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Text [translation]: Vita I Petroci (Life of St Petroc).

Source: P. Grosjean, Analecta Bollandiana 74 (1956), 471-96: Saint Méen Life in Paris BN Ms. lat. 9889.

Translator: Dr Karen Jankulak

Date of Translation: 2004. No re-use without permission of the author. Copyright K. Jankulak.

1. Therefore the blessed Petroc, by nation a Cumber, born of royal lineage, lived from childhood in such a fashion that, a follower of the faith and imitator of the works of the Prince of the Apostles, so to speak, that he strove to be the rock [petram] upon which Truth Himself promised to build his Church, as if with a prophecy divinely received by the selection of [his] own name. Clearly God conferred such grace upon him, so much that he appeared pleasing to the eyes of all. For he was distinguished in appearance, courteous in speech, prudent, completely modest, humble, a cheerful giver [2 Cor 9,7], burning with continuous charity in all things, ready for all works of religion since in youth by careful consideration he had obtained mature custom [canos...mores cf. Wisdom 4,8].

2. Therefore, after the death of [his] parents, the chief ones of the nobles and of the whole province, with the agreed acclamation of the people, asked that he be given to them as king by hereditary right in place of the deceased. But he, scorning the priority of rank and more solicitous of his salvation, intended that he would not seek the glory of terrestrial rank, as he longed for the heavenly realm. A spirit of humility was present in him, and he of his own accord preferred to be similar to those over whom he might without rivalry be master (or even subject [to them]), lest he take up his soul in vain [cf. Ps. 24,4], elated by majesty, saying with the Apostle that here there is no lasting city [Heb. 13,14] and thus striving to serve God so that he might not entangle himself in secular affairs [cf. 2 Tim. 2,4]. Petroc explained carefully to his assembled household what he bore in [his] soul, asking from the assembly that they also should follow in whatever [arrangement] he might rather choose. With the arrangement confirmed, it suited all to commit themselves and the transaction of their actions to his faith and disposition.

3. After this the youth, accompanied by 60 palatini, hastened to the church where all accepted the office of clerical consecration and, according to the demands [or scruples] of the monastic order, received the new habit for themselves. And when they had exited thence, with all business which pertained to it properly done, it seemed good to the servant [servo] of God to depart into Ireland since learning then flourished there, so that he might give over to learned doctors  those whom he had advanced to this of religion, to be imbued with him with liberal learning. Thus, with those things which they made for the naval journey having been prepared, and having been themselves entrusted in the name of Jesus to the wind and the sea, they reached the desired shore in a sufficiently brief interval of time. There, with the ship commended solely to the care of God, the man of religion, [a] stranger, travelled to the famous places of all study and learned to be a disciple of the truth, so that he should not be a teacher of error, and in the space of 20 years he made those whom he had led from a secular into a monastic regimen learned in divine rather than [in] secular letters, until they themselves excelled the highest learned doctors. After a course of so many years, the servant of the Lord, temperately rejoicing in the prerogative of knowledge and the plenitude of erudition [possessed by] himself, made it clear to his disciplined flock of companions that it was his inclination to seek the shores of western Britain in a ship, if it also pleased them. It was agreeable to all, and they declared that they would follow the intent of their teacher. Then, with permission granted, and with a kiss made with tears for those departing, the learned band of companions left the learned band and with the guidance of the servant of God they came to the port of departure in which they had previously left [their] ship, after a short journey in a few days.

4. While they sailed along the shore, concerned about [their] ship, as they were asking each other what should be done, the servant of God approached the shore. He found that boat which he had formerly left there without any guard except for God, so intact that as no joint of the side [had been] harmed, it was in no part more fragile [than it had been]. [After] examining it carefully, with voice and heart he praised God by whose merciful care the fragile vessel had remained whole through such turbulence of waves, in such collisions of waves and such continual churning of water. With such good hope concerning the intended thing, concerning the initiated journey, he, unskilled, entered the ship more securely than a sailor, [he], about to pull out the stern [i.e. sail], [he] whom the rejoicing rest of disciples followed. Thus with the ropes seized, they, energetic, hoisted the sails to the top of the mast at the command of the servant of God, believing that which they had learned from [their] true teacher,  namely that all things would be possible to [him who] believes [Mark 9,22]. With the sails spread out, then, and the winds facing [them--the sails?], the ship was carried along very quickly at the command of God. After a short space of time, having traversed the area of the sea, a calm harbour was reached, that same one which they wished for, so that the miraculous thing was made clear to the simple sailors through all [these things].

