(A.D. 601.)
[His life was written by S. Asaph, his disciple in the monastery of
Llan-Elwyn, in Wales, founded by Kentigern when exiled. This life
has not come down to us in its original form. We have, however, his
life compiled in 1125 by Jocelyn, monk of Furness, from ancient
authorities, by order of Bishop Jocelyn of Glasgow. Undoubtedly the
life of S. Asaph formed the basis of this compilation. S. Kentigern
is also spoken of by many ancient Scottish historians, John Major
de Gest. Scotorum, lib. ii. c. 7; Hector Boece, lib. ix; Leslie,
lib. iv., &c.]
S. Kentigern is said[45] to have been the illegitimate son of Themin,
daughter of Loth, King of the Picts, by Eugenius III., King of the
Scots; but there is great uncertainty about his origin. When the Pictish
King found that his daughter was likely to become a mother, he was
filled with grief and anger, and ordered her to be thrown down a rock,
on Mount Dunpeld. By God's mercy she was not injured, and was then, by
her father's orders, sent to Culross, where she brought forth a son. At
the same time S. Servan, being engaged in saying matins, heard angels
singing. When he had finished his office he left his cell, and
descending to the sea shore in the grey dusk, found there a mother
rocking her new-born babe, wherefore the old hermit exclaimed, being
moved with compassion, "Mochoche, mochoche!" which being interpreted is,
My dear, my dear! Then he took the unfortunate girl and her babe to his
cell, instructed her in the faith of Christ, and baptized her and her
little one, and he called her Tanca, and him he named Kentiern.[46] So
the child grew up in the old man's cell, and became so dear to him, that
he called him familiarly Mungho, or Dearest, and by this name he is
generally known in Scotland. His mother learned to love God, and to
serve him with all her heart, and bitterly to bewail her fault.
Many pretty legends of the childhood of Kentigern have been wafted down
to us. S. Servan had a pet redbreast which was wont to eat out of his
hand, and to perch on his shoulder, and when he chanted the psalms of
David, the little bird flapped its wings and twittered shrilly.
Now Servan had several lads whom he educated at Culross, and these
envied Kentigern, because he was the favourite of the old master, so in
spite they wrung the neck of the redbreast, and charged the favourite
boy with having done the deed. But Kentigern took the little dead bird,
and crying bitterly, and praying to God, signed the cross over it. Then
when the old man returned from church, the bird hopped to meet him as
usual, chirping joyously. In those days it was no easy matter to kindle
a fire, indeed, without a flame from which to light one, it was
impossible, for in the north, sticks are not dry enough to be rubbed
into a blaze as they can be in hot climates. Therefore it was necessary
that fires should never be allowed to become extinct. It was the duty of
the boys of S. Servan, in turn by weeks, to rise during the night and
mend the fire, so that there should not be a deficiency of light for
illumining the Church at the matin offices. When it was Kentigern's
week, the boys, to bring him into trouble, extinguished the fire. Mungo,
rising as usual, went to the hearth but found the fire out. Then he took
a stick and placed it over the cold ashes, and invoking the name of the
Holy Trinity, he blew upon the dead cinders, and a flame leaped up which
kindled the branch; and thereat he lighted the Church candles.
At last, unable to endure longer the envy of his fellow pupils,
Kentigern ran away. And when S. Servan discovered it, he pursued him,
and reached the bank of a river, but Kentigern had escaped to the other
side. Then the old man cried to him, "Alas! my dearest son, the light
of my eyes, and the staff of my age, wherefore hast thou deserted me?
Remember that I took thee from thy mother's womb, nursed thee, and
taught thee to this day. Do not desert my white hairs."
Then Kentigern, bursting into tears, answered, "My father, it is the
will of the Most High that I should go."
Servan cried out, "Return, return, dear son, and I, from being a father,
will be to thee as a son, from being a master I will become a disciple."
But Kentigern, suffused with tears, replied, "It cannot be, my father;
return and admonish thy disciples, and instruct them by thine example. I
must go where the Lord God calls me."
Then Servan blessed him across the river, lifting up his holy hands, and
sorrowfully they parted the one from the other, to see each other's face
no more in this life.
Kentigern settled near Glasgow, where he inhabited a cave in the face of
a rock, where the people looked at him with respectful curiosity, while
he studied the direction of the storms at sea, and drank in with
pleasure the first breezes of the spring. Having converted many of the
people, together with the King of Strathclyde, he was consecrated Bishop
by an Irish prelate, the Keltic Church being ignorant of the Nicene
canon requiring three to consecrate, "with unction of holy oil,
invocation of the Holy Spirit, and imposition of hands."
The district of Strathclyde, or Cumbria, on the west coast of Britain,
from the mouth of the Clyde to that of the Mersey, that is to say, from
Glasgow to Liverpool, was occupied by a mingled race of Britons and
Scots, whose capital was Al-Cluid, now Dumbarton. It was in this region
that S. Kentigern was called to labour.
As bishop, he still dwelt in his rocky cell, where he used a stone for
a pillow, and to inure his body to hardships, he stood in the Clyde to
recite his psalter. He wore a dress of goat-skin bound about his loins,
and a hood, and over all, his white linen alb, which he never left off;
and carried in his hand his pastoral staff of wood without ornament, and
in his other hand his office book. Thus he was ever prepared to execute
his ministry; and thus attired, he went through the kingdom from the
Clyde to the Firth of Forth. In his cell he lived on bread and cheese
and milk, but when he was with the King, he relaxed the severity of his
fasting, so as not to appear ungracious when offered more abundant and
better food; however, on his return to his cell, he curtailed his
allowance, so as to make up for his relaxation of rule at court.
