St David in GlastonburyArmine le Strange Campbellfrom The Glories of Glastonbury, Sheed & Ward, London, 1926 St David of Menevia was probably born about the year 500AD and lived to a very great age. It is said that he came with seven bishops to consecrate the little church at Ynys Witrin (the Glassy Isle), as the Britons named Avalon, but he learned in a vision that it had already been dedicated to Blessed Mary by our Lord Himself. He therefore resolved to build another church under the dedication of Our Lady on the site where the Galilee stands today. He brought with him great treasures with which to adorn it. Among these was a magnificent altar-stone of sapphire, gilded and studded with precious stones, which had been the gift of the Patriarch of Jerusalem. This was the famous 'great sapphire' which, hidden for a while at the approach of the Danes, escaped the ravages of the pagans and was one of the glories of Glastonbury for over a thousand years until it was stolen by those thieves who respected neither the beauty of the jewel in situ nor the rights of its owners, nor even the fact that, consecrated with chrism, it had served as the altar-stone for so many centuries. For the sacrilegious hands of Henry VIII, through his agents Pollard, Tregonwell and Petre, seized "a super-altar garnished with silver-gilt and part gold, called the Great Sapphire of Glastonbury", and sent it to the Royal Treasurer on May 2, 1539, together with "493 ounces of gold, 16,000 ounces of gilt-plate and 28,700 ounces of parcel gilt and silver plate" and many other treasures taken from the monasteries in the west country. Fearful lest the precise site of the wattle church should be lost by any additions made to it, St David set up a pillar the base of which, measuring 7ft in diameter and uncovered in 1921, may be seen at Glastonbury at the present time. A brass plate, lost about the middle of the 17th century, was fixed to it, upon which was engraved a short account of the coming of St Joseph of Arimathaea, the dedication of his church by our Lord, the vision of St David, his addition to the church and his gift of the great sapphire. And it goes on:
"And lest the site or size of the earlier church should come to be forgotten by reason of such additions, this pillar is erected on a line extended southward through the two eastern angles of the said church and cutting off from it the chancel aforesaid. And its length was 60ft westward from that line; its width 26ft; the distance of the centre of this pillar from the middle point between the said angles 48ft". The relics of St David were brought in the tenth century to Glastonbury by Edgar the Peaceable, who did so much to beautify the abbey in which he too was laid to rest, not far from the holy patron of Wales. |
Isle of Avalon |
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