Saint Gwinear was a

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 ...

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

, one of only two early

Cornish saints This is a list of Cornish saints, including saints more loosely associated with Cornwall: many of them will have links to sites elsewhere in regions with significant ancient British history, such as Wales, Brittany or Devon. List of some o ...

whose

biographies A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...

survived the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

. The ''Life of Gwinear'' was written in the early 14th century by a priest named Anselm, and has sometimes been printed among Saint Anselm's works. His feast day is March 23. Born in Ireland with the Irish name of Fingar, he was converted to Christianity by

Saint Patrick Saint Patrick ( la, Patricius; ga, Pádraig ; cy, Padrig) was a fifth-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Known as the "Apostle of Ireland", he is the primary patron saint of Ireland, the other patron saints be ...

and after spending time in Brittany went with 7 (or 777) companions to Cornwall, landing at Hayle, where he was martyred by King Teudar. Saint 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 Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

with Saint Guiner being martyred at the hands of Prince Tewdwr. The Victorian clergyman, hagiographer and antiquary

Sabine Baring-Gould Sabine Baring-Gould ( ; 28 January 1834 – 2 January 1924) of Lew Trenchard in Devon, England, was an Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist, folk song collector and eclectic scholar. His bibliography consists of more than 1,240 ...

believed that an Irish group, driven from their homeland in

Ossory Osraige (Old Irish) or Osraighe (Classical Irish), Osraí (Modern Irish), anglicized as Ossory, was a medieval Irish kingdom comprising what is now County Kilkenny and western County Laois, corresponding to the Diocese of Ossory. The home of ...

in the fifth century, invaded

Penwith Penwith (; kw, Pennwydh) is an area of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, located on the peninsula of the same name. It is also the name of a former local government district, whose council was based in Penzance. The area is named after ...

(="pen-gwaeth", the "bloody headland"), and that the legend of Gwinear was a distorted recollection of these events.Baring-Gould, Sabine, 1899, ''A Book of the West: Cornwall'', Methuen, pp 285, 305

References

Footnotes Citations

External links

* Cephalophores Medieval Breton saints Medieval Cornish saints Medieval Irish saints of Cornwall Executed Irish people {{UK-saint-stub