When S. Kentigern was made Bishop of Glasgow, Gurthmel Wledio was King
of the North Britons. He was succeeded by Roderick the Liberal
(Rydderach Hael), a religious and deserving prince, who was driven by
his rebellious subjects under Morken Mawr to Ireland. Morken having
usurped the throne of Strathclyde, drove S. Kentigern out of the
country, and the Saint took refuge in Wales with S. David, Bishop of
Menevia, and remained with him till the Prince of Denbigh bestowed on
him lands, where he built the famous monastery of Llan-Elwyn, afterwards
called S. Asaph. Here he gathered about him a great number of disciples
and scholars, and he was there at the date of the death of S. David, in
544.
On the death of Morken, Roderick returned to Scotland, and recovered his
crown. He immediately recalled Kentigern to his see, and he, leaving his
monastery to the care of S. Asaph, went back to Glasgow in 560.
Roderick's mother was Irish, and he had been baptized by an Irish monk,
and greatly respected Kentigern. The Saint returned bringing with him a
hive of Welsh monks, and established the seat of his renewed
apostleship once more at Glasgow, where Ninian had preceded him nearly a
century before, without leaving any lasting traces of his passage.
Kentigern, more fortunate, established upon the site of a
burying-ground, consecrated by Ninian, the first foundation of that
magnificent cathedral which still bears his name, though diverted to a
religion different from that he professed.
Kentigern collected round him numerous disciples, all learned in holy
literature, all working with their hands, and possessing nothing as
individuals. "They dwelt," says Jocelyn, "in separate cells, as did
Kentigern, thence were they called Calledei." He distinguished himself
during his episcopate by his efforts to bring back to the faith the
Picts of Galloway, which formed part of the kingdom of Strathclyde; and
afterwards, by numerous mission and monastic foundations throughout all
Albyn--a name which was then given to midland Scotland. His disciples
penetrated even to the Orkney Isles, where they probably met with the
missionaries of S. Columba, despatched from Iona.
The salutary and laborious activity of Kentigern must often have
encroached upon the regions which were specially within the sphere of
Columba. But the generous heart of Columba was inaccessible to jealousy.
He was, besides, the personal friend of Kentigern and of King
Roderick.[47] The fame of the Bishop of Strathclyde's apostolic labours
drew him from his isle to do homage to his rival in love and good works.
He arrived from Iona with a great train of monks, whom he arrayed in
three companies at the moment of their entrance into Glasgow. Kentigern
distributed in the same way the numerous monks who surrounded him in his
episcopal monastery, and whom he led out to meet the abbot of Iona. He
divided them, according to their age, into three bands, the youngest of
whom walked first; then those who had reached the age of manhood; and
last of all, the old and grey-haired, among whom he himself took his
place. They all chanted the anthem, "They shall sing in the ways of the
Lord: that great is the glory of the Lord. The path of the just is made:
and the way of the saints is prepared." The monks of Iona, on their
side, chanted the versicle, "The saints shall go from strength to
strength: and unto the God of gods appeareth every one of them in
Sion."[48] From every side echoed the Alleluia; and it was to the sound
of these words of Holy Scripture that the Apostles of the Picts and
Scots met at what had been the extreme boundary of the Roman empire, and
limit of the power of the Caesars, and upon a soil henceforth for ever
freed from paganism and idolatry. They embraced each other tenderly, and
passed several days in intimate and friendly intercourse.
The historian, who has preserved for us the account of this interview,
does not conceal a less edifying incident. He confesses that some
robbers had joined themselves to the following of the abbot of Iona, and
that they took advantage of the general enthusiasm to steal a ram from
the Bishop's flock. They were soon taken; but Kentigern pardoned them.
Columba and his fellow Apostle exchanged their pastoral staves before
they parted, in token of mutual affection. The staff of S. Columba,
afterwards used by S. Kentigern, was in later times given to S. Wilfred,
who placed it in the monastic church he founded at Ripon.
I know not how far we may put faith in another narrative of Jocelyn,
which has remained Kentigern's most popular title to fame. The wife of
King Roderick, led astray by a guilty passion for a knight of her
husband's court, had the weakness to bestow on him a ring which had been
given to her by the King. When Roderick was out hunting with this
knight, the two took refuge on the banks of the Clyde, during the heat
of the day, and the knight, falling asleep, unwittingly stretched out
his hand, upon which the King saw the ring which he had given to the
Queen as a token of his love. It was with difficulty that he restrained
himself from killing the knight on the spot; but he subdued his rage,
and contented himself by taking the ring from his finger, and throwing
it into the river, without awakening the guilty sleeper. When he had
returned to the town, he demanded his ring from the Queen, and, as she
could not produce it, threw her into prison, and gave orders for her
execution. She obtained, however, a delay of three days, and having in
vain sought the ring from the knight to whom she had given it, she had
recourse to S. Kentigern. He, moved by the remembrance of his mother,
through whose sin he had entered the world, and anxious that the unhappy
woman should be given time for repentance, prayed to God, and the ring
was found in the belly of a salmon caught in the Clyde, and sent by him
to the Queen, who showed it to her husband, and thus escaped the
punishment which awaited her. On her liberation she hastened to
Kentigern, confessed her fault to him, and was exhorted by him to amend
her life and do penance for the past. It is for this reason that the
ancient effigies of the Apostle of Strathclyde represent him holding the
episcopal cross in one hand, and in the other a salmon with a ring in
its mouth.
S. Kentigern lived to a very advanced age, and his jaws being too weak
to masticate his food, his lower jaw was supported by a band of linen
tied round his head. He died gently as he was being lifted out of a
warm bath, in the year 601.
Patron of Glasgow.