Cadfarch

ON ST. CADFARCH, CONFESSOR, NOT A BISHOP, IN NORTH WALES,

ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.

SYLLOGE.

The noble and holy family of St. Cadfarch; he founds two churches; his cult; his age; his parentage.

Cadfarch, confessor, not a bishop, in North Wales. (S.)

BY V. D. B.

Among the two hundred and seventeen saints, Welsh by nation or by cult, whom Nicholas Carlisle lists at the beginning of his topographical Dictionary of Wales, The noble and pious family of St. Cadfarch, recorded by several writers. omitting however very many, there comes in his order St. Cadfarch, who flourished towards the middle of the VIth century. He is announced in the supplement of the English Martyrology A memorial of ancient British piety, pag. 27. at the 24th day of October in these words: In Penegoes in the county of Montgomery (Montgomeryshire) the feast of St. Cadmarch, or Cadfarch, to whose name the church is dedicated; which things rest, as is there indicated, on the testimony of Willis, and with which Nicholas Carlisle agrees A topographical dictionary of Wales, v° Penegos., passing over however the form of the name Cadmarch. He is also mentioned by the distinguished Rice Rees, a minister of the Anglican church, who in his excellent essay on the saints of Wales [An Essay on the Welsh saints or the primitive christians usually considered to have been founders of churches in Wales, pag. 270.] relates the following of the same: Cadfarch, brother of Cawrdaf, was founder of Penegos in the county of Montgomery and Abererch in the county of Caernavon. His feast is noted at the 24th day of October. Then, so that it may appear that St. Cadfarch was of a most noble and pious family, it is related that Cawrdaf, his brother and son of Caradoc Fraichfras, of the family of Coel, succeeded his father in the principality of Brecknock; that he is greatly celebrated in the Triads, because his authority was so great that, whenever he called out the people to war, all ran up; but that afterwards he bade farewell to the world, and put on the religious habit in the institute of St. Iltyt, a most celebrated abbot in Armorica and Wales in the Vth and at the beginning of the VIth century Tresvaux, Hist. des saints de Bretagne, tom. I. pag. 66 et seqq., and finally obtained annual ecclesiastical honours on the 5th day of December. Here also belongs the following parental table, drawn from the Genealogies of the Welsh saints, in which indeed St. Cadfarch is not called the brother of St. Cawrdaf, but rather of SS. Thangwn and Maethlu, and at the same time the son of Caradoc Vreichvras or Fraichfras: Many set no value on genealogies of that kind; and it has certainly been shown rather often that some things in them are invented, others doubtful; yet he who would have no account taken of them will plainly stray from the truth, since the whole political and domestic system of this people consisted in the preservation of generations. Hear Giraldus Cambrensis [Cambriæ descriptio, cap. XVII, in Camdeni Anglicis etc. veteribus scriptis, pag. 890.]: But good birth, he says, and nobility of family they desire more than all things. Whence they long far more for wellborn marriages than for costly or wealthy ones. Even any one of the common people keeps the genealogy of his family, and recites his descent from memory and readily not only to his grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers, but to the sixth or seventh generation and far beyond, in this manner: Rhys son of Gruffydd, son of Rhys, son of Theodore, son of Æneas, son of Owen, son of Howel, son of Cadell, son of Roderick the Great and so on. They love their family, then, above all things, and sharply avenge injuries to their blood and honour.

[2] He founds churches at Penegos, where a healing spring still flows, Penegos or Pen egwest, whose church is said by some to have been founded by St. Cadfarch, by others to have been dedicated to his name (although it has often happened that a church, consecrated at first under the patronage of another saint, afterwards received the name and title of its founder, when he obtained ecclesiastical honours), lies in the county of Montgomery, as we have seen; namely in North Wales, on the left bank of a stream which pours its waters into the sea in the bay of Cardigan (Cardigan Bay), and on the southern side of the public road built between Dinasmonthy and Aberistwith. Because Pen among the Welsh signifies head, they have said that the name of the place arose from a Welsh chieftain having been beheaded there; but by the word Pen, met with in several other names of places, is also indicated among them everything that is extreme or highest; and Egwest comes also in Llan-egwast, the name of a Cistercian abbey, commonly called Vallis crucis [Cfr Monasticum Anglicanum novum, tom. V, pag. 720; Camden, Britannia, edit. Gough, tom. II, pag. 581.]. But it concerns St. Cadfarch more nearly that in a little field near the church there is a spring, whose waters are used in curing rheumatisms Carlisle, A topog. Dict. of Wales, v° Penegos.. I have scarcely any doubt that this spring has the name of St. Cadfarch and is an indication of his former cult. For everywhere in Wales and in the rest of western Europe springs of that kind still exist. Nor is it surprising: for since before Christian doctrine was established divine honours were everywhere paid to springs, or other superstitions were practised about them, nothing was more opportune (as was done with regard to superstitious banquets and other things at the beginning of the church, and as Pope St. Gregory urged should be done in England also) nothing, I say, was more opportune for taking away those false religions than that in a new and Christian manner men should thereafter drink from those springs in honour or memory of the saints, whether those saints had also used them in their time, or had once blessed them, or whether every year, the prayers of the same being implored, God should be asked by the presbyters that the men who used them might be well, as the Russians and other Orientals still do with very great annual solemnity.

[3] and in Aber erch. Aber erch, where St. Cadfarch founded the other church, lies likewise in North Wales, namely in the county of Caernavon. Its situation is indicated by the very name; for since Aber signifies the mouth of a river or stream, it is clear enough from this that the parish lies near the Irish sea or St. George's channel, where the stream Erch runs into the sea. The church, however, does not have the title of St. Cadfarch, but of St. Cwerda Carlisle, A top. diction. of Wales, V° Aber erch., otherwise unknown to me, unless she is the same as St. Gourda.

[4] A little on SS. Cadfan, Tangwn, Maethlu, Gourda and Jestin That St. Cadfarch lived, or rather died, between the year 542 and 566 the distinguished Rice Rees relates; with which assertions agree the notices which Carlisle received from those parts Ibid. Glossary, pag. XXX., relating that this saint flourished in the middle of the VIth century. And in fact in this age also lived St. Tangwn or Tanwg, who is said to be his brother and is reported to have come to those parts at the beginning of the VIth century with St. Cadfan from Armorica Ibid. pag. XXXIX.; and similarly St. Maethlu, also said to be St. Cadfarch's brother, and another glory of the Welsh church of the middle of the VIth century Ibid. pag. XXXVII.. I shall add in conclusion, since perhaps nothing more will be said in our work of St. Thangwn, that the parish of Llan Goed, that is, in Latin, of the Cell or Wooden Church, is two miles distant towards the north from Beaumaris, the chief town of the island of Mona. Its sacred building, however, is dedicated not to the name of St. Thangwn, but of St. Gourda; and two chapels which are attached to the parish, the one Llanfihangel Tyn Sylwy, the other Llan Jestyn, have as patrons St. Michael the archangel and St. Jestin or Justin, a king, inscribed in the calendars at the 12th day of April.

* Anglesey.