Congar of Somerset

Saint Congar was a Welsh abbot and, according to tradition, a bishop in Somerset, in present-⁠day England, at a time when the land was still the British kingdom of Dumnonia. He is regarded as the founder of a monastery at Cadbury-⁠Congresbury and died on 27 November 520, on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. His name also appears as Cumgar, Cungar and Cyngar, and in Latin as Concarius. He is said to have been the brother of Saint Kigwe.

He grew up in Pembrokeshire, in Wales, then crossed the Bristol Channel to found a monastery, which is thought to have stood at Cadbury-⁠Congresbury in Somerset. The village and the parish church at Badgworth bear his name. Tradition holds that the place became the centre of a bishopric older than the diocese of Bath and Wells. According to the legend, his staff took root when he thrust it into the ground, and the yew tree that grew from it can be seen to this day.

Later he returned to Wales, but he died on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In the Middle Ages the parish of Congresbury claimed to keep the saint's body and mentioned it in several pilgrim guides, and no rival claimed his relics. Congresbury is first mentioned in Asser's Life of King Alfred as a derelict Celtic monastery, probably connected with Congar.

Although he is a minor saint, he was named in a litany of Winchester about 1060, and his feast day appeared in almost all medieval Somerset calendars. Churches dedicated to him are also found in Brittany and in Cornwall, where he is said to have been a hermit at St Ingunger, in the parish of Lanivet. He is commemorated on 7 November in Wales and on 27 November in Somerset.