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* Gilbert H. DOBBLE : The saints of Cornwall.

SAINTS OF THE FAL

SAINT BUDOC* 

PATRON OF BUDOCK

It was probably from the similarity between the later Breton form of the name Budoc, Beuzec 1, and the Breton word beuzi, which means "drown," that the well-known story about the birth of Saint Budoc grew up. It is first round in the Chronicle of Saint-Brieuc (before 1420).2. Budoc's mother was the beautiful and holy Azenor, daughter of the king of Brest,3 where one of the great towers of the castle still bears her name. Her hand was sought in marriage by the count of Goëllo, an ancient feudal lordship in Northern Brittany, lying on the west of the Bay of Saint-Brieuc. Some time afterwards her father, while hunting, was bitten by a serpent, which fastened on his bare arm and hung there, draining the life-blood of its victim. Azenor came, and, to deliver her father from the serpent, anointed her breast with oil and milk. The serpent left her father and sprang at Azenor, fixing its fangs in her breast, which she cut off with a sharp knife and flung, together with the serpent, into the flames. To reward her for her filial piety, God healed Azenor, and gave her a breast of gold.4  Her father had married again. Azenor's step-mother was jealous of her. She revealed to the count of Goëllo the secret of the golden breast, and falsely accused Azenor of infidelity to her husband. The virtuous Azenor in vain protested her innocence. She was placed in a cask, which was thrown into the sea and drifted away down the english channel. Aeznor, putting her hole trust in God, who protects the righteaous, invoked the aid of her patron saint Brigid - the favourite female saint of Celtic Christianity, "the Mary of the gael". (this detail suggests a fairly early origin for the legend). Soon a bright light shone in the dark cask, and the angel of the lord, who "tarrieth round about them  that fear him, bringing her food and bidding her eat. 

Each day he came, while the cask continued to drift west and north towards the shores of Ireland, and with him Azenor often saw S. Brigid appear. After five months a boy was born in the cask. His mother took him in her arms, made the sign of the cross over him, and prayed to God. No sooner had she finished her prayer than the Lord opened the mouth of the new-born babe, and he said, "Be of good cheer, dear mother, we have nothing to fear. God is with us, we are near the end of our voyage, and the time of consolation God promised us by his angel is at hand." Shortly afterwards the sound of the waves lapping against the cask ceased, and Azenor knew that they had corne to land. It was the coast of Ireland, close to the abbey of Beau Port, near Waterford. A villager saw something on the shore, and ran down to it, thinking it was a barrel of wine. He was just going to drive a gimlet into it when he heard a child's voice from within bid him have a care. He ran back to tell the abbot of Beau Port, who came down with several of his monks, opened the cask, and found a beautiful woman and a baby smiling and kissing its hand to them. The child was baptized next day and given the name of Beuzec, because he was found in the water. His mother earned her living as a washer-woman in the village, and the child grew up in the abbey school.5

Meanwhile the wicked step-mother at Brest fell ill. Realizing that she was going to die, and seeing the mouth of Hell yawning to receive her, she confessed that she had falsely accused Azenor. The count of Goëllo, in despair at the terrible consequences of his rash suspicions and hasty judgement, took ship and set out to seek the wife he had wronged. After long searching. he came to the Irish coast, and at last found his wife and child. He died, however, before they could return to Brittany. Azenor and Budoc remained at Beau Port, and Azenor died there.

Budoc had now grown up. He became a priest and a monk in the abbey of Beau Port, and on the death of the abbot was chosen to succeed him. The people of that part of Ireland, knowing his royal birth, made him by force archbishop and king (The province and see are not named). But after two years, despairing of ever being able to civilize his barbarous flock, he resolved secretly to leave the island and return to Brittany. Finding no ship ready, he embarked on a stone coffin, was quickly wafted over the sea, and landed near Brest, at Porspoder, where the parish church is now dedicated to him. He remained a year at Porspoder, preaching and converting heretics and idolaters. Then he moved further inland, taking his stone comn with him, to Plourin, a league away, where he built a chapel and hermitage. The people of Plourin regard Budoc as their first rector, but their ancestors found him too plain-spoken. Irritated at his censure of their vices, they resolved to slay him; to avoid bringing on them the guilt of such a crime, he left Plourin, and went to Saint-Pol-de-Leon, and placed his resignation in the hands of the bishop (whose name is not given), to the latter's great regret. From there he went eastwards to Dol.

