The Miracles of Saint David: A New Text and Its Context

Abstract

The passage of time has not been kind to materials related to the cathedral of Saint David's in Wales. In particular, few medieval liturgical texts used in the commemoration of Welsh saints have survived the vicissitudes of time and the ardor of Reformation zealots. In 1940 Silas Harris lamented the “complete destruction of the Menevian [Saint David's] service books,” and noted that “the almost total destruction of Welsh MSS and service books in the course of the centuries leaves a woeful gap” in our knowledge of the liturgical celebration of the feasts of Welsh saints. So thorough was the destruction of Welsh service books, according to Harris, that our current knowledge of the liturgy for Saint David derives largely from texts preserved outside of Wales. The destruction was nowhere more thorough than at the cathedral of Saint David's itself, two of whose bishops, William Barlow (1536–48) and Robert Ferrar (1548–53), were willing participants in the destruction. On 31 March 1538, Barlow wrote to Thomas Cromwell for instructions on how to dispose of certain of the cathedral's relics and “a worm-eaten book covered with silver plate” which he had confiscated. Some twelve years later, Barlow's successor, Bishop Robert Ferrar, following the king's command, “burnt all ye Martyrologies, portiforiums, & antient Mis-sales of ye Cathedral Church of Saint David, with their calenders, wherein were entered ye names of ye Bishops & ye days and years of their entrance & death or translation.” Later, in 1571, “certain ungodly popish books: as masse books, hympnals, Grailes, Antiphons, and suche lik” belonging to the cathedral, but which had been hidden away by a church sexton named Elis ap Howel, were seized by a “Mr. Chanter” (= the Precentor, Thomas Huett?), who “caused the said ungodly books to be canceled and torn in pieces in the Vestrie before his face.” Not everything was lost however. Owain Tudor Edwards's publication in 1990 of the services for Saint David's feast in the Penpont Antiphonal did much to close the “woeful gap” in our knowledge of the liturgical celebration of the feast of Saint David. Two more texts connected with Saint David's cathedral have recently come to light, preserved in BL MS Royal 13 C.i. The first of these, five lecciones (lessons or readings) based on episodes in the life of Saint Nonita, the mother of Saint David (sixth century), the patron saint of Wales, was intended to be read at a service for Saint Nonita (or Non) on her feast day. These five lecciones Sancte Nonite, consisting of a heading and thirty-eight lines of text, provide the only surviving material from an office for the feast of Saint Nonita. The second text, consisting of eleven accounts of posthumous miracles effected by Saint David between about 1215–29 and 1405, is the subject of this study.