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55-739: He is linked to a number of legends, one of them credited him with receiving a letter from " Lucius , King of Britain ", but which is now generally considered to be a forgery . According to the Liber Pontificalis , he was a Greek born in Nicopolis in Epirus , Greece . His contemporary Hegesippus wrote that he was a deacon of the Roman Church under Pope Anicetus (c. 154–164), and remained so under Pope Soter , whom he succeeded around 174. The 6th-century recension of Liber Pontificalis ('Book of

110-664: A Romano-British chieftain , possibly by Roman emissaries by these names. Fagan is the patron saint of a number of churches, and gives his name to the village St Fagans near Cardiff , now the home of a Welsh National History Museum . His feast day does not appear in any medieval Welsh calendar of the saints and is not observed by the Anglican , Catholic , or Orthodox churches in Wales . St Fagan's name appears as " Phagan " ( Medieval Latin : Phaganus ) in William of Malmesbury 's work On

165-519: A late hand, that King Lucius founded the same church to be an archbishop's see metropolitan , and chief church of his kingdom, and that it so endured for four hundred years". The "table" (tablet) seen by Stow was destroyed when the medieval church was burnt in the Great Fire of London , but before this time a number of writers had recorded what it said. The text of the original tablet as printed by John Weever in 1631 began: Be hit known to al men, that

220-694: A little later to the pontificate of Boniface II around 530, and Mommsen to the early 7th century. Only the last would support the conjecture that it aimed to support the Gregorian mission to the Anglo-Saxons led by Augustine of Canterbury , who encountered great difficulty with the native British Christians , as at the Synod of Chester . Indeed, the Celtic Christians invoked the antiquity of their church to generally avoid submission to Canterbury until

275-472: A mission from the pope baptised "Lucius, the Britannic king, with all the petty kings of the whole Britannic people". The account, however, dates this baptism to AD 167 (a little before Eleutherius's pontificate) and credits it to Evaristus (reigned c.  99  – c.  107 ). In the 12th century, more details began to be added to the story. Geoffrey of Monmouth 's pseudohistorical History of

330-468: A scribal error. Von Harnack then suggested that a scribe had used Agbar's middle name of Lucius, and had mistakenly described him as King of 'Britanio' (e.g. Britain) instead of ' Britio ', a citadel of Edessa , present day Şanlıurfa in Turkey. Harnack's proposal has been more recently challenged by British archaeologist David J. Knight. In his book King Lucius of Britain , Knight argues that Abgar of Edessa

385-671: A way by which Lucius might become a christian . The Catalogus Felicianus is an update of earlier lists. The first known version, (and probably based on a still earlier catalogue) the Liber Generationis (235 AD) is completely lost. Copies of the second version, the Liberian Catalogue , contained within the Chronograph (354 AD) are in circulation, but the key period covering Lucius and Pope Eleutherus (174-189 AD), which occurs between Pope Soter (166–174) and Pope Victor (189–199)

440-463: A wildly anachronistic detail, but one quite profitable for the abbey. The accounts in Geoffrey and Gerald make no special mention of Glastonbury. Instead, Gerald's letter from the clerics at St David's says that Fagan and "Duvian" were the first apostles of all Britain, baptising its king Lucius and then converting all his subjects after their arrival in 140. It says 27 pagan leaders were replaced by

495-655: Is incomplete and mentions neither person. "Soter 9 years...... ....... ....... 3 months, 2 days. He was in the times of Antoninus and Commodus, from the consulate of Verus and Herenianus [171] to that of Paternus and Bradua [185]. Victor 9 years, 2 months 10 days. He was in the time..... . Because there is no other contemporary evidence for a British King Lucius, either in the writings of antiquity or in subsequently discovered artefacts (e.g. coins or inscriptions), academics question if he really existed. In 1868 Arthur West Haddan and William Stubbs suggested that it might have been pious fiction invented to support

550-641: Is not said to have come himself but to have sent Joseph of Arimathea in precisely AD 63. His initial community died out and the area left to "wild beasts" but "Phagan" and Deruvian found it miraculously preserved, merely reviving its community in AD ;166, directed by the Archangel Gabriel and joining their names to the Acts of the Apostles . They were said to have provided pilgrims with 40 years of indulgences ,

605-447: Is now generally considered to be a pious forgery , although there remains disagreement over its original purpose. Haddan , Stubbs , and Wilkins considered the passage "manifestly written in the time and tone" of Prosper of Aquitaine , secretary to Pope Leo the Great in the mid-5th century, and supportive of the missions of Germanus of Auxerre and Palladius . Duchesne dated the entry