The archbishop of Dol, S. Magloire, was at this very moment thinking of resigning his see and spending the rest of his days in retirement, in some "desert" (hermitage). He persuaded Budoc to take his place. The divine approval of Magloire's action was manifested by an angelic vision, seen by him in a dream. Budoc then journeyed to Rome, and was courteously received by Pope Gregory the Great, who confirmed his election to the metropolitan see of Dol, and gave him the pallium. For twenty years Budoc governed the church of Dol, showing an example of all the virtues which have distinguished the most famous bishops in the annals of the Church, but no detail of any of his doings during these years is recorded. Before his death he absolved his former rebellious parishioners at Plourin, and commanded one of his chaplains, called Hydultus, to separate from his body, as soon as he should have died, his right arm, and take it to his old parish. Albert Le Grand adds that it was formerly the custom at Plourin to cause the oaths administered in judicial proceedings to be made over the relics of S. Budoc, which were placed for this purpose on his ship of stone, and that anyone who where there took a false oath never failed to be signally punished for his perjury before a year and a day had passed. These relies are still preserved in a beautiful old silver reliquary in the parish church of Plourin"..

Such is the legend of S. Budoc, as it was finally elaborated in the seventeenth century. It is one of the most charming stories in Celtic hagiography,6  but the incidents it contains are not, of course, historical. The personage however around whom these picturesque fairy tales have been woven is undoubtedly a historical character. We have sources of information about him more trustworthy than the Chronicle of Saint-Bricuc and the "Wonderful Story of Saint Budoc, Archbishop of Dol" of Albert Le Grand. 

Both the Life of S. Magloire, written about the year 900, and the Chronicle of Dol (eleventh century) tell us that S. Budoc was the successor of S. Magloire as bishop of Dol.  But the memory of S. Budoc was chiefly cherished in the islands of Paimpol which formed an enclave (isolated portion) of the see of  Dol down to the French Revolution. The author of the Life os S. Winwaloe, written at Landevennec not later than 884, describes Budoc a venerated teacher, "an angelic minister, richly endowed with learning, conspicuous for righteousness, whom all of that time regarded as a bulwark of the faith and a most firm pillar of the Church," dwelling in the island of Laurea, where Winwaloe was brought up from childhood as his pupil. In the Life of S. Maudez, on the other hand, we find Bothmael  and Tudy as the two disciples of this saint, living whith him on the Ile Modez, close to the Ile Lavret. Bothmael or Budmael is the complete form of the name Budoc : boudi in Old Celtic means "victory" and "profit," and appears in the name of the famous British Queen Boudicca, mis-spelt Boadicea.7   It is as "Sancte Budmail" that Budoc is invoked in the eleventh century Litany of Saint-Vougay.

In Cornouaille S. Budoc is the eponym of three parishes, Beuzec-Cap-Sizun, Beuzec-Cap-Caval and Beuzec-Conq. S. Azenor is commemorated in Cap-Sizun, and at Languengar near Lesneven in Leon.

