island of Beokery'. Beokery, as we shall be told later, means 'Little Ireland'.[1]
The information here given as to St Benignus is not in G. R.3, save for a brief sentence as to his miracles. But what G. R.3 does give us corresponds with what comes much later in De Antiquitate (p. 46). The little section on St Columkill is also wanting in G. R.3, which goes on to speak of St David.
Of St David the Archbishop.
In what reverence the place was held by the great St David, archbishop of the Menevensians, is well known. He came with his seven bishops, thinking to consecrate the church. At night the Lord appeared to him and warned him that He Himself had dedicated it in honour of His Mother. As a sign He pierced his hand, but promised that it should be healed when in the morrow's mass he should reach the words ' by Him and with Him and in Him[2] So then he quickly built another church, and consecrated that.
Of the Relics of St David.
St David died in a. d. 546. Some say that he was laid with St Patrick in the Old Church; and this is supported by the pilgrims from Wales, who declare that Bernard, bishop of Rosina Vallis, sought him elsewhere in vain. But how his remains came from Rosina Vallis to Glastonbury we will explain. A matron in K. Edgar's time, named Ælswitha, obtained them through a kinsman who was bishop there, when the land was so laid waste that almost all deserted it; and she bestowed them upon Glastonbury.
Of Relics brought from Wales to Glastonbury.
Welsh pilgrims, on the way to visit Rome, deposited bodies of their saints and other relics at Glastonbury. This translation of St David took place in A.D. 962.
The first of these sections occurs in full in G. R.3 In the second the date is an amplification, as is the mention of Rosina Vallis in connexion with Bishop Bernard's name.[3] So also is the story about iElswitha. The third section is not in G. R.3, which passes on to speak of the mission of St Augustine. What follows in the De Antiquitate is found much earlier in G. R.3 (p. 24).
- ↑ A small island in Wexford harbour bears the same name—Begerin or Begery. A monastery was founded there by St Ibar, and in the Life of that saint it is translated 'Parva Hibernia' (P. W. Joyce, Irish Names of Places, ii. 415 f.).
- ↑ These words come in the Canon of the Mass after the Consecration and before the Lord's Prayer, in the clause 'Nobis quoque peccatoribus'. The corresponding passage in our Prayer Book is: 'Not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences; through Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom and with whom in the unity', &c.
- ↑ Bernard was bishop of St David's 1115–47. 'Rosina Vallis' does not appear in W. of M. as an alternative to Menevia.
