165 



II. — Chronicles of Cornish Saints. 



v.— S. David. 



By the Eeverend John Adams, M.A., Ficar of Stockcross, Berks. 



Read at the Spring Meeting, May 18, 1869. 



TO place S. David in tlie category of Cornisli Saints will perhaps 

 kindle the indignation of Welshmen, and appear to them 

 almost like a moral violation of the commandment " Na ladratta." 

 But, though he is justly regarded as the glory of their nation and 

 their own patron saint, their Celtic brethren on the oj)posite shores 

 of the Severn sea may venture to claim a share in his renown ; 

 for we are told hj William of Worcester ^' that he was a native 

 of Cornwall, and that Alternun was the place of his birth ; whilst 

 Leland asserts that his mother was the daughter of a Cornish 

 chief. t If those statements are reliable, we may almost use the 

 words which the men of Israel addressed to the men of Judah 

 concerning his Hebrew namesake : " We have more right in David 

 than ye." But, apart ftom those statements by William of 

 Worcester and Leland, which, it must be admitted, are somewhat 

 incompatible with the general tradition of the Saint's nativity, 

 there is abundant evidence that he was intimately connected with 

 Cornwall, and that we may fairly reckon him amongst the foremost 

 apostles of the ancient Cornish church. 



There is in the Deanery of Trigg Major a parish which from 



* " In Kalendario ecclesiae Mont Myghell." 



" Sancta Nonnita mater Sancti David jacet apud ecclesiam villas 

 Alternonije per 6 miliaria de Launceston, ubi natus fuit Sauctus David." 



William of Worcester came into Cornwall in the year 1478, and travelled 

 as far west as S. Michael's Mount. The above note is one of the memoranda 

 which he copied from the register of the Mount. 



f " Nonita, mater Davidis, fuit ut aliqui adfirmant, filia Comitis Coriniae." 

 — Collectaiua, vol. ii, 107. 



