In Wales and England, this saint is known by his birth and baptismal name Kentigern (Welsh: Cyndeyrn). This name probably comes from the British*Cuno-tigernos, which is composed of the elements *cun, a hound, and *tigerno, a lord, prince, or king. The evidence is based on the Old Welsh record Conthigirn(i).[2] Other etymologies have been suggested, including British *Kintu-tigernos 'chief prince' based on the English form Kentigern, but the Old Welsh form above and Old EnglishCundiʒeorn do not appear to support this.[3]
Particularly in Scotland, he is known by the pet name Mungo, possibly derived from the Cumbric equivalent of the Welsh: fy nghu 'my dear (one)'.[4] The Mungo pet name or hypocorism has a Gaelic parallel in the form Mo Choe or Mo Cha, under which guise Kentigern appears in Kirkmahoe, for example, in Dumfriesshire, which appears as ecclesia Sancti Kentigerni in the Arbroath Liber in 1321. An ancient church in Bromfield, Cumbria, is named after him, as are Crosthwaite Parish Church and some other churches in the northern part of Cumbria, for example St Mungo's Church, Dearham.
Biographers
The Life of Saint Mungo was written by the monastichagiographerJocelyn of Furness in about 1185.[5] Jocelyn states that he rewrote the 'life' from an earlier Glasgow legend and an Old Irish document. There are certainly two other medieval lives: the earlier partial life in the Cottonian manuscript now in the British Library, and the later Life, based on Jocelyn, by John of Tynemouth.
Life
Saint Mungo (University of Glasgow)
Mungo's mother Teneu was a princess, the daughter of King Lleuddun (Latin: Leudonus) who ruled a territory around what is now Lothian in Scotland, perhaps the kingdom of Gododdin in the Old North. She became pregnant after being raped by Owain mab Urien according to the British Library manuscript. However, other historic accounts claim Owain and Teneu (also known as Thaney) had a love affair whilst he was still married to his wife Penarwen and that her father, King Lot, separated the pair after she became pregnant. Later, allegedly, after Penarwen died, Tenue/Thaney returned to King Owain and the pair were able to marry before King Owain met his death battling Bernicia in 597 AD.
Her furious father had her thrown from the heights of Traprain Law. Surviving, she was then abandoned in a coracle in which she drifted across the Firth of Forth to Culross in Fife. There Mungo was born.[6]
Mungo was brought up by Saint Serf who was ministering to the Picts in that area. It was Serf who gave him his popular pet-name. At the age of twenty-five, Mungo began his missionary labours on the Clyde, on the site of modern Glasgow. He built his church across the water from an extinct volcano, next to the Molendinar Burn, where the present medieval cathedral now stands. For some thirteen years, he laboured in the district, living a most austere life in a small cell and making many converts by his holy example and his preaching.[7]
A strong anti-Christian movement in Strathclyde, headed by a certain King Morken, compelled Mungo to leave the district, and he retired to Wales, via Cumbria, staying for a time with Saint David at St David's, and afterwards moving on to Gwynedd where he founded a cathedral at Llanelwy (St Asaph in English). While there, he undertook a pilgrimage to Rome. However, the new King of Strathclyde, Riderch Hael, invited Mungo to return to his kingdom.[8] He decided to go and appointed Saint Asaph/Asaff as Bishop of Llanelwy in his place.
For some years, Mungo fixed his Episcopal seat at Hoddom in Dumfriesshire, evangelising thence the district of Galloway. He eventually returned to Glasgow where a large community grew up around him. It was nearby, in Kilmacolm, that he was visited by Saint Columba, who was at that time labouring in Strathtay. The two saints embraced, held long converse, and exchanged their pastoral staves.[8] In old age, Mungo became very feeble and his chin had to be set in place with a bandage. He is said to have died in his bath, on Sunday 13 January.
Miracles
In the Life of Saint Mungo, he performed four miracles in Glasgow. The following verse is used to remember Mungo's four miracles:
Here is the bird that never flew Here is the tree that never grew Here is the bell that never rang Here is the fish that never swam[9]
The Bird: Mungo restored life to a robin that had been killed by some of his classmates.[6]
The Tree: Mungo had been left in charge of a fire in Saint Serf's monastery. He fell asleep and the fire went out. Taking a hazel branch, he restarted the fire.[10]
The Bell: the bell is thought to have been brought by Mungo from Rome. It was said to have been used in services and to mourn the dead. The original bell no longer exists, and a replacement, created in the 1640s, is now on display in Glasgow.
The Fish: refers to the story about Queen Languoreth of Strathclyde who was suspected of infidelity by her husband. King Riderch demanded to see her ring, which he claimed she had given to her lover. In reality the King had thrown it into the River Clyde. Faced with execution she appealed for help to Mungo, who ordered a messenger to catch a fish in the river. On opening the fish, the ring was miraculously found inside, which allowed the Queen to clear her name. (This story may be confused with an almost identical one concerning King Maelgwn of Gwynedd and Saint Asaph.)
