The Cult of Saint Petroc in Cornwall and Brittany c. 550 to c. 1250 [PhD thesis]

404 Pages·1996·20.75 MB·English

by  Karen Anne Jankulak

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The Cult of St Petroc in Cornwall and Brittany
c. 550 to c. 1250
by
Karen Anne Jankulak
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto
© Copyright by Karen Anne Jankulak 1996
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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Karen Anne Jankulak
"The Cult of St Petroc in Cornwall and Britjmy,
c. 550 to c. 1250"
Ph.D. thesis, 1996
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto
In the twelfth century the relics of an early medieval Cornish saint, Petroc, were
stolen from his main foundation at Bodmin (Cornwall), taken to the abbey of Saint-Meen in
Brittany, and subsequendy retrieved, partly through the agency of the Angevin king, Henry II
and Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter. At least one contemporary chronicler, Roger de
Hoveden, recorded the event. In addition, a fully-developed hagiographical narrative, also
contemporary with the theft, commemorated and appropriately embellished the incident.
Through the lens of this text, the thesis investigates the cult of St Petroc in both Cornwall
and Brittany, both before and slightly after the theft. These two regions are associated for
much of their history through shared language and a similar geographical and political
situation on the periphery of larger political and cultural entities; the cult of this saint, both
l>efore and after the theft of relics, illuminates the similarities and dissimilarities in their
ecclesiastical, religious, cultural, and political histories.
This transmission of St Petroc’s cult, assisted greatly by a network of associated
saints and churches, shows on the one hand the homogeneity of Cornish and Breton society.
The relics themselves are clearly instrumental in the popularisation of St Petroc’s cult in both
Cornwall and Brittany, and were venerated in each area. Yet these relics were probably not
responsible for the transmission of this Comish cult to Brittany. On the other hand, the
manifestations of St Petroc’s cult are quite different in the two areas under consideration,
even in the medieval period. The theft incident usefully contrasts the two areas, and sheds
valuable light upon the policies of Henry II, newly in control of the Breton duchy, towards
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this Continental possession.
The theft text, although written securely within the conventions of hagiography, is
also clearly intended as a historical account. This blending of genres produces a fascinatingly
tangled account of Breton and Cornish intrigue and political manoeuvring.
in
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank several people who significantly assisted my research in
addition to my thesis supervisor, David Townsend, and the members of my thesis committee,
Ann Dooley, Joseph Goering, and David Klausner. In Cornwall, I owe deepest thanks to
Oliver Padel and Isobel Harvey, Angela Broome, the Reverend Mr. W.M.M. Picken, and
Joanna Mattingly. In Brittany I would like to thank Bernard Tanguy, Chantal Galliou (and
other staff at the Centre de recherche bretonne et celtique in Brest), and Father Job an Irien.
In Toronto, in addition to much assistance from numerous colleagues, I wish to acknowledge
that of the staff of Interlibrary Loan, Robarts Research Library, that of John Tyacke and
other members of the Toronto Cornish Association, and that of my father for his help in
drawing the maps. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
iv
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Table of Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1
Chapter I: The Theft Text................................................................................................................. 5
Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 5
Texts and Manuscripts......................................................................................................... 6
The De reliquiarum furto.................................................................................................... 8
Historical and hagiographical aspects of the Theft text................................................ 31
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 41
Chapter II: The Cult of St Petroc in Cornwall........................................................................... 43
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 43
The Vitae Petroci .............................................................................................................. 43
Other Hagiographical Records........................................................................................... 31
The Community of St Petroc at Bodmin......................................................................... 56
The Community of St Petroc in the Episcopal History of Cornwall.......................... 64
The Establishment of theS ite at Bodmin........................................................................ 75
The Name Bodmin .............................................................................. 80
The Move of St Petroc from Padstow to Bodmin ........................................................ 85
The Names of Padstow and Relative Dating of Cults................................................... 89
The Historical St Petroc.................................................................................................... 101
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 104
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Chapter III: The Cult of St Petroc in Brittany......................................................................... 106
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 106
The Nature of the Sources ............................................................................................. 107
St Petroc in Breton Toponymy ...................................................................................... Ill
Sites of St Petroc’s Cult.................................................................................................. 116
Extra-Toponymic Indications of Sites............................................................................ 127
Other Commemorations of St Petroc: Relics............................................................... 130
Other Commemorations of St Petroc: Liturgy............................................................. 132
Other Commemorations of St Petroc: Legends and Folklore..................................... 138
Saintly Associations: the Example of St Samson and D ol.......................................... 144
Toponymy Reconsidered ............................................................................................... 147
Other Saintly Associations: Wethenek and Gu€nol6.................................................. 148
The Tenth Century and Breton Exiles ......................................................................... 154
Gudnol6, Wethenek and the cult in Basse Bretagne................................................... 161
Other Saintly Associations: St Jacut.............................................................................. 164
Conclusion: St Petroc in the Religious Landscape of Medieval Brittany................ 170
Chapter IV: St Petroc, Bodmin Priory, and England............................................................... 176
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 176
The Possessions of St Petroc in Cornwall: Domesday .............................................. 177
The Possessions of St Petroc in Cornwall: before Domesday ................................. 181
St Petroc in Cornish and English Ecclesiastical Organisation ................................. 190
Bodmin as a M inster....................................................................................................... 196
Bodmin as an Augustinian House ................................................................................. 198
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