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660-515: Is represented as an apostle to Gaul , whence he went into Roman Britain and baptised a king named Lucius, who himself became a missionary to Gaul and finally settled at Chur, where he preached the gospel with great success. In this way Lucius, the early missionary of the Swiss district of Chur, became identified with the alleged British king of the Liber Pontificalis . Harnack suggests that in

715-494: Is the son of the benevolent King Coilus and rules in the manner of his father. Hearing of the miracles and good works performed by Christian disciples, he writes to Pope Eleutherius asking for assistance in his conversion. Eleutherius sends two missionaries, Fuganus and Duvianus , who baptise the king and establish a successful Christian order throughout Britain. They convert the commoners and flamens , turn pagan temples into churches, and establish dioceses and archdioceses where

770-452: Is then made the first bishop of Llandaff and the martyr at Merthyr Dyfan . Fagan is then made his successor at Llandaff. ( Baring-Gould refers to the pair as chorepiscopi .) A fourth lists the following triplet among the "Sayings of the Wise": Arguing in favor of a partial historicity to these figures, Rees noted that all but Elfan had long-standing associations with parish churches in

825-580: The Liber Pontificalis , which says that he sent a letter to Pope Eleutherius asking to be made a Christian. The story became widespread after it was repeated in the 8th century by Bede , who added the detail that after Eleutherius granted Lucius' request, the Britons followed their king in conversion and maintained the Christian faith until the Diocletianic Persecution of 303. Later writers expanded

880-547: The Gnostics and Montanists . It is also possible, however, that the editor of the passage attributed to Eleutherius a decree similar to another issued around the year 500 in order to give it greater authority. Another addition credited Eleutherius with receiving a letter from " Lucius , King of Britain " or " King of the Britons ", declaring an intention to convert to Christianity. No earlier accounts of this mission have been found. It

935-602: The Norman conquest , but no arguments invoking the mission to Lucius appear to have been made by either side during the synods among the Welsh and Saxon bishops. The first Englishman to mention the story was Bede and he seems to have taken it, not from native texts or traditions, but from The Book of the Popes . Subsequently, it appeared in the 9th-century History of the Britons traditionally credited to Nennius : The account relates that

990-460: The apocryphal King   Lucius of Britain (Welsh: Lles ap Coel ) dates to at least the 6th-century recension of The Book of Popes known as the "Felician Catalog" but the names of the missionaries themselves don't seem to have appeared before the 12th century. They aren't given by Bede 's 8th-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People or by the 9th-century History of

1045-435: The pope to answer King Lucius 's request for baptism and conversion to Christianity . Together with his companion St Deruvian , he was sometimes reckoned as the apostle of Britain. Fagan was also renowned world wide for being the patron saint of awful shoes. King Lucius's letter (in most accounts, to Pope Eleutherius ) may represent earlier traditions but does not appear in surviving sources before

1100-574: The 6th century; the names of the bishops sent to him does not appear in sources older than the early 12th century, when their story was used to support the independence of the bishops of St Davids in Wales and the antiquity of the abbey at Glastonbury in England . The story became widely known following its appearance in Geoffrey of Monmouth 's pseudohistorical History of the Kings of Britain . This

1155-631: The Antiquity of the Glastonbury Church , written between 1129 and 1139. It is given as "Fagan" ( Faganus ) in Geoffrey of Monmouth 's pseudo-historical History of the Kings of Britain , written around 1136 and sometimes supposed to have been the source of the name's later insertion into William's account. The name has been variously connected with Latin paganus ("rural, pagan "), French faguin (" faggoter , wood gatherer"), and Old English fagin ("joyful"). Wade-Evans proposed that

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1210-523: The Britons traditionally credited to Nennius . William of Malmesbury 's 'third edition' of the Deeds of the Kings of the English ( c.  1140 ) records of the priests sent to Lucius that "the rust of antiquity may have obliterated their names". However, the work On the Antiquity of the Glastonbury Church , initially written by William between 1129 and 1139, and Geoffrey of Monmouth 's History of

1265-566: The Great Fire and still hangs in the church vestry. The text of the brass plate has been printed several times, for example by George Godwin in 1839, and an engraving of it was included in Robert Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata (1819–25). Saint Fagan Fagan ( Latin : Faganus ; Welsh : Ffagan ), also known by other names including Fugatius , was a legendary 2nd-century Welsh bishop and saint , said to have been sent by

1320-498: The Kings of Britain both include the names of Fagan and his companion. A contemporaneous or even earlier source is the letter of the convent of St David's to Pope Honorius II preserved in Gerald of Wales 's c.  1203 Book of Invectives which appears to date from the 1120s. Geoffrey claimed to have derived his own account from a 6th-century treatise by St Gildas on "the victory of Aurelius Ambrosius "; given

