160 CHRONICLES OF CORNISH SAINTS. V. — S. DAVID. 



to all ecclesiastical writers in this country,* have it appears been 

 preserved in France, no doubt through the intimate connection 

 between Wales and Brittany in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries- 

 They have lately been printed in a work of great value, entitled 

 " Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain 

 and Ireland. Oxford, 1869;" and they show that the main 

 purpose of both Synods was not to define points of doctrine, but 

 to restrain the sensuality of a barbarous and half Christianized 

 people. 



At what period of his life David sojourned in Cornwall there 

 is no record ; but his visit, probably in the early part of his 

 life, is alluded to in the following lines by Gwynfardd,t a Welsh 

 poet of the 12th Century : 



" He endured buffetings, very hard blows, 



From the hands of an uncourteous woman, devoid of modesty, 

 He took vengeance, he endangered the sceptre of Devon, 

 And those who were not slain were burned." 



There are three churches in Devon and Cornwall of which he 

 is the patron Saint; and many others, no doubt, were in their 

 infancy aided by his presence and counsel ; for Cuby, Constantine, 

 Samson, and Sennen were all associated with him in their re- 

 spective Cornish parishes, when he laboured to win souls to Christ, 

 on the bleak hills of Davidstow. 



GeoflFry of Monmouth states that he died in the monastery 

 which he had founded at Menevia, and was buried there under 

 the direction of Maelgwn Gwynedd. According to the computation 

 of Ussher, this took place A.D. 544, at the age of 84 ; but 

 Lanigan and other authorities think that he died at least twenty 

 years later. He was canonized by Pope Calixtus in the 12th 

 Century ; and his shrine at Menevia became a popular object of 



* Giraldus Cambrensis attributes their disappearance from Wales to 

 the incursions of Northern pirates who were wont to infest the Welsh coasts. 

 " Decreta, qua ore promiilgaverat, Prsesul David sua quoque sancta manu 

 Uteris mandavit ; suseque ecclesise aliisque per Kambriam pluribus reservanda 

 commendavit. Qu^ quidem, sicut et alii quamplurimi nobilis bibliothec® 

 thesauri egregU, tarn vetustate quam incuria, Piratarum quoque crebria 

 insultibus, qui de Orcadum iusulis Eestivo tempore longis navibus advecti 

 maritimas Kambrise provincias vastare consueverant, evanuerunt." De Vita 

 S. Davidis. 



f Myn. Arch., i, 270. Eees' Essay on the Welsh Saints, 199. 