Analysis
Mungo's ancestry is recorded in the Bonedd y Saint. His father, Owain was a King of Rheged. His maternal grandfather, Lleuddun, was probably a King of the Gododdin; Lothian was named after him. There seems little reason to doubt that Mungo was one of the first evangelists of Strathclyde, under the patronage of King Rhiderch Hael, and probably became the first Bishop of Glasgow.
Jocelin seems to have altered parts of the original life that he did not understand; while adding others, like the trip to Rome, that served his own purposes, largely the promotion of the Bishopric of Glasgow. Some new parts may have been collected from genuine local stories, particularly those of Mungo's work in Cumbria. S. Mundahl-Harris has shown that Mungo's associations with St Asaph were a Norman invention.[citation needed] However, in Scotland, excavations at Hoddom have brought confirmation of early Christian activity there, uncovering a late 6th-century stone baptistery.
Details of Mungo's infirmity have a ring of authenticity about them. The year of Mungo's death is sometimes given as 603, but is recorded in the Annales Cambriae as 612. 13 January was a Sunday in both 603 and 614. David McRoberts has argued that his death in the bath is a garbled version of his collapse during a baptismal service.
In a late 15th-century fragmentary manuscript generally called 'Lailoken and Kentigern', Mungo appears in conflict with the mad prophet, Lailoken alias Merlin. Lailoken's appearance at the Battle of Arfderydd in 573 has led to a connection being made between this battle, the rise of Riderch Hael and the return of Mungo to Strathclyde.
The Life of Saint Mungo bears similarities with Chrétien de Troyes's French romance Yvain, the Knight of the Lion. In Chrétien's story, Yvain, a version of Owain mab Urien, courts and marries Laudine, only to leave her for a period to go adventuring. This suggests that the works share a common source.[11]
On the spot where Mungo was buried now stands the cathedral dedicated in his honour. His shrine was a great centre of Christian pilgrimage until the Scottish Reformation. His remains are said to still rest in the crypt. A spring called "St. Mungo's Well" fell eastwards from the apse.
His festival was kept throughout Scotland on 13 January. The Bollandists have printed a special mass for this feast, dating from the 13th century. His feast day in the West is 13 January. His feast day in the Eastern Orthodox Church is 14 January.
Mungo's four religious miracles in Glasgow are represented in the city's coat of arms. Glasgow's current mottoLet Glasgow flourish by the preaching of His word and the praising of His name and the more secular Let Glasgow flourish, are both inspired by Mungo's original call "Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the word".[10]
Saint Mungo's Well was a cold water spring and bath at Copgrove, near Ripon, North Yorkshire, formerly believed effective for treating rickets.[12][13]
Glasgow Fire Brigade also named their fireboatSt. Mungo, which served the around the Clyde from 1959 to 1975.[14]
Another church established by the saint himself was St Kentigern's Church of Lanark, founded shortly before his death, and which now stands in ruins. Another church called St Kentigern's was built in the town in the late 19th century. It is still present but has been converted to housing and office space.[17][18]
In Alloa, a chapel dedicated to St. Mungo is thought to have been erected during the fourteenth or fifteenth-century. The present Church of ScotlandSt. Mungo's Parish Church in Alloa was built in 1817.
In Cumbernauld, there is St. Mungo's Parish Church in the centre of the New Town.
In the Lake District village of Caldbeck there is a church and a well named after him. The Cumbrian parish churches at Crossthwaite in Keswick, Mungrisdale, Castle Sowerby, and Irthington are also dedicated to St Kentigern. There are two Cumbrian churches dedicated to St Mungo, one at Bromfield (also a well and castle) and one at Dearham.
There is a St Kentigern's school and church in Blackpool.
In Falkirk, there is a St. Mungo's High School.
In Grinsdale, Cumbria there is a church venerated to St. Kentigern.
Also in Cumbria, there are two Greek Orthodox Communities venerated to St. Mungo/Kentigern, one in Dalton-in-Furness and the other in Keswick.
In Fallowfield, a suburb of the city of Manchester, a Roman Catholic church is dedicated to Saint Kentigern.
St Kentigern's is a small Roman Catholic Church in the village of Eyeries, on the Beara peninsula in West Cork, Ireland.[19]
There is a United Church of Canada charge in Cushing Quebec Canada, Saint Mungo's United Church. Built in the 1836 originally as a Church of Scotland, it has recently been restored for its 180th anniversary.
