Everything about Padarn totally explained
Saint
Padarn is the eponymous founder of
St Padarn's Church. Llanbadarn Fawr, near
Aberystwyth in the early sixth century. At one time quite a popular saint, he's now chiefly remembered because of the church and his connection with
King Arthur, for his early
vita is one of only five insular saints' lives and two Breton ones that include a mention of Arthur that seems to be independent of
Geoffrey of Monmouth's myth-making in
Historia Regum Britanniae.
The major source for biographical details is the
Vita Sancti Paternus, an
epitome that shows its previous and more extensive source, and which dates to 1120, before Geoffrey wrote. Padarn is
Armorican by race, "Petran, his father, and Guean, his mother", who, as soon as he was born, dedicated themselves to Christ and piously separated: "Petran straightway leaving
Letavia went to Ireland." The boy inquiring of his father's whereabouts elected to follow his example "where he fasts, prays, watches, meditates, mourns, sleeps on a little mat, and kneels to the supreme Lord day and night"; he joined a fellowship of monks travelling to
Britannia, founds a monastery on the Britannic shore, then travels to join his father in Ireland. There Padarn's spiritual countenance is sufficient to calm the armies of kings of two provinces; peace and unity spring up, to the extent that, when woods are felled in one province, they fall of themselves in the other.
Padarn and Arthur
In the most celebrated episode, King Arthur tries to steal Padarn's tunic. Arthur here's a furious tyrant introduced as a foil to demonstrate the power of the holy man, his miraculous execution of retribution, and his forgiveness, for which the king must kneel:
"When Padarn was in his church resting after so much labour at sea, a certain tyrant, Arthur by name, was traversing the regions on either side, who one day came to the cell of saint Padarn the bishop. And while he was addressing Padarn, he looked at the tunic, which he, being pierced with the zeal of avarice, sought for his own. The saint answering said, `This tunic isn't fitting for the habit of any malign person, but for the habit of the clerical office.' He went out of the monastery in a rage. And again he returns in wrath, that he might take away the tunic against the counsels of his own companions. One of the disciples of Padarn seeing him returning in fury, ran to saint Padarn and said, `The tyrant, who went out from here before, is returning. Reviling, stamping, he levels the ground with his feet'. Padarn answers `Nay rather, may the earth swallow him.' With the word straightway the earth opens the hollow of its depth, and swallows Arthur up to his chin. He immediately acknowledging his guilt begins to praise both God and Padarn, until, while he begs forgiveness, the earth delivered him up. From that place on bent knees he begged the saint for indulgence, whom the saint forgave. And he took Padarn as his continual patron, and so departed."
This theme of the tunic might connect the story to
Padarn Redcoat, because his coat was one of the
Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain.
Other contemporaries of Padarn
The
vita makes him a contemporary not only of Arthur, but also of the tyrant
Maelgwn Gwynedd, who is first cursed because of a crime against the saint, and then cured of his sickness and blindness when he comes on bended knee to ask forgiveness and to bestow lands on Padarn's community, which are laid out with the exactitude of a deed:
"a quantity of land, that is, from the mouth of the river Rheidiol upwards until it touches at its head the limit of the river Clarach; and along the length of the same river as far as the sea is the limit prolonged."
Also mentioned in the
Vita Sancti Paterni is
St David, with whom accompanied by
St Teilo Padarn travels on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, gaining the gift of tongues on the way, for all three to be ordained bishops by the patriarch. There Paternus acquired his tunic that Arthur was to covet. On their return they amicably divided Britannia in three bishoprics.
Padarn in Letia
Padarn bid farewell to his three communities of monks and set out for Letia, where his fame filled the region, and he made peace with the bishop Samson in
Vannes, where Padarn his built a monastery, and subsequently made a peace with the six bishops of
Armorica, of which he now made a seventh.
Three days were kept to honour Padern in Armorica:
"the Armoricans celebrate three solemnities of his, that is, that day of the Kalends of November, when he formed perpetual unity with the six chief saints of Letia, and the day of his obit, and the day, on which he received the order of the episcopate, that is, the twelfth before the Kalends of the month of July."
Primitive elements
Some primitive elements remain in the text: two evil heralds are undone by the
Trial by ordeal of boiling water; scalded and defeated, "Their souls in raven-forms fly to the riverbed, which unto this day by the name of one of them is called, to wit, Graban."
Further Information
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