David of Wales

Description

Saint David (Welsh: Dewi Sant; Latin: Davidus; c. 500 – c. 589) was a Welsh bishop of Mynyw (now St Davids) during the 6th century. He is the patron saint of Wales. David was a native of Wales, and a relatively large amount of information is known about his life. His birth date, however, is uncertain: suggestions range from 462 to 512. He is traditionally believed to be the son of Saint Non and the grandson of Ceredig ap Cunedda, king of Ceredigion. The Welsh annals placed his death 569 years after the birth of Christ, but Phillimore’s dating revised this to 601.

Connections to Glastonbury
Rhigyfarch counted Glastonbury Abbey among the churches David founded.[9] Around forty years later William of Malmesbury, believing the Abbey older, said that David visited Glastonbury only to rededicate the Abbey and to donate a travelling altar including a great sapphire. He had had a vision of Jesus who said that “the church had been dedicated long ago by Himself in honour of His Mother, and it was not seemly that it should be re-dedicated by human hands”. So David instead commissioned an extension to be built to the abbey, east of the Old Church. (The dimensions of this extension given by William were verified archaeologically in 1921). One manuscript indicates that a sapphire altar was among the items Henry VIII of England confiscated from the abbey during the Dissolution of the Monasteries a thousand years later.

The Shrine of Saint David prior to its reconstruction in the early twenty-first century.
Though the exact date of his death is not certain, tradition holds that it was on 1 March, which is the date now marked as Saint David’s Day. The two most common years given for his death are 601 and 589. The monastery is said to have been “filled with angels as Christ received his soul”. His last words to his followers were in a sermon on the previous Sunday. The Welsh Life of St David gives these as, “Arglwyddi, brodyr, a chwiorydd, Byddwch lawen a chadwch eich ffyd a’ch credd, a gwnewch y petheu bychain a glywsoch ac y welsoch gennyf i. A mwynhau a gerdaf y fford yd aeth an tadeu idi”, which translates as, “Lords, brothers and sisters, Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed, and do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. And as for me, I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us.” “Do ye the little things in life” (“Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd”) is today a very well known phrase in Welsh. The same passage states that he died on a Tuesday, from which attempts have been made to calculate the year of his death.

David was buried at St David’s Cathedral at St Davids, Pembrokeshire, where his shrine was a popular place of pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages. During the 10th and 11th centuries the Cathedral was regularly raided by Vikings, who removed the shrine from the church and stripped off the precious metal adornments. In 1275 a new shrine was constructed, the ruined base of which remains to this day (see photo), which was originally surmounted by an ornamental wooden canopy with murals of David, Patrick and Denis. The relics of David and Justinian of Ramsey Island were kept in a portable casket on the stone base of the shrine. It was at this shrine that Edward I came to pray in 1284. During the reformation Bishop Barlow (1536–48), a staunch Protestant, stripped the shrine of its jewels and confiscated the relics of David and Justinian.