Although secular, the English charity for the support and empowerment of the homeless, St. Mungo's, was named after the saint by its founder. The Glasgow-born Harry Stone named it in honour of the patron saint of his birth city when the charity was established in 1969.[20][21] Saint Mungo's runs hostels, outreach, emergency shelters, and employment and training services. It provides an online and in-person "Recovery College" free to its students.[22]
St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries is the primary hospital of Magical Britain in the Harry Potter series of books by J. K. Rowling.[9]
↑ Jackson, Kenneth (1953). Language and History in Early Britain. Edinburgh University Press. p.676. ISBN1-85182-140-6.
↑ It may also be worth noting that the Welsh cynt and Cornish and Breton equivalents mean 'sooner, earlier, prior' and not 'chief' as is assumed by the derivation. Suggestions that the name may derive from British *Kon-tigern with *kom- 'with' (cognate with the Latin com-, con-, co-) are unfounded. The element is barely known in Brythonic personal names and the meaning 'co-prince' or 'our ruler' (sic.) seems unlikely as a birth name. Moreover, the Brit. Kontigernos would have rendered Welsh *Cynteyrn which does not occur.[citation needed]
↑ However the meaning is disputed; as noted in Donald Attwater's The Penguin Dictionary of Saints, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1965; p. 213
↑ On this life by Jocelin, i.e. the Vita Kentigerni, see Lindsay McArthur Irvin, "Building a British Identity: Jocelin of Furness's use of sources in Vita Kentigerni, in Identity and Alterity in Hagiography and the Cult of Saints, eds. Ana Mariković & Trpimir Vedriš; Zagreb: Hagiotheca, 2010; pp. 103–17.
↑ Duggan, Joseph J. (1987). In Chrétien de Troyes; Burton Raffel, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, pp. 214–216. Yale University Press.
↑ "The grandchildren of Lady Anne Clifford were sent to Utrecht in 1655 for the treatment of rickets and returned two years later in a man-of-war. On their return they were taken off to St Mungo's well, near Knaresborough, for further treatment by cold bathing." (Swinburne, L. M. "Rickets and the Fairfax family receipt books" Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 99, 2006:391–95).
The Magnificent Gael [Reginald B. Hale] 1976, World Media Productions* Baring-Gould, Sabine & Fisher, John (1907: 2000) Lives of the British Saints. 8 vols. Felinfach: Llanerch (Facsim. reprint in 8 parts of the 4 vol. ed. published: London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1907–1913.)
Davies, John Reuben, "Bishop Kentigern among the Britons," in Boardman, Steve, John Reuben Davies, Eila Williamson (eds), Saints' Cults in the Celtic World (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2009) (Studies in Celtic History),
Delaney, John J. (1983) Pocket Dictionary of Saints. Image Books.
Lowe, Chris (1999) Angels, Fools and Tyrants. Edinburgh: Canongate Books & Historic Scotland
Wade-Evans, A. W. (1934) Welsh Christian Origins. Oxford: Alden Press
McArthur Irvin, Lindsay, "Building a British Identity: Jocelin of Furness's Use of Sources in Vita Kentigerni," in Identity and Alterity in Hagiography and the Cult ofSaints, eds. Ana Marinkovic and Trpimir Vedris (Zagreb: Hagiotheca, 2010), 103–117
Strathclyde was a Brittonic kingdom in northern Britain during the Middle Ages. It comprised parts of what is now southern Scotland and North West England, a region the Welsh referred to as Yr Hen Ogledd. At its greatest extent in the 10th century, it stretched from Loch Lomond to the River Eamont at Penrith. Strathclyde seems to have been annexed by the Goidelic-speaking Kingdom of Alba in the 11th century, becoming part of the emerging Kingdom of Scotland.
Owain mab Urien was the son of Urien, king of Rheged c. 590, and fought with his father against the Angles of Bernicia. The historical figure of Owain became incorporated into the Arthurian cycle of legends where he is also known as Ywain, Yvain, Ewain or Uwain. In his legendary guise he is the main character in Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain, the Knight of the Lion and the Welsh Romance Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain, which corresponds to Chrétien's poem.
Myrddin Wyllt is a figure in medieval Welsh legend. In Middle Welsh poetry he is accounted a chief bard, the speaker of several poems in The Black Book of Carmarthen and The Red Book of Hergest. He is called Wyllt—"the Wild"—by Elis Gruffydd, and elsewhere Myrddin Emrys ("Ambrosius"), Merlinus Caledonensis or Merlin Sylvestris("of the woods"). Myrddin Wylt was born in 540 CE.
King Lot, also spelled Loth or Lott, is a British monarch in Arthurian legend. He was introduced in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae as King Arthur's brother-in-law, who serves as regent of Britain between the reigns of Uther Pendragon and Arthur. He has appeared regularly in works of chivalric romance, alternating between the roles of Arthur's enemy and ally, and is often depicted as the ruler of Lothian and either Norway or Orkney. His literary character is likely derived from hagiographical material concerning Saint Kentigern, which features Leudonus as king of Leudonia and father of Saint Teneu.