S. Budoc is a "pan-Celtic" saint. He is honoured, not only in Brittany, but in Cornwall at Budock and at Budock Vean in Constantine, and in Devon at St Budeaux on the Tamar. When the antiquary Leland visited Budock in the sixteenth century he was told that "this Budocus was an Irisch man, and cam into Cornewalle, and ther dwellid."8  His name is found in the martyrology in use at Exeter Cathedral, under December 8 : "Item, Sancti Budoci abbatis et confessoris." He was honoured formerly in Wales, in the parish of Steynton on Milford Haven. There was a parish church of S. Budoc at Oxford in the early middle ages.9  The abbey of Glastonbury possessed a relie of S. Budoc, among other relies of Cornish saints.10

We may picture Budock churchtown in the sixth century as a monastery, consisting of a little group of beehive huts, 11 surrounded by an enclosure. In the midst is a tiny church of wood or stone, like the "oratory" of S. Piran at Perranzabulo (on its site now stands the parish church of Budock). There is a well and a stone cross. The huts are the cells of monks whio have come to study with the famous teacher Budoc. . . .

THE CULT OF SAINT BUDOC

The written traditions about S. Budoc come from three entirely distinct and independent sources. There are, first, the traditions of Dol.

In the Vita Maglorii, written by a monk of the abbey of Saint-Magloire at Lehon, near Dinan, not long after the foundation of the abbey in the reign of Nominoë (d. 851), we read that the the saint, having resolved to retire to live a solitary life in Sark, "consecrated a certain man named Budoc, whom he knew well and who had lived from childhood a goodly and religious life in his Company, to take his place as bishop of the church of Dol".

The Chronide of Dol was written in the second half of the eleventh century to defend the claims of the metropolitan see of Dol against those of Tours. After informing us that Maglotius was the first successor of S. Samson, and that he "appointed the holy man Budocus in his platc, and afterwards withdrew into the island of Serch" (a sentence stating that "his body is now at Paris" was afterwards added), the writer continues :  "Of how great sanctity was that holy man Budocus, the precious gifts which he brought back with him from the holy city, Jerusalem, namely the salver and cup which the Lord used at the last supper which he ate with his disciples, bear witness, which also, with other precious relics, removed from the aforesaid  [episcopal] see [of Dol] for fear of the Nortlmen who were plundering the churches, are kept with honour in the city of Orleans, in the basilica of S. Samson". (A century later the followings words were added to this passage : "Whiose holy and glorius body rests in peace in the church of Dol"). This looks like a fragment of the Life of the saint, which (in Duine's opinion) may have been only an oral legend. The pilgrimage to Jerusalem is a characteristic feature of Lives of saints composed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries—it appears, for example, in the Lives of S. Cadoc, S. David, S. Patern, S. Teilo, S. Tudual and S. Petroc.

The Vita Maglorii and the Chronide of Dol can be cited as evidence of the antiquity of the cult of S. Budoc at Dol, but it is clear that when they were composed the true story of the saint had long been forgotten. In the twelfth century Translatio Sancti Maglorii a "tooth of S. Budoc" is included in the list of relics said to have been transported by Bishop Salvator from the abbey of Lehon to Paris for fear they should be profaned by the Danes, so that it is possible that S. Budoc was amongst those specially venerated Breton saints whose bodies were removed into the interior of France when the Northmen occupied Brittany from 914 to 939. S. Budoc continued to be held in honour at Dol. The sixteenth-century Breviary of Dol bas a long proper office of the saint. In 1639 "honnête femme Charlotte Hochard fonda [left a sum of money for celebrating with special solemnity] la Fête de S. Budoc, évesque de Dol et confesseur." There was a chapel of S. Budoc at Landrieuc in Ros-Landrieuc, a few miles west of Dol, before the Revolution (Duine, Saints de Domnonee, p. 3).

Further west, in the country of Goëllo, we find an entirely different set of legends about S. Budoc. The Vita Maudeti tells us that S. Maudez "had with him in the aforesaid island of Gueldenes [now Ile Modez] two disciples, namely Bothmael and Tudy, as faithful companions, in hope of eternal life." The "oratory of S. Bothmael, near the road by which one enters the island" is mentioned, and a story is related of how S. Bothmael was sent by S. Maudez to the mainland to fetch fire, and was surprised by the flowing tide on his return — the rock on which he takes refuge rises higher and higher as the sea rises and preserves him in safety till the tide ebbs again.