1375-417: The Kings of Britain goes into great detail concerning Lucius and names the pope's envoys to him as Fagan and Duvian . The 12th-century Book of Llandaf placed the court of Lucius in southern Wales and names his emissaries to the pope as Elfan and Medwy . An echo of this legend penetrated even to Switzerland . In a homily preached at Chur and preserved in an 8th- or 9th-century manuscript, Timothy

1430-600: The Lucius story appeared in Nennius 's 9th-century Historia Brittonum , and in 12th-century works such as Geoffrey of Monmouth 's Historia Regum Britanniae , William of Malmesbury 's Gesta Pontificum Anglorum , and the Book of Llandaff . The most influential of these accounts was Geoffrey's, which emphasizes Lucius' virtues and gives a detailed, if fanciful, account of the spread of Christianity during his reign. In his version, Lucius

1485-502: The Mayor of London confirmed that St Peter's was the first church founded in London. Given that St Paul's Cathedral was founded in 604, this clearly implies that St Peter's was considered in 1417 to be founded pre-600. The London historian John Stow , writing at the end of the 16th century, reported "there remaineth in this church a table whereon is written, I know not by what authority, but of

1540-475: The Popes') known as the "Felician Catalog" includes additional commentary to the work's earlier entry on Eleutherius. One addition ascribes to Eleutherius the reissuance of a decree: "And he again affirmed that no food should be repudiated by Christians strong in their faith, as God created it, [provided] however that it is sensible and edible." Such a decree might have been issued against early continuations of Jewish dietary law and against similar laws practiced by

1595-469: The ancient wattle chapel of St Mary erected by Pope Eleutherius 's nameless missionaries, which he called "the oldest I am acquainted with in England". (The precise antiquity of the church was part of a bitter dispute over seniority between the abbey and Westminster over the primacy of their foundations.) The current text of On the Antiquity of the Glastonbury Church is rather more florid: Philip

1650-407: The area around Llandaff , though he admitted none seemed as grand or preëminent as one might expect were they actually the apostles of Britain. Bartrum replied such dedications must be assumed to post-date Geoffrey's popularity. St Fagans , a village near Cardiff in Wales , continues to bear his name, although following the Norman invasion of Wales a new parish church was erected east of

1705-463: The church altar is sited directly above the potential location of a pagan shrine room, of the great Roman London basilica. Two other facts however, may give credence to a Roman past. The first is that London sent a bishop, Restitutus , to the Council of Arles in 314 AD. Restitutus must have had a church base. Secondly, in 1417, during a discussion about the order of precedence in a Whit Monday procession,

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1760-454: The church of Santa Susanna at the request of Camilla Peretti, the sister of Pope Sixtus V . His feast is celebrated on 26 May. Lucius of Britain Lucius ( Welsh : Lles map Coel , Lleirwg , Lleufer or Lleufer Mawr ) was a supposed 2nd-century king of the Britons traditionally credited with introducing Christianity into Britain . Lucius is first mentioned in a 6th-century version of

1815-664: The compiler of the Liber Pontificalis changed Britio to Brittanio , and in this way made a British king of the Syrian Lucius. According to the Liber Pontificalis , Pope Eleutherius died on 24 May and was buried on the Vatican Hill ( in Vaticano ) near the body of Peter the Apostle . Later tradition has his body moved to the church of San Giovanni della Pigna , near the pantheon . In 1591, his remains were again moved to

1870-519: The content of his story, the claim is generally discounted. After these, the story began to be broadly repeated. Further details appeared in the Iolo Manuscripts collected by Edward Williams , although his many alterations and forgeries render their historicity suspect. The discrepancy in William's accounts led Robinson to conclude that the appearance of the missionaries' names in the earlier book

1925-464: The death of Lucius in 156. Gerald elsewhere concedes that the archbishop was initially at Caerleon but claims it was eventually moved to Menevia (St Davids). He states the early archbishops administered twelve suffragans each and each oversaw one of the five Roman provinces of Britain: Britannia Prima ( Wales ), Britannia Secunda ( Kent ), Valentia ( Scotland ), Flavia ( Mercia ), and Maxima ( York ). He further concedes, however, his knowledge of

1980-453: The document which the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis drew his information, the name found was not Britanio , but Britio . Now this is the name ( Birtha - , Britium ) of the fortress of Edessa . The king in question is, therefore, Lucius Ælius Septimus Megas Abgar VIII , of Edessa, a Christian king as is well known. The original statement of the Liber Pontificalis , in this hypothesis, had nothing to do with Britain;