5. There was, near the shore next to the river Haile, the dwelling in solitude of a certain Samson, a worthy servant of God. He, with eager parsimony and continual prayers, offered himself as a sacrifice to God with much mortification and busied himself with daily effort in building a temple. On this day it happened that he went to the tilling according to his custom and to devote himself to the usual labour of [his] hands. Turning his gaze towards the sea, he was astounded at the sighted ship, since the elements so yielded to its swift course. With the disciples having left the ship and walking through the fields, Petroc, having perceived reapers nearby (for it was the time of harvest) and greeting [them] courteously, addressed them in the manner of a visitor, concerning as much the harmony of the inhabitants as concerning their customs. But the rough people spoke to him bitterly and urgently sought that he might produce a spring of sweet water from one of the rocks which were there for the restricting thirst which they had contracted by the heat and [their] labour, whereby they might either ridicule the stranger or acknowledge his sanctity by such an experiment. He, accustomed to give to petitioners, with the mercy of God having been won over, struck the rock with the staff which he carried, whereupon a very clear spring of water issued before their eyes, which has not ceased to remain now, very salubrious to drink.

6. Then the servant of God indicated with such a sign that the true faith would be powerful of miracles, by the gift of God, in the future. The barbarians wondered at those things which they had seen and, giving thanks to God through whose power they had seen the natural order capable of being altered, with the servant of God asking if any cultivator of religion were in the province, they indicated to him the aforesaid Samson, telling him about his solitary life and his parsimony how he lived by the labour of his hands and how harshly both in nocturnal prayers and also, completely dedicated to the service of God, [how] he ate slight diet of barley bread. Hearing this, the servant of God, when he perceived Samson, having become cheerful in spirit, began to divert his path towards him, having poured out prayer to the Lord lest he leave that place before he could speak with him: [for] there was so great a desire in the good soul to speak with the good man. The Lord bestowed upon him the desire of his soul [Ps. 20,3] adding to his desire that which he did not presume to request and at once Samson became rigid in his limbs, so much that he was stopped [at] the lost animation of [his] body, [the body] turned into stony rigour. He tried, but was not able, to put his hand to the instrument with which, cultivating the field, he had turned over the soil. Thus, then, he had been bound by the chains of the prayer of the man of God. Holy Petroc meanwhile reached him and at the sound of his greeting [Luke 1,44] Samson was freed from that stony rigour. And, with the embrace of peace given, he gave glory to God for the virtue and holiness of the stranger which He had revealed through such a great miracle.

7. The servant of God, with a short conversation having been held with Samson, and with permission granted, turned his path towards the cell of bishop Wethinoc, which he had pointed out to him. Wethinoc received [him] courteously, [and] treated him and his companions honourably as it befitted guests. The next morning it pleased the servant of God to make a stop there and, with Wethinoc having been summoned, he readily begged permission to cohabitate with him. The bishop graciously granted it and promised him moreover to give over his cell to him, since he confidently believed him to be that man whom, he had learned from an ancient prophecy of the inhabitants would come there from Ireland and through the merits of his great sanctity, far and wide, would magnify the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ [cf. Acts 19,7]. He asked, however, and was granted that inasmuch as that place [would be assigned a name], the name should come from his name in his memory. Thus since then in the language of that race it is called Lanwethinoc even until today. With bishop Wethinoc and his [people] departing and he rejoicing that he had deserved to prepare a place of habitation for the man of God, holy Petroc entered the cell with his disciples. There, having lived with 30 years having passed, he conducted his life so purely that he did to no one anything which he did not wish to have done to him, he so afflicted his flesh with vigils and cold that for the curbing of illicit impulses of seething pleasure he very often spent the night in the middle of a torrent from cock-crow until dawn, although the virtue of parsimony which so surged in him alone would suffice to expunge titillating lust. For through the use of abstinence he conquered gluttony so much that not only did he not seek delicate preparations, but also delighted in only a diet of bread, except on Sundays [when] for the sake of reverence of the resurrection by the Lord, he modestly tasted some little condiment, by which with hunger averted, a drought of tendons would not render him unfit in the service of God.

