THE PKESIDENT's ADDRESS. 383 



That love for uniformity which prevailed in the Mediaeval 

 Latin church led to the eflfacement wherever possible of local 

 peculiarities. A Saint who was not in the Eoman Martyrology 

 had but a poor chance of holding his own. 



It is natural to commonplace minds to tate their tone from 

 their surroundings, and to disapprove of what is not vulgar. 

 The mediseval ecclesiastical mind was moulded into one form, 

 and it naturally drew back with a sense of dislike from these 

 strange patrons of whom it knew nothing, and could find nothing 

 in the authorised legendaria. 



I am not sure that the Bishops were wholly to blame. They 

 thought these Cornish Saints were very strange individuals with 

 queer tales told about them, and some of these tales not very 

 edifying, or not in accordance with what they considered right. 

 They were profoundly shocked to find the confessor and 

 chaplain of King Brychan, to be a married man, and that the 

 Abbot Gildas was father of a family. We have, happily, two 

 versions of the life of S. Gwynllyw — one telling his story as it 

 was, the other doctored by a Latin monk to suit his ideas of what 

 it ought to have been — very contradictory they are. The 

 Mediseval bishops accordingly did their utmost to displace the 

 native patrons, and put in their room saints about whom they 

 could read in the martyrology, and who had received the papal 

 imprimatiu'. 



The same process has gone on in Brittany, and is going on 

 still. Churches dedicated to our S. G-erans have changed their 

 patron to Gereon, a mythical martyr of the Theban legion, and 

 S. Kea has been converted into Caius, Pope and Martyr ; even in 

 Brehat, where S. Budoc laboured and died, he has been 

 supplanted by SS. Philip and James. 



So also from the calendars of the Breton dioceses, the 

 process of elimination goes on. In that of the united dioceses 

 of Treguier and S. Brieuc for the present year, not one Celtic 

 Saint is noticed in the months of January, February, June, July, 

 August, September, and December. In March only one, Paul 

 of Leon is accepted, from April S. Brieuc could not in decency 

 be excluded. S. Melanius, who was anti-Celtic in feeling, and of 

 Eomano-Gothic origin, is included in November. The local 



