90 CHRONICLES OF CORNISH SAINTS. IV. — S. SAMSON. 



to US. Concerning most of those Saints but little can be said, 

 for the simple reason that but little is known ; but in regard to 

 S. Samson there is abundance of information, such as it is, and 

 the difficulty lies, not in the poverty of materials, but in disen- 

 tangling facts from a mass of fictions in which they have been 

 enveloped. There is hardly one of the hagiologists who has not 

 given a sketch of Samson's life. Capgrave, Ussher, Boscius, 

 Alford, Baillet, Vincentius, the Compiler of Liter Landavensis, and 

 many others, have narrated the current legends concerning him. 

 Moreover there are several independent manuscript Lives of him 

 still in existence, all of which are, however, more or less overloaded 

 with incredibilia. The most ancient Life, and that which was no 

 doubt the main source of all subsequent accounts, may be found 

 in Mabillon, — Ada Benedictorum, Sceculum i, 165; and also, in a 

 corrected form, in the Acta Sanctorum of the BoUanclists, July 28. 

 It was written at the request of a certain Bishop Tigerinomalus ; 

 and the author, who seems to have been a Galilean monk of the 

 generation immediately succeeding that of the Saint, adduces 

 strong reasons for the authenticity of his narrative. " I wish it 

 to be understoood," he says, in the preface, " that these words are 

 not put together thoughtlessly and rashly, or from confused and 

 unauthorized rumours; but that they consist of information 

 which I derived from a certain religious and venerable man, who 

 resided for about 80 years in a monastery which S. Samson him- 

 self had founded beyond the sea, {i.e. in Britain), living a catholic 

 and religious life, in times most approximate to those of the 



Saint, and being himself a cousin of S. Samson, and a 



deacon ; and that no doubts may be thrown upon the 



veracity of my words, I call Christ, the Saviour of us all, to 

 witness that I have not undertaken to hand down this very brief 

 narrative to posterity from any fallible or uncertain conjecture of 

 its truth, but from the statements of most holy and thoroughly 

 competent men, and also from most accurate and elaborate docu- 

 ments, which I found in the same monastery, written in a true 

 and catholic spirit, by the above-mentioned deacon." '^ Here then 



* " 2. Primo antem omnium credi a me vos volo, quod non juxta adin- 

 ventionis mete temeritatem, nee juxta iuordinata et incomposita audita, laa3C 

 verba coUecta sunt ; sed juxta hoc quod a quodam religioso ac Tenerabili sene, 

 in cujus dome, quam ultra mare ipse solus Samson fundaverat, ille per 