8. Thus after so many years of such abstinence the servant of the Lord Petroc proceeded abroad to Rome for the sake of prayer, by which he might by laborious journeys compel the flesh, accustomed to holy observances, to serve the spirit. And when, returned thence, with all things which pure religion [cf. Iac. 1,27] of pilgrimage urges rightly fulfilled there and on the way, he came to Nova Villa (on the border of the Cornish countryside), it happened that, with the entire sky disturbed, all were flooded with dense rains, with a huge storm of winds which, with the force of the winds acting, converted these roads into streams and rendered [them] impassable. And while those whom he had led as companions on the road in turn made words in complaining concerning this, the servant [servus] of God suppressed the grumbling promising a peacefulness of the weather the next day and [that] the journey would be successful. But when the next day dawned the wild [weather] did not cease. The servant of God seeing this he began to grow gloomy and to reprove himself for being presumptuous since he had promised otherwise than God had foreordained to happen. With the storm calmed on the third day, when his colleagues sought to proceed, he made it clear [to them] that he was going to continue to go to Rome since he had been rash with [his] tongue and had, against the disposition of God, prophesied falsely. They assented, although gloomy, and after embraces of love separated in tears. Thus they entered into Cornwall and he proceeded to Rome. There with as long a stay as he judged sufficient for the duty following the custom of pilgrims, he visited the most famous places of saints of felicitous memory until he came to Jerusalem, to the tomb of the Lord. There he completed the undertaken journey with much austerity of body, although he considered the thirst, fasts, sweat and cold, and vigils of night, which he endured along the way for the name of Christ, [he considered these] as delights.

9. And when at the tomb of the Lord he had poured out pious prayers and tears which broke out through remorseful joy, he turned east towards farthest India, whence through many dangers of brigands and rivers [cf. 2 Cor. 11,26] he came as far as the eastern ocean [and] exhausted by great lassitude, he fell asleep in the shore. Waking from his sleep the servant of God saw a vessel carried to him on the sea, clear (?with glass?—emendation on the basis of the Vita metrica) large enough for only one man. Seeing the vessel which the mercy of the Almighty had prepared for him, the man of God entered it confidently and, by the force of the sea alone, transported without oar or rower, joyfully reached a certain island. There he led a contemplative life for 7 years, living with the holy men whom he found there, fed from time to time with a single fish divinely placed before him at opportune hours. With 7 years having passed, truly, behold! an angel of the Lord appeared in a vision of sleep and spoke to him, saying:  ‘Do now, servant of God Petroc, proceed. For the Lord, by whose command that fish, with which he fed you for 7 years, has remained entirely whole, commands, and that vessel in which you were brought here is at hand for you to depart. In fact, when you have crossed the sea, you will find [your] staff which you left with a sheepskin (?) standing near a wolf which the Lord prepared as a colleague, leading the way so that he might take upon himself [your] safe guidance until you reach familiar areas, where many will be delighted by your merits’. At the angelic command, therefore, he departed, finding all these things just as they had been told to him by the angel, he came into western Britain, where his [followers] received him.

10. At that time, Teudur [Tendur, Teudur, Tendurus], a savage man and wild in character who for the punishment of thieves and the execution of criminals, with savage tyranny caused various serpents and all kind of noxious worms to be gathered in a swampy lake. Upon his death, when [his] son, who succeeded him into the rule by hereditary right, curbed this sort of torment, the starving serpents, rising up, destroyed each other in frequent clashes with livid tooth, so that from so great a number, the only one who remained, grotesque with enormous corpulence, tore cattle to pieces with a venomous maw and [tore] men with a fierce gullet. When report of this peril reached the man of God, with [his] companions Wethinoc and Samson approving, armed with the unassailable shield of faith [cf. Sap. 5,20; Ephes. 6,16] boldly about to subdue the monster, he approached [it]. When he was leading it, bound with a handkerchief, to the sea, a party of 300 men, bearing the lifeless [body] of the prince's son with lamentations for the fulfilment of the solemnities of burial according to the custom of the place, met the holy one of God. These [were] terrified at the appearance of the most loathsome monster, some fell prone to the earth, rendered as if dead [cf. Matt. 28,4], others with trembling course were scarcely able to bear the bier: so much did the sudden horror joined to [their] sorrow by viper perplex them. Feeling compassion for the mourners, the servant of God, with knees bent in prayer and with the clemency of the Almighty having been entreated, restored to all [their] strength and restored to life the young man whom they had borne as dead. Them, with those rejoicing in praises to God, the saint commanded the monster which he had bound, [who would] harm no one from then on, to go into solitary places across the sea. Returning thence, he appointed lord Peter, a most religious man, whom he recently had received into the faith, as prior over 80 brothers whom he himself had presided over, with authority conferred, and receded into the wilderness, with only 12 taken with him, whom he selected to cohabitate with him in solitude, apart through hollows of mountains, in lairs of rocks. A dryness of site made the wilderness severe, nor was there [anything] for the inhabitants by which they might quench their thirst. Whereby the small gathering of brothers, at the command of their teacher, when they had spent the night in prayer with a spirit of humility, in the morning follow [present tense] the master of [their] spirits, who at a stroke of [his] staff towards the right beside the cell furnished a most clear fountain, which remains to this day, refreshing with sweet taste.

