Saint Gwinear

This article is about the saint. For the village, see Gwinear, Cornwall. For the civil parish of Gwinear-Gwithian, see Gwinear-Gwithian.

Saint

Gwinear
Statue of St Gwinear at Pluvigner, Brittany
Martyr
BornIreland
Died6th century
Hayle, Cornwall
Venerated inCatholic Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
CanonizedPre-Congregation
Feast23 March
"Saint Gwinear and his companions land on the shores of the river Auray"; a stained glass window in Saint Guigner church, Pluvigner (Morbihan, France)

Gwinear, Guigner, was a Celtic martyr, one of only two early Cornish saints whose biographies survived the Reformation. The Life of Gwinear was written in the early 14th century by a priest named Anselm, and has sometimes been printed among the works of Anselm of Canterbury.[Notes 1] His feast day is March 23.

Born in Ireland with the Irish name of Fingar, he was converted to Christianity by Saint Patrick and after spending time in Brittany went with 7 (or 777) companions to Cornwall, landing at Hayle, where he was martyred by King Teudar.[Notes 2][1][2] Gwinear was said to have died with his followers by being thrown into a pit of reptiles. An alternative version sets the story in Brittany with Guigner being martyred at the hands of Prince Tewdwr.[3]

The Victorian clergyman, hagiographer and antiquary Sabine Baring-Gould believed that an Irish group, driven from their homeland in Ossory in the fifth century, invaded Penwith (="pen-gwaeth", the "bloody headland"), and that the legend of Gwinear was a distorted recollection of these events.[4]

  1. ^ a b Doble, G. H. (1960) The Saints of Cornwall: part 1. Truro: Dean and Chapter; pp. 100-110
  2. ^ Ogden, R. A. The Life of Saint Gwinear [play originally written for Penzance Girls' Grammar School], in: Ogden, R. A., An Unknown Planet?, Park Corner Press, Warrington, 2008; pp. 1-52
  3. ^ Ferrar, John William (1920). The Saints of Cornwall. London: Society for promoting christian knowledge. p. 15.
  4. ^ Baring-Gould, Sabine, 1899, A Book of the West: Cornwall, Methuen, pp 285, 305


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