CORNISH DEDICATIOKS. 163 



Germanus made a second visit to Britain in 447, and on this 

 occasion was accompanied by Severus, Bishop of Treves. It was 

 in part a political visit. Yortigern was the King of the Britons, 

 and not only was his life scandalous, but he had also invited the 

 Angles and Saxons into the Island. A party under Ambrosius 

 was impatient of his rule. Grermanus was asked to denounce him 

 and give him over to destruction. In the Mediaeval account 

 Grermanus fasted for forty days and nights, on a rock, engaged in 

 prayer, that the sins of Vortigern might be forgiven him, and 

 finally when the King fled to a castle in Carnarvonshire, the Saint 

 followed him and with his clergy fasted and prayed for three 

 days and three nights, when fire fell from heaven and consumed 

 the king and the castle. 



"We must translate this out of monastic language of the 

 Middle Ages into the words and ideas of the present, and then we 

 find that the party opposed to Vortigern invited Grermanus to 

 curse the king, and gathering about the castle they set it on fire 

 and so ridded themselves of the impious king. 



The story told by Bede, of Grermanus rallying the Britons 

 against the Picts, and of the "AHeluaic Victory," is too well 

 known to be given here. 



I turn to a point of great importance, his sending of S. 

 Patrick to Ireland. 



Probably in his first visit to Britain Grermanus made the 

 acquaintance of Succat, a young British Christian, and he induced 

 him to accompany him to Auxerre, where he trained him for the 

 mission field, and sent him to finish his religious education atLerins. 

 He then consecrated him Bishop in the basilica of S. Amator, his 

 immediate predecessor in the see of Auxerre,*' and Succat who 



* Zimmer has succeeded in clearing up what was a difficulty before. Patrick 

 was said to have been consecrated by a certain Bishop Amatorex, near Auxerre. 

 Now Amator preceded Germanus, but there was a basilica near Auxerre bearing 

 the name of Amator. He suggests that the consecration took place in this 

 church. As to the name Amatorex, it is thus formed. The Irish turned Amator 

 into Ainmire, a familiar name, and then when the name was re-latinised, the title 

 of Rex was added to the name. As to the fable of S.Patrick's having received 

 commission from Pope Celestine, it was a wilful invention of the Eoman party 

 in the Irish Church in the 8th cent., just as a forged account of the legation of 

 Lucius to Pope Eleutherius was framed to support the same party in Eno-land. 

 See Zimmer, pp. 123 and 144 — 154. 



