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Kentigern of Glasgow

22 bytes added, 14:36, December 31, 2012
Sources about his life
==Sources about his life==
The main source for knowledge of his life today is the "Life of Saint Mungo" written by the Norman-era Cistercian monastic hagiographer, Jocelin of Furness, in about 1185. Jocelin states that he rewrote the ''Vita'' from an earlier Glasgow legend and an old Gaelic document. There are two other certain medieval accounts: the earlier partial Life in the Cottonian MSS [scholarly abbreviation for manuscripts] now in the British Library, and a later one, based on Jocelin, by John of Tynemouth. The saint also appears in Welsh and Cambro-Latin poetry and texts thought to derive from earlier sources, however. There seems little reason to doubt that Mungo was one of the first evangelists of Strathclyde, under the patronage of King Rhiderch Hael, and probably became the first Bishop of Glasgow. The Annales Cambriae record his death in 612, although the year of his death is sometimes given as 603 in other sources (his death date, Jan. 13, was on a Sunday in both years). Mungo's ancestry is recorded in the Bonedd y Saint. His father, Owain was a King of Rheged, who survives in the later legendary French Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes as Yvain, as well as in other Arthurian stories. His maternal grandfather, Lleuddun, was probably a King of the legendary Gododdin; Lothian was named after him. His paternal grandfather Urien was an early Christian king of Rheged, in the "Old North" of Cumbria and the Lake District, celebrated in early poems attributed to the legendary bard Taliesin. In Scotland, excavations at Hoddom have brought confirmation of early Christian activity there, uncovering a late 6th century stone baptistery, likely to have been associated with the saint's missionary work. Jocelin's post-Schism Life seems to have altered parts of earlier accounts that he did not understand; while adding others, like the trip to Rome, that served his own purposes, largely the promotion of the Bishopric of Glasgow. Some new parts may have been collected from genuine local stories, particularly those of Mungo's work in Cumbria. His association with St. Asaph in Wales may have been a Norman invention.
==Oral traditions, legends, and legacy==
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