might presume that one or other of the noted days was properly the natal or day of death, the other of the translation of the body: and because publicly outside Sweden the XV of July is better known, let us too retain it, the more so because on the XXV of June nothing has been said by us concerning this Saint.
[3] Ferrarius in the cited Catalogue simply announces, In Sweden, of St. David the abbot, His memory in the Martyrologies. but the English Martyrology recites the following eulogy: On the same day (the XV of July), in Sweden, the deposition of St. David the abbot and confessor, an Angle by nation, who, crossing the sea into Sweden to preach the faith of Christ to the infidels of those parts, full of holiness and piety of life, rested in the Lord about the year of Christ one thousand two, and was buried in Sweden. But Ferrarius in his annotations to the aforesaid day writes that St. David about that year 1002 did not die, but preached in Sweden after St. Sigfrid the bishop, having supposed that St. Sigfrid died in that year, and this he expressly notes in the same Catalogue of his on the XV day of February. But both opinions stray from the truth. For in the Chronicle of Heinrich Wolter, canon of St. Anscharius at Bremen, concerning the bishops of that place, which ends about the year 1464 and was edited by Meibom the younger, we read that to Libentius, the second of that name, archbishop of Bremen, there came to Bykina his suffragans Odiker and Sigafrid (the same who is everywhere Sigfrid, by others also Sigifrid) from Sweden, and Rudolf, bishop of the Normans, that is of the Norwegians, strenuous preachers, to report what they had accomplished in the calling of the nations; whom also the Archbishop honorably sent back to their own places. That Libentius was elected archbishop, Unwan his predecessor dying about the year 1029, and presided almost four years. Therefore Sigfrid was then alive, and then also was alive under the two successors of Libentius, Hermann and Beselin, even to the episcopate of Adalbert, Henschenius deduces from Adam of Bremen.
[4] But now, that we may establish something more true concerning the chronology of St. David as having been first brought into Sweden long after, than the English Martyrologist and Ferrarius have, he came from England, where he lived as a Cluniac monk, into Sweden, kindled with the desire of martyrdom, after St. Sigfrid already preached the Gospel there and had established an episcopal church; and after the three nephews of Sigfrid, the holy Vinaman, Unaman, and Sunaman, had already consummated their glorious martyrdom. And thus at the persuasion of Sigfrid he began to preach there, to build a monastery, and to gather monks: but whether he survived Sigfrid is plainly in obscurity, nor have I anything whence I might divine. But neither has Benzelius in the ancient monuments of his Sweden, of which he is a very assiduous searcher, hitherto found anything by which he might in any way define the time of the death of St. David. Vastovius indeed designates the year of death 1063, but rather at his own pleasure than from the authority of writings. I do not offer myself as surety for that determined year. Yet, according to the coming of David into Sweden indicated by us, he could have survived St. Sigfrid about twenty years, and have reached the year proposed by Vastovius.
[5] He is sent into the province of Västmanland, After David had come to Sigfrid in Sweden, and had proved to him his zeal for preaching the Gospel to the nations, he was sent into the interior of the kingdom, and settled in the place which is now called Munktorp, of the church of Snevinge, in the province of Västmanland, which is bounded on the east by the province of Uppland; on the south by that of Södermanland; on the west by Närke; on the north by Gästrikland. That he there founded a monastery and gathered monks, over whom he presided as abbot, the very name of the place indicates. and founds a monastery at Snevinge. For "Munktorp" I judge sounds the same among the Swedes as "Munkendorp" among our Belgians, and is interpreted in Latin "the village of the Monks." Benzelius wonders, in his Notes on the Vitis Aquilonia of Vastovius, why Messenius in his work on the Affairs of Sweden, published not long ago, repeatedly writes, for Snevinge, Suanvinge, which denotes "swan-wings." Certainly, he says, even today that territory retains its old name, and is called Snevinge-hærade. But the church of Munktorp is distant a mile from the episcopal city of Västerås, which posterity, the word being cut short and truncated, began to call Arosia; which name it still retains among those who write in Latin. Thus far Benzelius.
[6] The year of death uncertain. Who also proceeds: In what year St. David departed, the ancient historians of the country being silent, is uncertain. But that he obtained a sepulchre in the church of Snevinge or Munktorp is established, and traces of it survive even today in one of the pillars. But of what sort those traces are he does not further explain: yet he declares in his letters, given to me on the XIV of October 1715, that other traces of holiness survive, namely the effigy of St. David, very ornately cut in stone, and inserted into the western wall of the Cathedral temple of Arosia, by the care of Johann de Klingesboda, dean of Arosia in the year 1510, which still survives whole, sculptured namely when the Roman-Catholic Religion still flourished.
[7] A memorable deed of a heretical pastor. But what he further, in the printed notes, calls quite memorable, I shall call impious and a crime, namely the deed of Thomas, pastor of Munktorp, to whom, John III being king of Sweden, father of Sigismund the catholic king, it was enjoined that he restore the relics of St. David, formerly taken away indeed by that same Thomas. He therefore, fearing the threats of the King and the persecutions of the Papists, taking secretly some things from the buildings adjoining the temple, in which the bones of the long-since dead are wont to be decently kept, put them in place of the relics, which afterward, not without a testification of gladness and veneration, the Liturgists, as they then heard, receive and carry off. And this excellent deed of Thomas the pastor Petrus Jonæ, bishop of Växjö, celebrated in a funeral sermon. What shall I say? To me in this matter it seems especially memorable that a Pastor of a church so shamelessly and sacrilegiously lied to God and men; and that on that account each Bishop praised him, stripped, along with the ancient religion, also of the fear of the Lord.
ACTS
Collected in the Vitis Aquilonia by Johannes Vastovius from ancient Breviaries and annals of Sweden.
David, Abbot and Confessor, at Snevinge in Västmanland, Sweden (S.)
FROM MANUSCRIPTS.
St. David, born in England of noble and Christian parents, from a boy profited in knowledge, in probity of life, and in Christian charity, St. David, an Angle by nation, a Cluniac by religion, so that, all that he had being distributed to the poor, having entered the Cluniac order, he led his life in the strictest discipline and abstinence. He, after he had been made more certain of the slaying of the holy Martyrs, the nephews of St. Sigfrid, set out into Sweden from desire of martyrdom, desiring himself too to become a partaker of martyrdom for Christ, betook himself into Sweden, and by the counsel of St. Sigfrid, at the church of Snevinge in Västmanland (the place is today called Munktorp) fixed his seat, where, constantly announcing the word of God, he suffered many injuries and persecutions. When now, partly through old age, he founds a monastery and dies an old man. partly from frequent tears, wont to be poured out in deep prayer, his eyes grew dim, having by chance beheld a ray of the sun entering through the window, and thinking it to be a peg, he hung his gloves on it; which afterward the servant, sent to bring them to one in need, found hanging, as they were, on the ray of the sun. At the last the holy Man, full of days and of pious works, departed from this to eternal life. His body, with a most sweet fragrance of odor, wondrously refreshed all who came.