Winwaloe

Saint Winwaloe
Saint Guénolé (d'après le buste en argent du reliquaire de Locquénolé).jpg
Portrait of a silver bust of Saint Guénolé, 1901
Died3 March 532
Landévennec Abbey
Venerated inEastern Orthodox Church
Catholic Church
Feast3 March
PatronageFertility

Saint Winwaloe (Breton: Gwenole; French: Guénolé; Latin: Winwallus or Winwalœus; c. 460 – 3 March 532) was the founder and first abbot of Landévennec Abbey (literally "Lann of Venec"), also known as the Monastery of Winwaloe. It was just south of Brest in Brittany, now part of France.

Life

St Winwaloe's Church, Gunwalloe

Winwaloe was the son of Fragan (or Fracan), a prince of Dumnonia, and his wife Gwen the Three-Breasted, who had fled to Brittany to avoid the plague.

Winwaloe was born about 460, apparently at Plouguin, near Saint-Pabu,[citation needed] where his supposed place of birth, a feudal hillock, can still be seen. Winwaloe grew up in Ploufragan near Saint-Brieuc with his brother Wethenoc, and his brother Jacut. They were later joined by a sister, Creirwy, and still later by half-brother Cadfan. He was educated by Budoc of Dol on Lavret island in the Bréhat archipelago near Paimpol.

As a young man Winwaloe conceived a wish to visit Ireland to see the remains of Saint Patrick, who had just died. However, the saint appeared to him in a dream to say that it would be better to remain in Brittany and found an abbey. So, with eleven of Budoc's other disciples, he set up a small monastery on the Île de Tibidy, at the mouth of the Faou. However it was so inhospitable that after three years, he miraculously opened a passage through the sea to found another abbey on the opposite bank of the Landévennec estuary.

Winwaloe died at his monastery on 3 March 532.

Veneration

Winwaloe was venerated as a saint at Landévennec until Viking invasions in 914 forced the monks to flee, with his body, to Château-du-Loir and then Montreuil-sur-Mer. His relics were often taken on procession through the town.

Winwaloe's shrine was destroyed during the French Revolution in 1793.

He apparently acquired a priapic reputation through confusion of his name with the word gignere (French engendrer, "to beget") and was thus a patron of fertility as one of the phallic saints. He is also the patron of Saint-Guénolé in Penmarch, Finistère.

In Cornwall, Winwaloe is the patron of the churches at Tremaine, St Wynwallow's Church, Landewednack, Gunwalloe and Poundstock as well as East Portlemouth in Devon and two lost chapels in Wales. His feast day is 28 April and Gunwalloe feast is celebrated on the last Sunday of April. The churches of St Twynnells, near Pembroke, Pembrokeshire and Wonastow, Monmouthshire may have been originally dedicated to him. They were probably founded by his successor at Landévennec, Gwenhael, who certainly made trips to Great Britain. Exeter Cathedral, Glastonbury Abbey, Abingdon Abbey and Waltham Abbey Church held small relics. He was also popular in East Anglia where the abbey at Montreuil had a daughter house; St Winwaloe Priory in Norfolk was dedicated to him.

Butler's account

The hagiographer Alban Butler wrote in his Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints (1815),

The feet of a statue of Saint Guénolé, in a chapel at Prigny (Loire-Atlantique), are pierced with needles by local girls who hope to find their soulmates in this way.