Wrdisten, abbot of Landevennec, in his Life of S. Winwaloe, makes the latter a pupil of Budoc in a monastery on another island, separated from the île Modez by the île de Brehat. And it was in this neighbourhood, at the abbey of Beauport near Kerity on the adjacent mainland, that the legend of the birth of S. Budoc, recorded in the Chronicle of Saint-Brieuc, was invented. Beauport, an abbey founded c. 1200, was inhabited by Premonstratensian canons and had absorbed the older Augustinian monastery on the island of Riom close by, and no doubt it had relations with the Augustinian nunnery of Beau Port in Ireland,12 which suggested the fable of the saint's voyage to that country.

We note that in the traditions of Goëllo Budoc appears as an abbot, and it is remarkable that in the Exeter Martyrology he is described as "abbot and confesser," not as bishop, and there is no mention of Dol. There was however a close connection between Dol and the islands near Paimpol.13 They formed part of the chain of enclaves which stretched along the north coast of Brittany. It is significant that in the Life of S. Thuriau, bishop of Dol, this saint's confesser is a monk called Budogan (probably a diminutive form of Budoc) who lives in an island monastery.

There are, fially, the traditions of Plourin. These are very scanty, and may have originated in the fact that the parish church possessed a relic of S. Budoc.14 As the parish was in the diocese of Leon, the canons of the cathedral of Leon desired to have a Life of the patron saint for their new breviary in 1516, and turned to the Chronicle of Saint-Brieuc for materials for lessons, hymns, etc. (The canons of Dol followed their exampl in 1519). In dealing with the saint's stay at Porspoder and Plourin, Albert Le Grand follows the Leon lessons verbatim. The kalendar of the 1530 Missal of Vannes contains the entry Budoci episcopi Venetensis under December 9.15 There is clearly some confusion here. Duine thought that it might be meant for S. Bieuzy.

Let us now see what light the study of topography may give in our efforts to recover the true story of this once-Limons saint.

It is very remarkable that there are no places called after S. Budoc in the districts in Brittany where legends about him are found, while they abound in Cornouaille, where there is no liturgical cult of the saint — his name is not found in any kalendar of the diocese of Quimper (though it is true that liturgical books of the diocese of Cornouaille are relatively rare).

There are parishes called after Beuzec in the two great promontories west and south of Quimper called Cap-Sizun and Cap-Caval. In Beuzec-Cap-Sizun is a place called Les-veuzec, i.e. the Court-house or Residence of Beuzec.16 In the parish of Mahalon, a few miles south of Beuzec-Cap-Sizun, is a place named Treveuzec, and a Pont-Croix deed dated 1730 mentions a Trobeuzec in the parish of Meilars a little to the east. In the parish of Plomeur, near Pont l'Abbe, which now contains what remains of the old parish church of Beuzec-Cap-Caval, there is another chapel dedicated to him, and a field Parc-bras-Beuzec (= the Great Field of Beuzec).17 There are thus six places named after Beuzec in this one district. Further along the coast eastwards, on the Bay of La Forêt, near Concarneau, is the parish of Beuzec-Conq. In the north of Cornouaille, on the Aulne, near Landevennec, he is patron of the parish of Tregarvan. In Leon, besides being the patron of Plourin and Porspoder, he has a chapel in Landunvez close by.

All these places, we notice, are on the water's edge, or at any rate quite close to the sea.

Saint Azenor was the patron of the little parish of Languengar, adjoining Lesneven, in Leon. The church was demolished in 1832. In 1790 it contained "an image of the patron saint, in silver, in which relies are enclosed." The saint is now called Saint Enori. The holy well, known as Feunteun Santez-Enori, is still visited by mothers whose milk is insufficient to nourish their babies. It has a plain Latin cross behind it. A pilgrimage of the parish to Notre-Dame-de-Lesneven on 16 June 1674 is described in the accounts of that church as the "Procession de Sainte Enori de Languengar." A reredos in the ossuary at Porspoder represents the mother of S. Budoc. In 1421 a woman named Azenor Moal gave the church ol Notrc-Dame-de-Folgoat a field, called Parc Azenor.18 In the church of Plogoff, near Beuzec-Cap-Sizun, a sixteenth-century capital represents Azenor in a boat with her baby. At the village of Cou-Gueriou, in the parish of Goulien between Plogoff and Beuzec, there is said to have been a convent and holy well of Ste Azenor.19

