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Historia Divae Monacellae

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1907 illustration of Melangell's encounter with Prince Brochwel by Willy Pogany

The Historia Divae Monacellae is the medieval Latin hagiography of Melangell (Latin: Monacella), a Welsh saint probably of the 7th or 8th century.

Synopsis[edit]

A prince of Powys named Brochwel Ysgithrog, while on a hunting trip to Pennant in AD 604,[a] was pursuing a hare with his dogs. He came upon a large bramble, in which a virgin was praying with the hare under her hem. Brochwel urged his dogs to catch the hare, but they retreated in fear. He asked the virgin how long she had lived on his land alone and where she came from, and she replied that she was a princess of an Irish kingdom called Iowchel[b] and had lived there alone as a consecrated virgin for 15 years after fleeing an arranged marriage.[3]

After learning Melangell's background, Brochwel granted her the land she was living on, and declared it a perpetual sanctuary and promised protection from hunters. Melangell lived in solitude at Pennant for another 37 years, and the wild hares were tame to her, even performing intercessory miracles. Brochwel's successors continued to affirm the right of sanctuary at Pennant, and Melangell established virgins in the area. After Melangell's death, someone named Elise attempted to violate the virgins, and died suddenly and wretchedly.[4]

Textual history[edit]

The Historia is the oldest and most thorough account of Melangell's life and the founding of Pennant Melangell. It is a rare example of a Latin hagiography for a female Welsh saint; Winifred is the only other female Welsh saint attested in pre-Reformation sources with surviving Latin hagiography.[5]

The story undoubtedly derives from local tradition, and the account of hares performing miracles may reflect popular folklore.[6]

Ralegh Radford and W. J. Hemp argued in 1959 that the Historia was mostly written in the 14th or 15th century, and later glossed and added to by antiquarians after the Reformation.[7] According to Pryce, the prose style and references to the College of St Chad in Shrewsbury, which was dissolved in 1548, point to a pre-Reformation date, while the use of the word divus to describe Melangell indicates that it was composed no earlier than the late 15th century.[8] The various antiquarians associated with each of the manuscripts generally lived in or near Powys, which suggests that the Historia was circulating in the area from at least the late 16th century.[9]

Manuscripts[edit]

The original manuscript has been lost. However, Pryce lists five surviving manuscript copies of the Historia, dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries, as well as one 1848 copy of a now-lost 17th-century manuscript. Three of the manuscripts are complete, and the two earliest ones are fragmentary.[10] The text of each transcription of the Historia is slightly different, although it is evident that all surviving versions originate with a single source text. The discrepancies between the manuscripts are not substantive, but probably derive from a combination of scribal error and editorial liberties on the part of the scribes.[11]

Surviving manuscripts of the Historia
Manuscript Date Scribe Location Notes Ref.
Cardiff 3.11, p.1 c. 1561–1580 David Powel Cardiff Central Library Incomplete, containing the final third of the text [12]
Harley MS 2059, fo. 111 Late 16th–early 17th century Laurence Bostock British Library Incomplete due to damage [13]
NLW 3108B, fos. 76–77 Late 17th century Thomas Sebastian Price National Library of Wales [13]
NLW 1506C, part iii, pp. 38–41 c. 1700 Unidentified National Library of Wales Copied from Price's manuscript [10]
NLW 1641B i, pp. 63–68 c. 18th–19th century Gwallter Mechain National Library of Wales [14]
NLW 35B before 1759 John Owen National Library of Wales Copied from William Morris. Not mentioned in Pryce 1994 [15]

Analysis[edit]

According to Jane Cartwright, a professor at University of Wales Trinity Saint David, the Historia's moral lesson is that divine retribution awaits those who attempt to violate consecrated virgins. Cartwright also compares the legend of Melangell to that of Winifred and Eluned, as well as other female Welsh saints, who were subject to sexual violence while Melangell and her nuns were spared.[16] While Cartwright analyses Melangell as a nun, the historian Liz Herbert McAvoy argues that the Historia reflects the anchoritic tradition and she compares Melangell to Christina of Markyate, an English anchoress who also fled an arranged marriage.[17]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ The Historia gives a date of 604 AD, but this date is suspect due to its likely origin in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, which is viewed as historically unreliable by scholars.[1]
  2. ^ Iowchel is not a known kingdom, but may be an anachronistic reference to Youghal, a town founded in the 13th century in County Cork.[2]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Ralegh Radford & Hemp 1959, p. 83
  2. ^ Pryce 1994, p. 29
  3. ^ Pryce 1994, pp. 39–40
  4. ^ Pryce 1994, p. 40
  5. ^ Pryce 1994, p. 23
  6. ^ Pryce 1994, p. 29
  7. ^ Ralegh Radford & Hemp 1959, p. 82
  8. ^ Pryce 1994, p. 28
  9. ^ Pryce 1994, p. 25
  10. ^ a b Pryce 1994, pp. 24–25
  11. ^ Pryce 1994, pp. 25–26
  12. ^ Huws 2022, pp. 559–560
  13. ^ a b Pryce 1994, p. 24
  14. ^ Huws 2022, pp. 158–159
  15. ^ Huws 2022, page number not provided.
  16. ^ Cartwright 2002, p. 7
  17. ^ Herbert McAvoy 2010, p. 211

Bibliography[edit]

  • Cartwright, Jane (2002). "Dead Virgins: Feminine Sanctity in Medieval Wales". Medium Ævum. 71 (1): 7. doi:10.2307/43630386. ISSN 0025-8385. JSTOR 43630386.
  • Herbert McAvoy, Liz (2010). "Anchorites and medieval Wales". Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe. Boydell & Brewer. pp. 195–216. doi:10.1515/9781846157868. ISBN 9781846157868.
  • Huws, Daniel (2022). A Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes c.800–c.1800. National Library of Wales. ISBN 9781862251212. (offline)
  • Pryce, Huw (1994). "A New Edition of Historia Divae Monacellae". Montgomeryshire Collections. 82: 23–40. hdl:10107/1271085.
  • Ralegh Radford, C. A.; Hemp, W. J. (1959). "Pennant Melangell: The Church and the Shrine". Archaeologia Cambrensis. 108: 81–113. hdl:10107/4742843.
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