Non, Mother of Saint David
It is a short walk to St Non’s Chapel from St Davids Cathedral, situated less than a mile out of the city heading south on Goat’s Street. There is a small parking area at the side of the road before you reach St Non’s Retreat Centre above St Non’s Bay on the Pembrokeshire coastal path. From here there dramatic views of the rugged coastline and a path leads down to the chapel. St Non is the mother of St David, patron saint of Wales. Non’s feast day is celebrated shortly after St David’s Day, which various calendars record as the 2nd, 3rd or 5th March.
Tradition claims that the site of the chapel is where Non gave birth to David during a storm although in Rhygfarch’s 11th century Life of David (Buchedd Dewi) he fails to provide a location but tells us that a rock bears the imprints of Non’s hands made during the birth that was incorporated into the altar of the chapel built on the spot. Writing in the 12th century Gerald Wales appears to be the first to record David’s birthplace at St Non’s chapel on the coast, a little south of St Davids.
The chapel is is one of eight medieval oratories dotted around the headlands of St Davids peninsula with paths leading on to the cathedral. Seaborne pilgrims from as far away as Ireland and Brittany would arrive at one of the bays and scramble up amongst the cliffs of the Pembrokeshire shoreline and give thanks at one of the chapels for their safe arrival before completing their pilgrimage to St Davids.
Much of the chapel was demolished in the early 19th century when local farmers robbed the stones to repair their field boundaries. Inside the chapel is a stone inscribed with a ringed cross. This inscribed stone was originally outside the chapel but today sits quietly in the corner. The lower courses of the chapel walls contain huge blocks described as ‘cyclopean masonry’ which according to Elizabeth Rees are often found in 7th - 8th century Anglo-Saxon buildings. In the 19th century excavations uncovered slab-lined graves to the east and south of the chapel that Rees suggests may indicate the presence of an extramural cemetery outside St Davids possibly a pre-Christian cemetery that later become Christian.
Nearby the chapel is St Non’s Holy Well, said to have sprung up at the moment of David’s birth, this is one of the major healing wells in Wales and said to cure eye diseases. The Welsh Life of St David recalls that at his baptism a spring appeared and a blind man who was holding David was cured and recovered his sight.
Non’s Story
In the Lives of the Welsh Saints many holy men’s mothers were of noble birth which are often reflected in the genealogies. David was no exception, his grandmother Meleri was said to be one of the twenty-four daughters of Brychan, legendary king of Brycheiniog; all of them mothers of male saints. Yet Non figures in hagiography solely as David’s mother and most of what we know of her derives from versions of Rhygyfarch’s Life of David.
Rhygyfarch’s ‘Life’ was written some five hundred years after David’s lived. He drew from old manuscripts in the cathedral library and oral traditions, and what he has to say about Non focuses mostly on her life as a nun and the birth of David. Rhygyfarch tells us that Sanctus (Sant) son of king Ceredig of Ceredigion met a nun, a virgin called Nonnita, and he took her by force and violated her. She conceived a son, the holy David. After this Non(nita) continued to be chaste and may have finished her days as a nun at Ty Gwyn (the White House).
There is no Welsh ‘Life’ of St Non but there are stories of her found in Welsh poetry, folklore and other Saint’s Lives such as that of Gildas the 6th century cleric who wrote of the coming of the Saxons in his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae.
There are two ‘Lives’ of Saint Gildas. The first written in the 9th century by an anonymous monk from the Rhuys monastery, in Brittany, where Gildas spent his last days. The second Life was written by the 12th-century Welsh cleric Caradoc of Llancarfan, which is well known for the story of the abduction of Gwenhwyfar by Melwas which leads to a confrontation with King Arthur.
In Caradoc’s Life of Gildas he tells us that Saint Gildas became the most celebrated preacher in Britain. However, there was one occasion when he was lost for words; Gildas was preaching in a church when he found himself unable to speak. He asked all to leave the church but found he was still unable to continue. He asked if anyone was hiding in the church when a woman pregnant with child called out to him “I, Nonnita, am staying here between the walls and the door, not wishing to mingle with the crowd.”