It has been stated that the story of Budoc and Azenor appears among the fifteenth-century pictures painted on the roof of the chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Tertre at Chatelaudren, but M. Bourde de La Rogerie tells me that this has been proved to be a mistake : the pictures have been cleaned, and turn out to be a series representing the story of S. Margarct.

In Cornwall S. Budoc is the eponym of the parish of Budock, where his cuit still flourished in the sixteenth century, as we have seen; and also of the destroyed chapel of Budoc Vean in Constantine. This chapel "stood in its own graveyard on the north-west side of the house. There are no remains of it now. The site is planted with trees. Close by is a well with a comparatively modem building over it, but probably thc former holy well. The chapel was used for worship until the Reformation."20

It has been suggested that Azenor may be the eponym of Zennor in Cornwall.

In Devon S. Budoc is the patron of St Budeaux (Seynt Bodokkys 1520, cum capellis s' cor Budoc 1535, St Budock chirche in Leland's Itinerary, Budocke in inventory of 1553, St Budiox in Registers of 1610 and other documents, and on some of the communion plate, Saint Buddox 1796 — this spelling indicates the pronunciation which long survived locally). The manor of Budshead in this parish (Buddekeshyde 1242, capella de Bottockiside 1334, Budockyshyde 1440) which means "The hide of land of Saint Budoc," appears in Domesday as Bucheside.21

Once more, S. Budoc was honoured in Pembrokeshire in the middle ages. The parish of Steynton contains a house, now called St Botolph's, on the site of an ancient chapel of S. Budoc. It was pronounced, and spelt, St Buttock's, also written St Buddock (exactly as St Budeaux in Devon is pronounced St Buddox); this "offended the delicacy of a former owner," who changed the name to "St Botolph's". At the head of the creek called Hubberston Pill, close by, was Pill Priory, "founded in the year 1200 by Adam de Rupe, for monks of the order of Tiron, who afterwards became Benedictines . . . dedicated to S. Mary and S. Budoc" or "S. Buddock." A charter of 25 Edw. I contains the words "Inspexinius cartam quam Adam de Rupe fecit Deo et Sanctae Mariae et Sancto Budoco et monachis de Ordine Tironensi in monasterio de Pilla Deo servientibus."22 It is likely that the cult of S. Budoc was established in this neighbourhood before 1200, and that the cult of our Lady was then added, just as the monastery of S. Petroc at Bodmin was known in the later middle ages as the "Priory of S. Mary and S. Petroc."23 How ancient the cult of S. Budoc in Pembrokeshire is we cannot say for certain. It may possibly have been introduced by Bretons after the Norman Conquest, or it may go back to the Age of the Saints.

We observe once again that in Wales, as in Cornwall and in Brittany, the cult of S. Budoc is always found on the coast. The majority of the ancient Celtic monasteries in these three countries are either on the sea-board or on tidal estuaries, because in those days the most convenient means of transport was by water.