11. On a certain day, when the servant of God prayed alone in a place in which he was accustomed to pray, he saw a stag passing, from far away, fleeing towards him with as much effort as it could, whom the hunters of Constantine, a rich man, pursued with trumpet calls and barking of dogs. The holy man, in a mood of tenderness, kept that [stag] safe. The regulus followed the stag and his soldiers, who, now hesitating to touch that one while under the protection of the man of God, reported the matter to the rich man in due order. Constantine, displeased and agitated with bitter wrath, as he wished to strike the servant of God with a sword, suddenly struck by a stupor, he stiffened in all his limbs until, at the intervention of the soldiers, the holy man freed the supplicating one with pious prayers. He, freed, and with him [his] 24 soldiers, instructed in the Christian faith, he [Petroc] rendered them gentle instead of tyrannical, Christians instead of pagans. One day, while the servant of God was dining, a plain vessel of water, which had been placed nearby, by chance fell and the liquid was spilled. But Petroc, having produced the sign of the cross, at once took up the small vessel, full of celestial nectar, which having been tasted, when he offered it to the brothers, they wondered at the sweetness of the liquid. The holy one was keeping vigil outside, praying on Saturday night and when [it] poured copiously all around him, the rain did not fall on him. The servant of God was speaking to Wethinoc alone very sweetly. These treating mutual discourses concerning heavenly matters, behold! a garment of amazing beauty descended between them. When, honourably preferring each other [Rom 12,10], they offered it to each other and with pious contention added up reasons upon each other why it should be better to the other, with those looking on, it was taken up into heaven whence quickly two were sent for both. When, however, the servant of God had spent several years in the aforementioned cell in holy interaction, seeking by angelic instruction a more secret [part] of the wilderness, he found most holy Vuronus, the hermit, who, while seeking victuals by the labour of [his] hands, never relaxed [his] spirit from prayer. When, having been asked, he received the favour of hospitality, they entered the cell of solitary habitation together, they found bread and a white table divinely placed nearby. Revived by the wonderful sweetness, after they gave thanks to divine piety and carried on [their] solemn discussions, Vuronus departed to seek a new place of habitation. Meanwhile the anxious disciples had sought Petroc throughout the wilderness. After they found and met him, since he wished to conceal his sanctity, they asked concerning his return. But he, just as he had been previously accustomed, began to diligently instruct them concerning true religion, so that those who had relinquished secular affairs might also forbid their own inner vices, reject seductive pleasures, repress wrath, repress rage, flee falsehood, abominate envy, and not only not disparage, but also not even suspect evil of their neighbours, extinguish pride, make way for virtues, so that each one might prepare their hearts as a true habitation and [so that each one] might be a temple of the Holy Spirit.

12. These and similar precepts he gave to the believers, as a father to sons and as a teacher to students. Cynam [Cynan], a tribune in the country, was tortured by immense pain, to whom Petroc appeared in a vision of sleep, ordering that he free from prison those criminals which he held. With those freed he would regain [his] health. That one awakening, he related the vision to his wife by whose counsel he freed the chained prisoners and felt himself healed. A certain woman also, for many years suffering a flux of blood, secretly having touched the sacred garment of the man, deserved to receive health [as a] reward of faith. But lest the power of the saint be known only to clean beings [cf. Gen. 7,2], a great dragon living in the wilderness near his cell, having a splinter fixed in his right eye, having laid aside the ferocity of harming, hastened to the temple where the saint was busied in prayer and, with bowed head, for three days lay first on the threshold, awaiting the miracles of God. Having been at Petroc's command sprinkled with a sprinkling made with water mixed with the dust of the pavement, at once by the force of the medicine the wood being removed from [his] eye, he was healed, wonderful thing!, he returned to [his] solitary wallow [cf. Prov. 26,11; 2 Peter 2,22]. A woman, thirsting in the night, drank water from a jug, by which she swallowed a small serpent [and] languished for many years. And when no physicians could help her, she was brought to the holy man. He, naturally, gave to the sick [woman] a drink with earth and water being mixed. At once, with this having been swallowed, the woman vomiting the three foot (although dead) serpent, with her health regained that same hour, gave thanks to God.

13. After this and many such miracles, blessed Petroc, continually seeking heavenly things, when he had weakened his body greatly with severity, departed full of days towards the Lord one day before the nones of June. The sacred body, was committed to dust, weakened by fasts and vigils. and the bosom of Abraham receives his spirit with angels singing psalms to meet it. At his tomb miracles often occur and his bones, although dry [cf. Ezech. 37,1-6], retain the efficiency of deeds which he did while alive. May his glorious merits intercede for us with Christ who lives with the Father and reigns through the ages. Amen.