March 3 St. Winwaloe, or Winwaloc, Abbot

FRAGAN or Fracan, father of this saint, was nearly related to Cathoun, one the kings or princes of Wales, and had by his wife Gwen three sons, Guethenoc, Jacut, and Winwaloe, whom they bound themselves by vow to consecrate to God from his birth, because he was their third son. The invasions of the Saxons, and the storms which soon after overwhelmed his own country, obliged him to seek a harbour in which he might serve God in peace. Riwald had retired a little before with many others, from Wales into Armorica, and had been there kindly received; several Brittons, who had followed the tyrant Maximus, having settled in that country long before. Fragan therefore transported thither his whole family, about the middle of the fifth century, and fixed his habitation at a place called from him to this day, Plou-fragan, situated on the river Gouet, which ancient British and Gaulish word signifies blood. All accounts of our saint agree that his two elder brothers were born in Great Britain, but some place the birth of St. Winwaloe, and of his sister Creirvie, much younger than him, in Armorica. The pious parents brought up their children in the fear of God, but out of fondness delayed to place Winwaloe in a monastery, till he was now grown up. At length, touched by God, the father conducted him to the monastery of St. Budoc, in the isle of Laurels, now called Isleverte, or Green Island, not far from the isle of Brehat. St. Budoc was an abbot in Great Britain, eminent for piety and learning, and flying from the swords of the Saxons, took refuge among his countrymen in Armorica, and in this little island assembled several monks, and opened a famous school for youth.

Under his discipline Winwaloe made such progress, that the holy abbot appointed him superior over eleven monks, whom he sent to lay the foundation of a new monastery. They travelled through Domnonea, or the northern coast of Brittany, and finding a desert island near the mouth of the river Aven, now called Chateaulin, they built themselves several little huts or cells. From these holy inhabitants the name of Tibidy, that is, House of Prayers, was given to that island, which it still retains. This place is exposed to so violent winds and storms, that after three years St. Winwaloe and his community abandoned it, and built themselves a monastery on the continent, in a valley sheltered from the winds, called Landevenech, three leagues from Brest, on the opposite side of the bay. Grallo, count of Cornouailles, in which province this abbey is situated, in the diocess of Quimper-Corentin, gave the lands, and was at the expense of the foundation of this famous monastery.

St. Winwaloe, from the time he left his father’s house, never wore any other garments but what were made of the skins of goats, and under these a hair shirt; day and night, winter and summer, his clothing was the same. In his monastery neither wheat-bread nor wine was used, but for the holy sacrifice of the mass. No other drink was allowed to the community but water, which was sometimes boiled with a small decoction of certain wild herbs. The monks eat only coarse barley-bread, boiled herbs and roots, or barley-meal and herbs mixed, except on Saturdays and Sundays, on which they were allowed cheese and shell-fish, but of these the saint never tasted himself. His coarse barley-bread he always mingled with ashes, and their quantity he doubled in Lent, though even then it must have been very small, only to serve for mortification, and an emblem of penance. In Lent he took his refreshment only twice a week; his bed was composed of the rough bark of trees, or of sand, with a stone for his pillow. From the relaxation in the rule of abstinence on Saturdays, it is evident that this monastic rule, which was the same in substance with that received in other British, Scottish, and Irish monasteries, was chiefly borrowed from Oriental rules, Saturday being a fast-day according to the discipline of the Roman church. This rule was observed at Landevenech, till Lewis le Debonnaire, for the sake of uniformity, caused that of St. Benedict to be introduced there in 818. This house was adopted into the congregation of St. Maur, in 1636.

St. Winwaloe was sensible that the spirit of prayer, is the soul of a religious state and the comfort and support of all those who are engaged in it: as to himself, his prayer, either mental or vocal, was almost continual, and so fervent, that he seemed to forget that he lived in a mortal body. From twenty years of age till his death he never sat in the church, but always prayed either kneeling or standing unmoved, in the same posture, with his hands lifted up to heaven, and his whole exterior bespoke the profound veneration with which he was penetrated. He died on the 3rd of March, about the year 529, in a very advanced age.

His body was buried in his own church, which he had built of wood, on the spot upon which the abbatial house now stands. These relics were translated into the new church when it was built, but during the ravages of the Normans they were removed to several places in France, and at length into Flanders. At present the chief portions are preserved at Saint Peter’s, at Blandinberg, at Ghent, and at Montreuil in Lower Picardy, of which he is titular patron. In Picardy, he is commonly called St. Vignevaley, and more commonly Walovay; in Brittany, Guignole, or more frequently Vennole; in other parts of France, Guingalois; in England Winwaloe or Winwaloc. His name occurs in the English litany of the seventh age, published by Mabillon.