Who was the saint who has so many churches called after him? If the reader will study the map of Cornwall he will note that opposite Budock, on the other side of Falmouth Harbour, is the little town of St Mawes, where the patron saint is S. Mauditus, whom we have already found in Brittany as abbot of an island monastery near Paimpol, close to the monastery of S. Budoc on the Ile Lavret. This cannot be a mere coincidence, and I think we may be sure that the patron saint of Budock, Budock Vean and St Budeaux was a once famous abbot whose chief establishment was on the Breton coast less than 100 miles away — an easy sail in favourable weather. I believe that the author of the Vita Uuingualoei was preserving a true tradition, though the words he uses show that it was already an old tradition at the time he wrote, when he describes the "Master" on the island of Laurea as "qucndam angelicum magistruni, nomine Budocum, cognomine Arduum, scientia preditum, justicia egregium, quem velut quoddam fidei fundamentum columpnamque Ecclesiae firmissimam cuncti pariter tunc temporis credebant." This island was an enclave of the great abbey-bishopric of Dol, founded by S. Samson, and traditions of the early middle ages represented Budoc as a bishop of Dol. Whether the abbot and the bishop are the same person we cannot be absolutely certain. At one time Duine was disposed to question their identity (Mémento, no. 18), while in Saints de Domnonée he says he is "inclined to think that there was only one Budoc in Domnonia, who was also honoured by the insular Britons. The difference in the legends does not necessarily prove that their heroes are different persons, since the legends are late and the creation of popular fancy." In numerous places in Leon and Cornouaille a Budoc was also honoured. This is as far as we can go for the present. The early history of Cornwall and Brittany is like a jig-saw puzzle, many of the pieces of which have been lost. It needs repeated and patient efforts to make ever fresh combinations of the pieces that remain, till we can finally get them into the right order, and form some idca of what the shape of the missing pieces must have been.

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* Cornish Saints Series, no. 3 (2nd edition, 1937). Amplified from a sermon preached by Canon Doble in Budock parish church on Feast Sunday, November 16, 1924.

1 R. Morton Nance pointed out how, in Cornish and Breton names, oc is frequently changed into ek. Thus Meriadoc becomes Meriasek in Cornish and Mereadec in Breton. In Cornwall Budock is found spelt Eglos-Butheck, and Budoc Vean is spelt Eglos Butheck Byan. A soft Cornish th becomes d in latinized Celtic names and is represented by z in Breton. Mr Nance added that he was told by Dr E. A. Bullmore that when his father was a boy c. 1840-50 the name of the parish was pronounced "Biddick" by old people.

2 I have here briefly analysed the story as given by Albert Le Grand, who has combined the legend contained in the Chronique de Saint-Brieuc with the traditions of the cathedral of Dol and those of the parish of Plourin, which was in his own diocese of Leon (These traditions are really quite independent of each other, as we shall see). Albert Le Grand's Life of S. Budoc did not appear in the first edition of his Vies des Saints de la Bretagne Armorique (1636), but in a separate work, entitled La Providence de Dieu sur les justes, en l'Histoire admirable de Saint Budoc, Archevesque de Dol, et de la princesse Azenor de Leon sa mere, Comptesse de Treguer et Goelo, dediee a Monseigneur l'illustrissime et reverendissime Messire Hector d'Ouvrier, Evesque et Compte de Dol, Conseiller du Roi en ses Conseils d'Estat et Prive, Gouverneur pour Sa Majeste des Ville et Chasteau de Dol, a delightful and edifying religious romance, composed as a mark of gratitude to this conscientious and public-spirited prelate for the encouragement he had given him in his hagiographical researches. This was the Dominican's swan-song. It appeared in 1640, and he died shortly after.

3 A king of Brest appears in the Life of S. Tanguy.

4 Le Grand omits this story, contained in the Chronique de Saint-Brieuc, which has utilized folklore themes popular in Brittany centuries earlier. Gaston Paris has analysed (in an article in Romania, t. xxviii. 1899, pp. 215—218, entitled "Caradoc et le Serpent") an exactly similar story about Caradoc, King of Vannes (or Nantes). Duine, Saints de Domnonee, pp. 24-25.

5 The story of the cask, which of course appears in Greek mythology (in the legends of Danaë and of Tenes), has a parallel in Breton hagiography (as Duine points out) in the Life of S. Efflam, where Enor is carried from Ireland to the shores of Treguier in a leathern skin.

