Padarn

Saint Padarn ( _la. Paternus) is the eponymous founder of St Padarn's Church. Llanbadarn Fawr, ["Llanbadarn", "Padarn's church".] near Aberystwyth in the early 6th century. At one time quite a popular saint, he is now chiefly remembered because of the church and his connection with King Arthur, for his early "vita" is one of only five insular saints' lives and two Breton ones that include a mention of Arthur that seems to be independent of Geoffrey of Monmouth's myth-making in "Historia Regum Britanniae". [J.S.P. Tatlock, "The Dates of the Arthurian Saints' Legends", "Speculum" 14.3 (July 1939:345-365) pp. 349ff.]

The major source for biographical details is the "Vita Sancti Paternus", an epitome that shows its previous and more extensive source, [For example, with no previous indication of Padarn's cousins, the text reads "Soon is Padarn made the fourth leader of a troop, not at his own request, but his cousins, seeing him hastening to the height of perfection, appointed him, saying, `Since the Lord has made thee to excel in morals, it behoves that thou shouldest rule over peoples for example of life'."] and which dates to 1120, before Geoffrey wrote. Padarn is Armorican by race, "Petran, his father, and Guean, his mother", [Saint Patern is his doublet.] who, as soon as he was born, dedicated themselves to Christ and piously separated: "Petran straightway leaving Letavia went to Ireland." The boy inquiring of his father's whereabouts elected to follow his example "where he fasts, prays, watches, meditates, mourns, sleeps on a little mat, and kneels to the supreme Lord day and night"; he joined a fellowship of monks travelling to Britannia, founds a monastery on the Britannic shore, then travels to join his father in Ireland. There Padarn's spiritual countenance is sufficient to calm the armies of kings of two provinces; peace and unity spring up, to the extent that, when woods are felled in one province, they fall of themselves in the other.

Padarn and Arthur

In the most celebrated episode, King Arthur tries to steal Padarn's tunic. Arthur here is a furious tyrant introduced as a foil to demonstrate the power of the holy man, his miraculous execution of retribution, and his forgiveness, for which the king must kneel:

"When Padarn was in his church resting after so much labour at sea, a certain tyrant, Arthur by name, was traversing the regions on either side, who one day came to the cell of saint Padarn the bishop. And while he was addressing Padarn, he looked at the tunic, which he, being pierced with the zeal of avarice, sought for his own. The saint answering said, `This tunic is not fitting for the habit of any malign person, but for the habit of the clerical office.' He went out of the monastery in a rage. And again he returns in wrath, that he might take away the tunic against the counsels of his own companions. One of the disciples of Padarn seeing him returning in fury, ran to saint Padarn and said, `The tyrant, who went out from here before, is returning. Reviling, stamping, he levels the ground with his feet'. Padarn answers `Nay rather, may the earth swallow him.' With the word straightway the earth opens the hollow of its depth, and swallows Arthur up to his chin. He immediately acknowledging his guilt begins to praise both God and Padarn, until, while he begs forgiveness, the earth delivered him up. From that place on bent knees he begged the saint for indulgence, whom the saint forgave. And he took Padarn as his continual patron, and so departed." [ [http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/padarn.html "Vita Sancti Paterni" §21.] ]

This theme of the tunic might connect the story to Padarn Redcoat, because his coat was one of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain.

Other contemporaries of Padarn

The "vita" makes him a contemporary not only of Arthur, but also of the tyrant Maelgwn Gwynedd, who is first cursed because of a crime against the saint, and then cured of his sickness and blindness when he comes on bended knee to ask forgiveness and to bestow lands on Padarn's community, which are laid out with the exactitude of a deed:

"a quantity of land, that is, from the mouth of the river Rheidiol upwards until it touches at its head the limit of the river Clarach; and along the length of the same river as far as the sea is the limit prolonged."

Also mentioned in the "Vita Sancti Paterni" is St David, with whom accompanied by St Teilo Padarn travels on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, gaining the gift of tongues on the way, for all three to be ordained bishops by the patriarch. There Paternus acquired his tunic that Arthur was to covet. On their return they amicably divided Britannia in three bishoprics.

Padarn in Letia

Padarn bid farewell to his three communities of monks and set out for Letia, [An old name for Armorica: see Litavis.] where his fame filled the region, and he made peace with the bishop Samson in Vannes, where Padarn his built a monastery, and subsequently made a peace with the six bishops of Armorica, of which he now made a seventh.

Three days were kept to honour Padern in Armorica:

"the Armoricans celebrate three solemnities of his, that is, that day of the Kalends of November, when he formed per­petual unity with the six chief saints of Letia, and the day of his obit, and the day, on which he received the order of the episcopate, that is, the twelfth before the Kalends of the month of July."

Primitive elements

Some primitive elements remain in the text: two evil heralds are undone by the Trial by ordeal of boiling water; scalded and defeated, "Their souls in raven-forms fly to the riverbed, which unto this day by the name of one of them is called, to wit, Graban." ["Vita Sancti Paterni" §18.]

Notes

Bibliography

* [http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/padarn.html Vita Sancti Paterno: The Life of Saint Padarn] , written in Cemis, Pembrokeshire, in the twelfth century. Found in the British Library Cotton Manuscript Vespasian A xiv.
* "Vita Sancti Paterni: The Life of Saint Padarn and the Original Miniu", "Trivium" 33 (2003)(Charles Thomas and David Howlett).

External links

* [http://www.legendarylandmarks.com/index_files/Page1490.htm LLanbadarn Fawr and Padarn Redcoat]