Gildas requested she left the church. After Nonnita had left he called the people back in to deliver his sermon. At the end the Angel of the Lord explained to Gildas that “Nonnita, a saintly woman, remains in the church, who is now with child, and is destined, with great grace, to give birth to a boy whom thou couldst not preach, the divine power withholding thy speech. The boy this is to come will be of greater grace: no one in your parts will equal him.”
The child in Nonnita’s (St Non) womb was Dewi (David); so moved by the experience Gildas bequeathed Wales to St David’s administrations.
In Bonedd y Saint (Descent of the Saints) she is called Non, the daughter of Cynyr of Caer Gawch in Mynyw (Menevia, now St Davids). Non’s mother is recorded as Anna, daughter of Uthr Pendragon, therefore Arthur is her uncle.
A late Breton miracle play Buez Santez Nonn hac ez map Deuy (The Life of St Non and her son David) is thought to have been written in the 15th century at the abbey of Doulas in Brittany. The Buez expands on the all too brief accounts of Non in the Latin and Welsh Lives of St David claiming Non was born of a Breton noble family and that she lived and died at Dirinon 3 miles from Doulas. The Buez claims Non was buried at Dirinon where today a reliquary is said to contain her relics. The silver gilt reliquary is supposed to have been made around 1450, around the same time the Buez was composed possibly to promote her relics.
Did Non Exist?
In some Saints’ Lives we find some of the saints’ mothers seem to have been invented, identified as ‘ghosts’ in the genealogies; some scholars suspect Non may be an example of this, created simply for the story of David’s birth. Non gave birth to David after Sant, a prince of Ceredigion, forced himself upon her. Certainly by naming David’s parents as ‘Non’ (nun) and ‘Sant’ (holy man) may simply have been a way of providing appropriate parentage of a saint when his real parents were insignificant or unknown.
Non is commemorated in South Wales and also in Cornwall, Devon, Ireland and Brittany. There are several chapels dedicated to Non called ‘Llan-non’ or ‘Capel Non’ usually in proximity of Dewi (David) churches.
In Cornwall her chief foundation was Altarnun (Non’s altar), near Launceston, where according to William of Worcester she lies in rest. Non may be remembered at Pelynt in south-east Cornwall, about 4 miles west of Looe. The name comes from ‘plou Nent’ which means ‘parish of Non’ where a holy well bears her name. Seven miles north-west from here, on the edge of Bodmin Moor, is Davidstow. The former name was Dewstow, as you will know David’s name was Dewi in Welsh. In a field to the east of the church is St David’s holy well today protected by a modern stone well-house, the pure water used at the Davidstow creamery.
D Simon Evans floats the suggestion that ‘Non’ may have originally been the name of a monk who was a contemporary and companion of David who can be traced in Cornwall and Brittany. When his life story was forgotten the likeness of his name to the word ‘nonna’ (nun) could possibly have led to the creation of the story of the violated nun and when put together with the connection of St Nonna and St Dewi the story changed from companions to mother and son. Evans cites the tradition concerning Efrddyl, the daughter of Peibo and the mother of Dubricius; she was also a virgin that was violated, but the name may have originally been that of a man who was a companion of Dubricius.
See also:
The Empty Shrine of St David
Saint David at Glastonbury
Sources:
Elizabeth Rees, The Celtic Saints of Wales, Fonthill Media, 2015.
D Simon Evans, The Welsh Life of St David, University of Wales Press, 2016.
Two Life’s of Gildas by a monk from Ruys and Caradoc of Llancarfan, translated by Hugh Williams, Llanerch Press, 1990.
P.C. Bartrum, A Welsh Classic Dictionary: People in History and Legend up to about AD 1000, The National Library of Wales, 1993.
Photographs: Edward Watson