6 M. Rene Couffon tells me the "légende est très profondément enracinée dans l'évêché de Saint-Brieuc".  Villemarque inserted a ballad on the subject in Barzaz-Breiz, and Brizeux (Les Bretons, chant ix.) wrote "Vous êtes, ô Beuzec, le patron de ces côtes". 

7 Holder (Alt-celtischer Sprachschtitz, pp.456-457 and 497-498) and Dottin (Manuel de l'Antiquite celtique) explain fully the meaning of the root bodi (from bhoudi) by itself and in composition, and give many instances of personal names formed from it found in inscriptions both in the British Islands and on the continent. Names like Boudicca or Boudious mean "one who is a member of a body whose head is Victory personified," Bodi-acos = Victorious. The name Bodivere is found on an inscribed stone  in Carmarthenshire. Bodic and Budoc long continue in current use as personal names. A Bodicus comes Brittanorum is mentioned by Gregory de Tours. A Budic appears in the manumissions recorded on the pages of the Bodmin Gospels (and also a priest called budda). A Budoc is found as a witness to a Redon charter in 1021, and a knight called Budioc died at Saint-Suliac near Dol in 1095. We find Budic in the book of Llandaff, together with  several other instances of  the root bud in composition, and a place called lan Budgual is mentioned (now Bullingham in Herefordshire). In ùodern Welsh the root budd, with a sense of gain, profit, victory, forms part of more than twenty words in ordinary use.

8 The 16th-century Cornish tradition about S. Budoc is probably based on the Goëllo legend (The Cornish tradition about "Sinninus" in the Vita Breacae seems also derived from a Breton source). Budoc is not an Irish name, and it is far more likely that he came from Pembrokeshire. It was a fancy of the middle ages that many of the Cornish and Breton saints came from Ireland. Hardly any of them were really Irish.

9 Dr Salter, the president of the Oxford Archaeological Society, has kindly sent me the following note on this church: "The church of S. Budoc, alias Buoc, for it is spelt in Oxford in both ways [in Brittany the name is often contracted into Beuc], stood within the wall at the angle made by the junction of the city wall with the Castle moat. It is mentioned in a deed which is of 1166 at the latest (Oseney Cart., vol. iv, p. 35) and the deeds are few for the years 1086 — 1166. There is no reason to doubt that the church existed at the time of the Conquest. It was destroyed in 1215 by Faulkes de Breaute, sheriff of Oxford, when he built a barbican before the gate of the castle which led to the city. The church was just outside the gate. The Close Rolls of Henry III record that, in 1222, it was rebuilt at the king's expense, on a site outside the wall about 100 yards to the west of its first situation : — Computate vicecomiti Oxon vi libras quas posuit per preceptum nostrum in quadam terra empta ad reedificandam in ea ecclesiam sancti Budoci apud Oxon, que prostrata fuit tempore guerre mote inter dominum regem et barones suos. In 1265 the king gave it to the Friars of the Sack, and it was their chapel until they were suppressed. We hear no more of the church. It is strange to fiiid this saint in Oxford. We also have S. Aldate, who occurs in Gloucester and is apparently a Welsh saint." Many interesting references to this church, its rector and its parishioners, will be found in Wood's Ci/y of Oxford, vol. ii, pp. 44—47.

10 Thomas Hearne, in his edition of John of Glastonbury's List of Relics (Chronica, p. 450), adds a note of great interest but of uncertain origin: "Item reliquiae de sancto Hillario, reliquiae S. Alwini et S. Tremori, & S. Deidyhyl & S. Buddoc et Budecac, & Sanctae Guenbrith filiae regis." There is much that is puzzling here. How did such a typical Breton saint as S. Tremeur come to be honoured at Glastonbury ? Why does theauthor suddenly relapse into the vernacular ? Who is S. Budecac ? (the name reminds us of Bodiacos, see note 7). It is interesting to find the form Buddoc, which is that in use in Pembrokeshire and on the Tamar.

