St Patrick and the Irish Martyrs
Armine le Strange Campbell
From The Glories of Glastonbury by Armine le S Campbell, 1926.
Glastonbury of old time was a tranquil and peaceful valley far from the haunts of men. On a glorious spring morning it is an unforgettable sight. The beeches syand in their first fresh beauty of powdered green, the grass at their feet golden with their silken bud-sheaths. There is a sense of pulsing life animating the unfolding leaves as they shake themselves out as a butterfly from its chrysalis, and the profound silence all around is intensified by the almost inarticulate sound of the growth of plants and the murmur of myriads of tiny insects.
From sky to sod
The world's unfolding blossom
Smells of God
This is the site of the first Christian church in our land, surrounded with the cells of the laura nestling in leafy glades and sheltered by hills on three sides. The discovery within the last decade [before 1926] of the remains of a mud and wattle hut beneath the Edgar chapel but a stone's throw from the place where the primitive oratory stood, brings the life of the early hermits very vividly before us. It suggests the beautiful couplet of an ancient poet which may appropriately be addressed to the cell in that peaceful solitude which is filled with God:
Tu mihi curarum requies, tu nocte vel atra
Lumen, et in solis tu mihi turba locis.O cell, sweet rest amidst the sorrows of this world,
In blackest night dost thou illumine me with light
And in thy solitude I find in thee companionship...
In those days the sea, now fourteen miles away, rippled up to the foot of the Tor, and the hills, today surrounded with orchards and pasture, then rose from the water and marshy land which bordered the Bristol Channel.
Here, then, the solitaries settled, and surely this were paradise enough for a poor hermit. He walked with Christ under the apple trees whose delicate blossom tossed like rose-coloured foam into the azure dome of heaven, while the clear brooklets babbled and sparkled at their feet in the sunshine, and the birds sang so sweetly among the branches. He held familiar intercourse with Our Lady and the saints in the grey dawn, the grass still spangled with innumerable glistening dewdrops. The sea-girt island was his enclosure, the broad woods his cloister, the wide world the object of his apostolate of prayer.
To this place, about a hundred years after the death of St Joseph of Arimanthaea, the two missionaries Phaganus and Deruvianus were sent by Pope Eleutherius at the request of King Lucius in AD 179. They journeyed through Surrey. They not only restored the wattle church, but also built the church of St Michael on the Tor and a monastery where a small community was established.
It is said that about three hundred years later, after many generations had passed away, there came hither an aged and venerable man of ninety years. He had journeyed from Ireland, the land which, by his labours, prayers and miracles, he had so marvellously won to God. This was St Patrick, who now joined himself to the solitaries of Avalon and, giving them a [monastic] Rule, he became their first abbot. He continued to guide and govern them for thirty years until, at the age of 120, he passed in AD 464, to the bliss of heaven. His burial place was believed to be to the right-hand side of the altar, and many Irish pilgrims and scholars visited his shrine, leaving behind them traces of the culture and learning for which they were renowned.
His discpile, St Benignus, who succeeded him, had been an early follower of St Patrick, to whose feet he clung while yet a tiny child, and from whom he could not be parted without tears; wherefore he changed his name to Benignus (kind one) from his former name of Beon. He laboured long in Ireland but followed his master to Avalon, and built a hermit's cell at Ferramere, where he lived and died.
Some centuries later during the reign of William II (1087-1100) his relics were wrapped in the finest linen and borne with great solemnity to the barge which was rowed to the landing-place by a monk and a secular, in a radiant glory of supernatural light. There is was met by Abbot Thurstan, preceded by a great procession of monks bearing torches and tapers, and singing-boys, nobles and peasants who came to do honour to the Irish saint. At the place where the church of St Benignus now stands the panegyric was preached and many wonderful miracles were wrought when the relics were there exposed to the veneration of the faithful. They were then laid to rest beside those of his master.
The Sanctuary already famous as the shrine of the relic of the Holy Blood, the burial place of St Joseph of Arimathaea and the home of a band of men who went forth ablaze with the love of God now became yet more renowned as the tomb of St Patrick.
It was probably in the seventh century that a company of Irish pilgrims left Ireland to make the long and difficult journey to Rome, facing undaunted the perils of the sea and all manner of discomfort that they might pray at the tombs of the holy Apostles. In their love of St Patrick they purposed on their return to visit his shrine also.
But the fierce pagans of the neighbourhood fell on them and they gained the martyrs' palm in the village of Shapwick. Thus these pilgrims to the Eternal City ended their pilgrimage of this earthy life almost within sight of the 'Second Rome', whence they were translated to the City of God Eternal in Heaven.
No details have come down to us but we know that soon after, the great and good King Ina, so famous for his long and prosperous reign of thirty seven years, carried their relics to the new Saxon Abbey which he had built in AD 708.
We may easily picture the scene; the solemn procession from the shore amid the chanting of the monks, the perfume of incense mingling with the scent of flowers, the gay banners floating in the sunshine, the rich copes of the priests and the gorgeous apparel of the king, and the sense of triumph and joy in the hearts of those who preceded the relics of the glorious athletes who had given their lives for the faith. Then we seem to see the reat king himself. He is bearing, perhaps, that precious reliquary, with its yet more precious treasure within, to the church, the little Saxon church amongs the beeches on the walls of which the holy oils had yet scarcely dried.