Lailoken was a semi-legendary madman and prophet who lived in the Caledonian Forest in the late 6th century. The Life of Saint Kentigern mentions "a certain foolish man, who was called Laleocen" living at or near the village of Peartnach (Partick) within the Kingdom of Strathclyde. Laleocen correctly prophesied the death of King Rhydderch Hael.
Yvain, the Knight of the Lion is an Arthurian romance by French poet Chrétien de Troyes. It was written c. 1180 simultaneously with Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and includes several references to the narrative of that poem. It is a story of knight-errantry, in which the protagonist Yvain is first rejected by his lady for breaking a very important promise, and subsequently performs a number of heroic deeds in order to regain her favour. The poem has been adapted into several other medieval works, including Iwein and Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain.
Sir Ywain, also known as Yvain and Owain among other spellings, is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend, wherein he is often the son of King Urien of Gorre and either the enchantress Modron or the sorceress Morgan le Fay. The historical Owain mab Urien, on whom the literary character is based, was the king of Rheged in Great Britain during the late 6th century.
The Three Welsh Romances are three Middle Welsh tales associated with the Mabinogion. They are versions of Arthurian tales that also appear in the work of Chrétien de Troyes. Critics have debated whether the Welsh Romances are based on Chrétien's poems or if they derive from a shared original. The Romances survive in the White Book of Rhydderch and the Red Book of Hergest, both from the 14th century, though the material is at least as old as Chrétien.
Saint Asaph was, in the second half of the 6th century, the first Bishop of St Asaph, i.e. bishop of the diocese of Saint Asaph.
Laudine is a character in Chrétien de Troyes's 12th-century romance Yvain, or, The Knight with the Lion and all of its adaptations, which include the Welsh tale of Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain and the German epic Iwein by Hartmann von Aue. Usually known as the Lady of the Fountain, she becomes the wife of the poem's protagonist, Yvain, one of the knights of King Arthur's Round Table, after he kills her husband, but later spurns the knight-errant when he neglects her for heroic adventure, only to take him back in the end.
Arthuret is a civil parish in the Carlisle district of Cumbria, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 2,434, increasing to 2,471 at the 2011 Census. The parish includes the town of Longtown and the village of Easton. It is bounded by the River Esk to the west and the River Lyne to the south.
Rhydderch Hael, Riderch I of Alt Clut, or Rhydderch of Strathclyde, was a ruler of Alt Clut, a Brittonic kingdom in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North" of Britain. He was one of the most famous kings in the Hen Ogledd, and appears frequently in later medieval works in Welsh and Latin.
Jocelin was a twelfth-century Cistercian monk and cleric who became the fourth Abbot of Melrose before becoming Bishop of Glasgow, Scotland. He was probably born in the 1130s, and in his teenage years became a monk of Melrose Abbey. He rose in the service of Abbot Waltheof, and by the time of the short abbacy of Waltheof's successor Abbot William, Jocelin had become prior. Then in 1170 Jocelin himself became abbot, a position he held for four years. Jocelin was responsible for promoting the cult of the emerging Saint Waltheof, and in this had the support of Enguerrand, Bishop of Glasgow.
Teneu is a legendary Christian saint who was venerated in medieval Glasgow, Scotland. Traditionally she was a sixth-century Brittonic princess of the ancient kingdom of Gododdin and the mother of Saint Mungo, apostle to the Britons of Strathclyde and founder of the city of Glas Ghu (Glasgow). She and her son are regarded as the city's co-patrons, and Glasgow's St Enoch Square allegedly marks the site of a medieval chapel dedicated to her, built on or near her grave. She is commemorated annually on 18 July.
Constantine was reputedly the son and successor of King Riderch Hael of Alt Clut, the Brittonic kingdom later known as Strathclyde. He appears only in the Life of St. Kentigern by Jocelyn of Furness, which regards him as a cleric, thus connecting him with the several obscure saints named Constantine venerated throughout Britain.
Jocelyn of Furness was an English Cistercian hagiographer, known for his Lives of Saint Waltheof, Saint Patrick, Saint Kentigern and Saint Helena of Constantinople. He is probably responsible for the popular legendary association of Saint Patrick with snakes, which he purportedly cast out of Ireland.
Saint Constantine is the name of one or many British or Pictish saints.
This is a list of saints associated with the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd, including Elmet, Rheged, Gododin, Manaw, Lleuddiniawn and Ystrad Clud.
The Vita Sancti Kentigerni is a hagiography of Saint Kentigern written circa 1200 by Jocelyn of Furness.
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