Monday, August 21
Hagiographic Curiosities
Amphibalus (St) June 24
? The supposed fellow-martyr of St. Alban of Verulamium. In the original Act it is only said that St. Alban put on the priest's cloak (amphibalus) and was arrested instead of the priest who had taken refuge in his house--not with the priest. Geoffrey of Monmouth took the word amphibalus to be the name of the priest.
Bean (St) Bishop, Oct. 26
d. p. 1012. Bishop of Mortlach in Banff [in Scotland, not Canada], from which see he was later transferred to Aberdeen.
Bobo (Beauvon) (St) Hermit, May 22
d. c. 985. A knight of Provence, who [...] as a hermit [...] led a life of penance. [...]
Brychan (St), April 6.
? Nothing is known for sure about his life, but in legends he is a saintly king in Wales with a large number of saintly children: the usual quoted number is twenty-four. Other saints are meant to be descendents of him in later generations such as Enoder [...] [Some accounts expand the number to a whopping twenty-four sons and twenty-four daughters, doubtlessly a conflation of grandchildren and great-grandchildren with their number!]
Gonzaga Gonza (St) Martyr, June 3
d. 1886. Having spent a long time in prison, he was put to death by King Mwanga of Uganda. [My all-time favorite saint name ever.]
Grwst (St) Confessor
7th cent. The Welsh saint whose memory is perpetuated by the placename Llanwrst, Clywd. [Pronounced, "Huh?"]
Gwynllyw (St) Hermit, March 29
d. c. Gwynllyw is anglicized as Woollos. He is said to have been the husband of St. Gladys [daughter of St. Brychan, apparently], the father of St. Cadoc, and to have ended his life as a hermit in Wales. [...]
Lucius (St) King, Dec. 3
? d. c. 200. King of Britain. According to a tradition, first heard of in the sixth century, he asked Pope St. Eleutherius (d. c. 189) to send missionaries into Britain [...]. Present-day historians regard the whole story as fictitions: it is in fact based on a confusion with the story of Agbar IX, who was king of Edessa in Mesopotamia. He was also known as Lucius; and he sent to Pope St. Eleutherius for missionaries [...].
Lucy Brocolelli (Bl) Virgin, Tert. OP., Nov. 15
1476-1544. Born at Narni in Umbria, [ie, the town known to the Romans as Narnia. Hence Bl. Lucy of Narnia...]
Manez (Mannes, Manes) (Bl) Confessor, OP., July 30
d. 1230. Manez de Guzman, an elder brother of St. Dominic, was born at Calaruega. He joined the original sixteen members of the order of Preachers in 1216, and later was prior of St. James's in Paris [...]
Quadragesimus (St) Confessor, Oct. 26
d. c. 590. A shepherd and subdeacon at Policastro who, according to the testimony of St. Gregory the Great, raised a dead man to life. [Mostly I find it a little amusing that his name is essentially a masculine form of the Latin word for "Lent."]