THE P RTAL
September 2012 Page 12
Anglo-Saxon saints on stony ground by Harry Schnitker
The great port-city of Bristol was for many centuries one of the largest towns in England . It dominated western trade routes , and was industrialised before the Industrial Revolution . Yet for one seeking Anglo- Saxon saints it is stony ground , indeed .
place by the bridge
The name Bristol , from Bricgstow , or place by the bridge , is definitely Anglo-Saxon , and we know from the one literary reference in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles that there was already a port here in 1051 . Coins were being minted here during the reign of Cnut , from around 1009 . However , none of Bristol ’ s medieval churches has even a scrap of Anglo-Saxon material .
King Offa of Mercia
The most promising of these churches is St Peter ’ s , now a ruin in Castle Park . It has been suggested that this was a very late Minster church , although one remains to be convinced . The idea does , nonetheless , fit in well with John Blair ’ s notion of the minster as the kernel of Anglo-Saxon urban regrowth ( J . Blair , The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society ). The founder would have been King Offa of Mercia , for Bristol was for a long time one of that kingdom ’ s southern outposts . It was only during the twelfth century that the church reached its pre-eminent position , however , and its titular is hardly an Anglo-Saxon saint in any case .
Congresbury
We fare little better in Weston-Super-Mare . Again , we may be certain that we are in an Anglo-Saxon settlement , the ‘ town in the west ’; again , however , no saint . Fortunately , we have the important religious site of Congresbury , about halfway between Bristol and Weston-Super-Mare . Although its ancient church was , like the Cathedral in Wells , dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle , its real significance lay with the shrine of a much more local saint .
Somerset ’ s more important saint
A document from 1030 tells us that “ Ðonne resteð sanctus Congarus confessor on Cungresbyrig ”. Here was the shrine of one of Somerset ’ s more important saints , Congar or Cyngar . The saint ’ s Welsh name notwithstanding , we are now safely on Anglo-Saxon terra firma . The estate was donated by King Alfred the Great to his biographer , Asser , who mentions a derelict Celtic monastery in his Life of Alfred , written in 893 .
Bishops of Wells
The lands of Congresbury were long part of the domain of the Bishops of Wells , which may explain the shared titular between the churches . Legend has it that the lands of Congresbury were donated to the saint by King Ine , the first Anglo-Saxon to rule over Somerset , which had resisted Anglo-Saxon incursions for some time . Saint Cyngar was supposed to have come from Wales as a missionary , but is more likely to have been a local holy man of Welsh stock . He founded his house on Cadbury Hill .
Curiously , another legend tells that any Anglo-Saxon king who visited or even cast eyes upon the site would not survive . This may be a memory of the dislike of the new Anglo-Saxon lords on the part of the local Welsh population . The prominent cult , which lasted from an unknown date before the ninth century until the Reformation , is a reminder that across much of the Anglo-Saxon world , Irish , Welsh and Scottish saints were crucially important to the Church . It is a reminder , of the shared heritage of the Britain-wide Ordinariate .
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