Saint Kentigern

Almost everything told of Kentigern comes from one book. The 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia says that the Life written by Jocelyn of Furness about 1185, nearly six centuries after his death, is "the only ancient authority, except a fragment of c. 1164." ¹ Jocelyn's account of Kentigern's monastery in Wales is detailed enough that the encyclopedia's article on Saint Asaph says "of the building and government of few Celtic monasteries do we know so much." ³

The encyclopedia is also willing to say where Jocelyn goes wrong. He has Kentigern born at Culross in Fife and brought up there by Saint Serf, but, the encyclopedia says, the historian Skene "shows that this connection between the two saints involves an anachronism, as St. Serf really belongs to the following century." ¹

The name Kentigern means "head chief," according to the encyclopedia, but he was popularly known as Mungo, from the Cymric Mwyn-gu, "dear one." ¹ CatholicCulture.org gives the meaning as "dear one" or "darling." ⁴ He was born about 518. ¹ His mother was Thenaw, daughter of a British prince called Lothus, from whom, the encyclopedia says, Lothian takes its name; his father is not known. ¹

John J. Delaney's Dictionary of Saints, reprinted by CatholicCulture.org, tells the story of the birth that Jocelyn made famous. ⁴ When Thenaw was found to be pregnant "of an unknown man," she was thrown from a cliff, and when she was found alive at its foot, she was set adrift in a boat on the Firth of Forth. ⁴ She came ashore at Culross, where Serf gave her shelter, and Serf named the child Mungo and raised him. ⁴ It is a good story, and it depends on the very connection with Serf that the encyclopedia rejects. ¹

At about twenty-five he began his mission at Cathures, on the Clyde, which the encyclopedia identifies as the site of modern Glasgow. ¹ The place then stood at the northern edge of the little kingdom of the Strathclyde Britons, which ran south along the west of the island as far as Carlisle. ² Its Christian king, Roderick Hael, welcomed him and had him consecrated bishop about 540. ¹ The encyclopedia on Glasgow dates the founding of the see between 540 and 560. ²

For some thirteen years he lived a hard life in a cell where the Molendinar meets the Clyde, preaching and drawing converts by his example. ¹ A large community grew up around him and, the encyclopedia says, came to be known as "Clasgu," the "dear family," which in the end became the town and city of Glasgow. ¹ The Glasgow article says he set up a religious community on the Welsh model, a center that kept the faith alive among the Christians around it. ²

A strong anti-Christian movement in Strathclyde drove him out, about 553 by the Kentigern article and about 545 by the article on Saint Asaph. ¹³ Delaney blames feuds among the local chieftains. ⁴ He went to Wales, stayed for a time with Saint David at Menevia, and founded a large monastery at Llanelwy, the church on the Elwy, which the Welsh still call the town of St Asaph. ¹³⁴

The Asaph article gives Jocelyn's description of it. The church was built "of smoothed wood, after the fashion of the Britons, seeing that they could not yet build of stone." ³ He had 965 disciples, it says, divided so that 300 farmed, 300 worked about the monastery, and 365 kept the divine office in choirs that relieved one another without a break: "As soon as one choir had terminated its service in church, immediately another entering commenced it." ³

Jocelyn also says that Kentigern, like other Celtic saints, often prayed standing in the icy river. ³ Once, chilled through, he sent the boy Asaph for wood to warm him, and the boy brought live coals in his apron, a miracle that showed Kentigern the holiness of his disciple. ³ When Kentigern left, he made Asaph his successor. ¹³

In 573 the battle of Arthuret, which the Asaph article calls Ardderyd and "the only definite date we have in the life," settled the Christian cause in Cumbria, and King Roderick begged him to come back. ¹³ He returned with many of his Welsh disciples and for eight years kept his see at Hoddam in Dumfriesshire, preaching from there in Galloway and Cumberland. ¹ Delaney's shorter account puts the return to Hoddam about 553. ⁴

About 581 he went back to Glasgow for good. ¹ A year or two later, the encyclopedia says, Saint Columba, then working in Strathtay, came to see him. ¹ "The two saints embraced, held long converse, and exchanged their pastoral staves." ¹

He died at Glasgow on January 13. ¹² The Kentigern article and Delaney give the year as 603, the Glasgow article as 601. ¹²⁴ He was buried on the spot where the cathedral named for him now stands, and the encyclopedia says his remains "are said still to rest in the crypt." ¹⁴

The medieval cathedral of Saint Mungo was begun by Bishop Jocelyn of Glasgow, who died in 1199, and received its last additions from Archbishop Blackader, who died in 1508. ² When the encyclopedia was written, its chancel was used for the worship of the established Presbyterian church. ² The encyclopedia adds that the Bollandists printed a special Mass for his feast dating from the thirteenth century. ¹

Delaney calls him the first bishop of Scotland. ⁴ John Paul II, preaching in Glasgow in 1982, put him alongside Ninian and Columba: "Saint Ninian, Saint Columba and Saint Kentigern were the first to evangelise the pagans and establish a primitive Christian Church." ⁵ Benedict XVI, in 2010, said that Ninian's work "was later taken up by Saint Mungo, Glasgow's own patron, and by other saints." ⁶

The miracle stories most often attached to his name are not told by any source used for this page, and they are left out here. ¹²⁴ CatholicCulture.org lists a bell, a bird, a fish, a ring, a robin, a salmon and a tree among his symbols, without the stories. ⁴

Saint Kentigern is the patron saint of Glasgow. Benedict XVI called him "Glasgow's own patron," and Delaney says he is joint patron of the city with his mother, Thenaw. ⁴⁶ CatholicCulture.org also lists him as patron of Carlisle, of the Archdiocese of Liverpool, of St Asaph, and of salmon. ⁴

Saint Kentigern's feast is January 13, the day of his death. ¹ The encyclopedia says it is "kept throughout Scotland," and CatholicCulture.org lists him that day in the Roman Martyrology and as a memorial in Scotland. ¹⁴

What reaches us of him is mostly one twelfth-century book, and some of it cannot be true as told. ¹ What remains when that is admitted is still a good deal: a bishop who lived in a cell by a river, whose people were called the dear family, and whose settlement became a city. ¹

He was driven out of his own country and spent years in another one, and the monastery he founded in exile outlasted his time there. ¹³ He handed it to a younger man, Asaph, and went home when he was asked. ¹³

Jocelyn remembers his monastery for its prayer, kept up in turns so that it never stopped, and remembers him praying in cold water. ³ The meeting with Columba is told in one sentence: two saints embracing, talking a long time, and exchanging their staffs. ¹

Two popes preaching in his city named him among the first who brought the faith there. ⁵⁶ The bishop at the start of Glasgow's history is the one the city still calls its own. ⁶