Saint Mungo

Life events

1. Born

   Kentigern was born at Culross in Fife after his mother Teneu, a princess and daughter of King Lleuddun of Lothian, survived being thrown from Traprain Law and drifted ashore by coracle across the Firth of Forth.

2. Educated

   Kentigern was raised and educated by Saint Serf, who was ministering to the Picts at Culross. Serf gave him the pet name Mungo, likely from the Cumbric equivalent of the Welsh fy nghu, meaning 'my dear one'.

3. Other

   At the age of twenty-five, Kentigern began missionary work on the Clyde, building his church next to the Molendinar Burn on the site where Glasgow Cathedral now stands. He laboured there for approximately thirteen years, living austerely in a small cell.

4. Exiled

   A strong anti-Christian movement headed by King Morken of Strathclyde forced Kentigern to leave the district. He withdrew through Cumbria to Wales, spending time with Saint David at St David's and then moving to Gwynedd, where he founded a cathedral at Llanelwy, later known as St Asaph.

5. Pilgrimage

   While based in Gwynedd, Kentigern undertook a pilgrimage to Rome. Jocelin of Furness, his twelfth-century hagiographer, is thought to have included or embellished this episode partly to enhance the prestige of the Bishopric of Glasgow.

6. Consecrated

   Recalled by the new King of Strathclyde, Riderch Hael, Kentigern returned from Wales, appointing Asaph as bishop of Llanelwy in his place. He established his episcopal seat at Hoddom in Dumfriesshire and evangelised Galloway before returning to Glasgow, where he is regarded as the first Bishop of Glasgow.

7. Other

   Kentigern was visited by Columba at Kilmacolm while Columba was labouring in Strathtay. The two embraced, held long converse, and exchanged their pastoral staves — an encounter recorded in hagiographic tradition as a culminating gesture of recognition between the two central figures of early Christianity in northern Britain.

8. Died — 614

   Kentigern died on 13 January, a Sunday, in Glasgow. The Annales Cambriae record his death in 612; other sources give 603 or 614. David McRoberts proposed that the traditional account of his dying in a bath may be a garbled version of his collapse during a baptismal service.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Kentigern's four Glasgow miracles — the bird, the tree, the bell, and the fish — are represented in the city of Glasgow's coat of arms and commemorated in a popular mnemonic verse. (likely)
• The principal Life of Kentigern was composed by the monastic hagiographer Jocelin of Furness around 1185, who states he rewrote it from an earlier Glasgow legend and an Old Irish document; at least two other medieval Lives survive. (certain)
• Archaeological excavations at Hoddom in Dumfriesshire, where Kentigern held his episcopal seat on returning to Strathclyde, uncovered a late sixth-century stone baptistery, providing material confirmation of early Christian activity there. (likely)
• Kentigern's feast day is 13 January in Western churches and 14 January in the Eastern Orthodox Church; the Bollandists printed a special mass for the 13 January feast dating from the thirteenth century. (likely)
• Glasgow's civic motto 'Let Glasgow flourish' is traced to Kentigern's original call 'Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the word'; both the full ecclesiastical and the shortened secular forms of the motto are attributed to him. (likely)