11 On the île Lavret are "a small rectangular church and a row of beehives huts ... one of these huts is fairly intact. In La Borderie (Hist. de Bretagne, vol I. p. 295-9) is a plan of the island and its remains" (Lives of the British Saints, I, 3311). The buildings of the Celtic monastery excavated at Tintagel by Mr Ralegh Radford in 1934, however, all rectangular.

12 This monastery was on the Suir, at Kilcleeheen, near Waterford. It had been founded in the middle of the I2th century. In the I3th century we find French names among the abbesses (Mabille de Cursy, Desiree le Poer, Mathildc Comyn) and in 1309 Jeanne de Lanndesey was abbess.

13 With these island monasteries one may compare those on the inland sea of Etel (I have described them under S. Gudwal in Part I of the series, p. 73) and the islands of the castern group of the Scillies, one of which, now "St Martin's," once bore the name of Mauditits.

14 The church of Plourin bas been rebuilt, but the pulpit is ancien and has beautiful panels of wood representing the legend of SS. Budoc and Azenor. The relii]uary is kept behind the high altar.

15 It is clear that December 8 is S. Budoc's day, but, when the feast of the Conception of thc B.V.M. began to bc generally observed, Budoc's festival was transferred to December 9 at Dol and to November 18 at Saint-Pol-de-Leon. At Budock in Cornwall it is kept on the Sunday nearest November 19. This is probably due to the influence of the liturgical liooks of Leon.

16 In the parish of Plogoff, also in Cap-Sizun, is a place called Lescoff. There are other examples of this in Brittany, and in Cornwall we have Bosulval (Boswolvel 1327) in the parish of Gulval (S. Wolvella), and Bosliven (anciently Bosseleven) near St Levan. There-is an important clue here to the origin of Celtic parishes.

17 The former parish church of Beuzec-Cap-Caval (only half of which remains) is now in the parish of Plomeur. In 1368 Beuzec-Cap-Caval was a large deanery containing 22 parishes, as the Cartulary of Quimper shows. The church contains a statue of the patron, S. Budoc ; there is also a statue in the chapel dedicated to him, wearing a mitre and holding a crozier. In the parish Accounts for 1737 we find "paye a Messieurs les prêtres pour les premieres Vêpres du pardon et pour le jour du grand pardon de Beuzec, 4 livres, 10 sols. Pour le jour de S. Budoc, le jour de la dedicace et le jour de la Trinite 13 livres, losols." The pardon at the present day is on the Sunday after the Assumption: at Beuzec-Cap-Sizun it is on the Sunday before Ascension Day, and at Beuzec-Conq the foliowing Sunday — (Note by Canon Perennes).

18 See Calvez, Languengar (Quimper, 1932).

19 H. Le Carguet, Les Chapelles du Cap-Sizun (Bulletin de la Société Archeologique du Finistère, 1899, pp. 423 and 435).

20 C. G. Henderson, History of Constantine, p. 21 (Budock Vean and its chapel are described in detail further on in this book). We fmd "Elizabeth wife of Rirhard Chaylon de ecclesia Sancti Budoci" in Chiverton's Obits, 13 Sept. 1349, and Ricardus de Sancto Buthok as a free tenant of the bishop of Exeter at the same period : Sanctus Buidocus alias Eglosbothyk Vyan 1538.

21 The Place-names of Devon, vol. i (English Place-name Soc., 1931), pp. 236-7.

22 Wade-Evans, Par. Wall., 14, 16; Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments, Pembrokeshire, pp. 228, 391; Lewis, Topogr. Dic. of  Wales; Tanner's Notitia.

23 W. Rees's Map of South Wales in the I4th century (Cardiff, 1933) shows the priory of SS. Mary and Budoc at the head of Pill Creek, and the chapel of S. Budoc some distance to the west.

*****

* Gilbert H. DOBBLE : The saints of Cornwall. Part Three. Saints of the Fal. The Dean and the Chapter of truro. Holywell Press. Oxford. 1964.

Autres sites traitant de saint Budoc :

* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica

hast buan, ma mignonig vas vite, mon petit ami

go fast, my little friend