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



and liis cousin in the monastery. On his arrival in Brittany, he 

 found the inhabitants in great misery. Jonas, their native prince, 

 had just been murdered by a tyrannical governor, Commotus by 

 name, who had usurped the province ; and his son Judual had 

 been sent away as a captive to King Hildebert. Moved with 

 pity, Samson hastened to the king, hoping to redeem Judual from 

 prison. After sundry perils and supernatural deeds he gains his 

 object and returns to Brittany with the young Breton prince. 

 They enlist an army on their homeward route, and enter the 

 country prepared to do battle with the usurper. At one blow the 

 foe is vanquished, Samson praying and fasting, and Judual 

 fighting at the head of his warriors. After this, Samson receives 

 great honour and large gifts from King Hildebert, and spends the 

 rest of his days in a monastery which he founded at Dole. So 

 ends his history as gwen in the oldest Life, and in Liher Landavcnsis. 

 But we gain one more giimspe of him in his old age. He was 

 present at the 3rd Council of Paris, held A.D. 557 ; and so great 

 was his humility, Ave are told, that he declined to occupy the 

 luxu.rious apartments which the king had prepared for him in the 

 palace, preferring to lodge in the neighbouring monastery of S. 

 Vincent ; and his name is thus subscribed last but one in the list 

 of fif fceen bishops who signed the decrees of the council, " Samson, 

 a sinner." ^' Modern Avriters speak of him as baving been at the 

 beginning of his Episcopate Archbishop of Menevia, afterwards 

 Archbishop of York, and subsequently xlrchbishop of Dole. But 

 none of his early biographers give him those designations, nor is 

 there a tittle of evidence that he was ever more than a missionary 

 bishop. His name appears in no authentic catalogues of tbe 

 prelates of Menevia ; whilst the Samson who was Archbishop of 

 York in the sixth centur^^, was a brother of G-ildas, and quite a 

 different person ; and with respect to Dole, this fact settles the 

 question of his connection Avith that see — that until the time of 

 Nomenoius, in the ninth century, there Avas no bishopi-ic of Dole 

 in existence, t The truth probably is, as one of his biographers 



* " Samson peccator episeopus eonsensi et subscripsi." 



Labbe, t. v, Col. 818. 



f " En effet, il semble que S. Samson soit demeiire eveque regionaire 

 toute sa vie, et que Dol n'ait cte connu dans I'egiise en ces siecles que pour 

 im monastere, dout il arrivoit assez souvent que les abbes etoient ^veques 

 sans diocese." — Baillet. Vies des Saints, Tom. xv, 396. 