He is titular saint of St. Guingualoe, a priory at Chateau du Loir, dependant on Marmoutier at Tours, and of several churches and parishes in France. His father, St. Fracan, is titular saint of a parish in the diocess of St. Brienc, called Plou-Fragan, of which he is said to have been lord, and of another in the diocess of Leon, called St. Frogan; also, St. Gwen his mother, of one in the same diocess called Ploe-Gwen, and of another in that of Quimper. In France she is usually called Saint Blanche, the British word Gwen signifying Blanche or White. His brothers are honoured in Brittany, St. Guethenoc, on the 5th of November, and St. Jacut, or James, on the 8th of February and the 3rd of March; the latter is patron of the abbey of St. Jagu, in the diocess of Dol. St. Balay, or Valay, chief patron of the parish of Plou-balai, in the diocess of St. Malo, and a St. Martin are styled disciples of St. Winwaloe, and before their monastic profession were lords of Rosmeur, and Ros-madeuc. Some other disciples of our saint are placed in the calendars of several churches in Brittany, as St. Guenhael his successor, St. Idunet or Yonnet, St. Dei, &c. See the ancient life of St. Winwaloe, the first of the three given by Bollandus and Henschenius; that in Surius and Cressy not being genuine. See also Baillet and Lobineau, Lives of the Saints of Brittany, p. 43 and 48.

Ranbeck's account

Aegedius Ranbeck wrote in his Saints of the Order of Saint Benedict (1896),

Saint Winwaloc, Abbot and Priest

The best authorities state that Saint Winwaloc joined the novitiate in one of the numerous monasteries that were erected in Britain by the Sons of Saint Benedict. His father was Francan, a cousin of one of the reigning princes. As Winwaloc was intended for the religious life, his education was entrusted to a scholar who was distinguished for his great learning and virtue. Under this master our Saint made great progress both in his studies and in the exercises of piety. Signs were not wanting that Winwaloc enjoyed the special favour of Heaven, as the power of working miracles was granted to him at an early age.

The monastery in which he was professed as a monk was that of Necten. Here his life was most austere: the bed that gave him rest when he was wearied with long standing and prayer was made either of the rough bark of trees or of sand, with a hard, uneven stone for a pillow; his food, taken merely to assuage the pangs of hunger, consisted of vegetables and bread made of coarse barley meal. Wine he never touched, and during Lent he partook of food only twice a week. The Psalter he recited every day, a hundred times in the daytime and as often at night, all the time on his knees. Meanwhile so famous were the cures he effected, that numbers of the lame, the blind, the deaf, and those otherwise afflicted, flocked to him from all sides.

When Winwaloc was living under the rule of the Abbot, Saint Similian, his charity and self sacrifice were put to a test, from which he came forth with increased glory. Once, when returning in the company of Saint Ethbin, a monk of the same monastery, from a place in the country where they had been offering up the Holy Sacrifice, he found lying by the roadside a leper, who piteously begged for relief. To their inquiries as to how they could help him, the wretched man, who appeared to be at the last gasp, replied that the foul matter which stopped his nostrils was suffocating him, and he entreated them in God’s name to remove it. Winwaloc attempted to get it away with his fingers, but failed owing to the great pain he caused the sufferer; so he applied his lips to the loathsome place, and sucked away the fetid pus. While the Saint was cleansing his mouth, a beautiful pearl fell from his lips to the ground; and at the same time a cross, shining through the whole sky, appeared over the head of the leper. Then the sick man, casting off his leprosy, and shining now more radiant than the sun, turned to Winwaloc and said: “Since you have not been ashamed of Me on earth, I shall not be ashamed of you in Heaven.” Forthwith our Blessed Lord, for it was He Who had assumed the shape of the leper, ascended to heaven, accompanied by choirs of angels.

Winwaloc had not yet completed his fiftieth year when his Guardian Angel warned him that his end was approaching. When the destined hour arrived, he summoned all his brethren to the Church; and, after celebrating the Holy Mass, he breathed his last, still standing at the altar. His body, which at first was interred in his own Monastery, was afterwards, owing to the invasions of the Northmen, removed to Flanders.

See also


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