Pyr (Pŷr ; sometimes known as Piro in English) was a

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The fem ...

of the 6th century who may later have been revered as a

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...

by some (though he was never canonized). Most of what is known of him comes from the First Life of St. Samson. He has been described in one handbook as being "an unsuitable abbot and...one of those

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

'saints' who would never have been

canonize Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of s ...

d by any formal process".Farmer, David Hugh. ''The Oxford Dictionary of Saints''
5th rev. ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2011, p. 446 , but there seems no evidence that he was ever considered as a saint by anybody. Little is known about him apart from the fact that he was the abbot of the monastery on

Caldey Island Caldey Island ( Welsh:''Ynys Bŷr'') is a small island near Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales, less than off the coast. With a recorded history going back over 1,500 years, it is one of the holy islands of Britain. A number of traditions inherited ...

(

''Ynys Bŷr'' "Pŷr's Island"). According to Gerald of Wales, "Pyrrus" was also the owner of the island, and of a castle in Wales.Gerald of Wales, Journey through Wales, book 1, chapter 12
Online here
Pyr is said to have become so drunk one night that on the way back to his cell he fell into a

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

. He died soon after being pulled out. He was replaced as abbot by

Samson Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution o ...

, who resigned in disgust when he found that the young monks had become ungovernable due to the laxity of Pyr's rule.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pyr, Saint Welsh abbots Medieval Welsh saints 6th-century Christian saints Cases of people who fell into a well