Branwalader

Saint Branwalader (also Branwalator, Breward, Branuvelladurus, in French Brélade or Broladre) was a British saint, probably of Breton origin, whose relics lay at Milton Abbas in Dorset and Branscombe in Devon. His name lives on in the parish of Saint Brélade in Jersey; "Brélade" is a corruption of "Branwalader". He is counted among the saints of the undivided Church, of the sixth century, and the Russian Church commemorates him in the Synaxis of the Saints of Britain and Ireland. His feast is on 6 June.

His life

Very little is known with certainty, as with many early saints of this part of the world, where it is hard to separate fact from fiction. The name means, literally, "Raven-⁠Lord" (the root "bran" means raven). He was of Celtic stock and worked in a region then inhabited mostly by Celts, on both shores of the western English Channel: Cornwall, Brittany and the island of Jersey between them. He was a monk. He is said to have been a bishop in Jersey, but this is unlikely, since the island then belonged to the ancient diocese of Dol, centred on the town now called Dol-⁠de-⁠Bretagne. He is believed to have worked with Saint Samson, bishop of Dol, in Cornwall and the Channel Islands and may also have travelled with him to Brittany in northern France; he was probably Samson's vicar on Jersey and the surrounding islands. Since Samson's dates are approximately known (about 490-565), this link gives an idea of when Branwalader lived.

In the Exeter martyrology, the main source for his hagiography, he is called the son of the Cornish king Kenen. The Russian source identifies this king with Conan Meriadoc, but that is chronologically impossible. Otherwise the information is sparse.

Veneration

In Cornwall he is known as Saint Breward. The village of St Breward, on the edge of Bodmin Moor (about 900 inhabitants), bears his name. The old church of Saint Breward is the highest in Cornwall; it was built of local stone (granite) in the Norman period (1066-1154), rebuilt in the fifteenth century and heavily but carelessly restored in the nineteenth, so that little of the original Norman building remains. Near Camelford there is also Saint Breward's Well, visited by sufferers from sore eyes and other complaints, who threw in a pin or small coin as an offering. In Cornwall his feast is on 9 February and 6 June.

In Jersey he is known as Saint Brélade, and his feast is only on 6 June. The parish of Saint Brélade has a church of the tenth or eleventh century, first mentioned in 1035, one of the twelve old parish churches of the island. Beside it are the old churchyard and a chapel, among the few old British chapels not destroyed at the Reformation. The small bay by the church is called Saint Brelade's Bay.

In Brittany a place bears his name, with a parish church dedicated to him and two other churches. Other sources, however, say that the name Brewalaer refers to Saint Brendan, not to Branwalader; for etymological reasons it is just as likely that Branwalader was originally meant, later pushed aside in the minds of the faithful by the better known Brendan the Navigator. Some have also confused him with Saint Brannock.

In the 930s the monks of Jersey, tormented by the raids of the Northmen (Vikings), fled to England to King Athelstan and brought relics, among them an arm or the head of Saint Branwalader. King Athelstan placed them in 935 in Milton Abbey in Dorset, which he had founded. William Worcester claimed that the body itself was at Branston (or Branscombe) in Devon, and Leland mentioned a chapel of Saint Breward near Seaton. It is thought that 19 January was set as another feast, that of the translation of the relics. From then on Milton became the chief centre of veneration, and the saint came to be called "of Milton", though he had never lived there. His cult has been strong since at least the tenth century, when his name appears in litanies; before the Reformation his feast was kept at Milton, Exeter, Winchester and in Cornwall. The church of Milton Abbey was dedicated to the Mother of God, Saint Samson and Saint Branwalader. After the Reformation his veneration in England greatly declined; the abbey was closed, and the surviving buildings now house a private school, whose church, a former Catholic abbey church, is Anglican. Today the Russian Orthodox Church honours him as Branwalader of Cornwall, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Britain and Ireland, and the centre of Orthodox veneration is the Diocese of Sourozh in London.