2035-452: The efforts of missionaries in Britain in the time of Saint Patrick and Palladius . Since the early twentieth century most scholars have believed that his appearance in the Liber Pontificalis is the result of a scribal error, based on a theory proposed by German scholar Adolf von Harnack . Von Harnack argued that King Lucius was actually King Abgar VIII of Edessa and the mix up was due to

2090-595: The falling sickness ". St Fagan's Church in the village of Trecynon near Aberdare in Glamorgan was a new foundation erected from 1851 to 1853. It was destroyed by fire in 1856. Rebuilt by 1856, John Griffith established it as a separate parish from Aberdare's ancient one, which had been dedicated to St John the Baptist prior to the completion of St Elvan's in 1852. The festival of St Fagan does not appear in any surviving medieval Welsh calendar of

2145-531: The flamens had previously held power. The pope is pleased with their accomplishments, and Fuganus and Duvianus recruit another wave of missionaries to aid the cause. Lucius responds by granting land and privileges to the Church. He dies without heir in AD 156, thereby weakening Roman influence in Britain. There is a long-standing tradition in London that St Peter upon Cornhill church was founded by King Lucius. Interestingly,

2200-457: The general falsehood of the account in Geoffrey, they suggest that the names of Fagan and his companions were probably genuine but that—in the absence of more detailed surviving records—they had been taken up and added to the legendary accounts of King Lucius. Accounts of St Fagan and his companion Deruvian joined a long-standing narrative concerning King   Lucius of Britain and his conversion to Christianity around

2255-689: The initial establishment at Congresbury , which was removed in 721 to Tydenton (present-day Wells). In the Iolo Manuscripts , Fagan was called an Italian who came to Britain as a bishop and enthroned himself at "Llansantffagan". A separate manuscript credits him with the foundation of the churches at "Llanffagan Fawr" (present-day St Fagans near Cardiff ) and at "Llanffagan Fach" (present-day Llanmaes near Llantwit Major ). Their parish churches are now dedicated to Saint Mary and Saint Cadoc , respectively. A third manuscript conflates Deruvian with Dyfan —wrongly, in Bartrum 's estimation. "Dyfan"

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2310-588: The name was a confusion with the Italo-British rhetorician Bachan or Pachan who appears in the life of Saint Cadoc . The entry on Pope Eleutherius in Petrus de Natalibus 's late 14th-century collection of saints' lives gives Fagan's name as " Fugatius ", an emendation subsequently copied by Platina and many others. These names were further misspelled in later sources in a variety of ways. The story of Pope Eleutherius 's late-2nd-century mission to

2365-569: The old chapel and dedicated to St Mary the Blessed Virgin in 1180. (This is now a Grade II* listed building .) The 16th-century antiquarian John Leland recorded in his travel notebooks that a nearby chapel remained dedicated to Fagan and was sometimes also used as the parish church, but this was in ruins by the time of the English Civil War a century later. St Fagan's Well was nearby and considered particularly restorative for "

2420-440: The primacy of a British national church founded by the crown. The English monk Bede included the Lucius story in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People , completed in 731. He may have heard it from a contemporary who had been to Rome, such as Nothhelm . Bede adds the detail that Lucius' new faith was thereafter adopted by his people, who maintained it until the Diocletianic Persecution . Following Bede, versions of

2475-509: The saints , but he had some importance following his description as an apostle: the Blessed John Sugar , martyred in 1604, invoked "Fugatius" and "Damianus" from the gallows as authorities for the antiquity of British Catholicism . Late sources place it on 3 January (with St Dyfan) at Glastonbury ; on 10 February at Llandaff ; on 8 August; and (with St Dyfan) on 24 or 26 May. This last date —the traditional day of

2530-415: The same number of bishops and 3 archbishops placed over them, including one at St Davids . It advances these points in favor of its independence from Canterbury , a particular project of Bishop Bernard ( r.  1115– c.  1147 ). Geoffrey also treats Fagan and "Duvian" as the first apostles to Britain, noting their conversion of Lucius's petty kings and success at "almost" removing paganism from

2585-466: The story of this "first Christian king" was widely believed, especially in Britain, where it was considered an accurate account of Christianity among the early Britons. During the English Reformation , the Lucius story was used in polemics by both Catholics and Protestants ; Catholics considered it evidence of papal supremacy from a very early date, while Protestants used it to bolster claims of

2640-461: The story, giving accounts of missionary activity under Lucius and attributing to him the foundation of certain churches. The first mention of Lucius is in a list of popes, with additional biographical notes, written in 532 AD and called the Catalogus Felicianus . In regards to King Lucius it says; (Pope Eleutherius) ..received a letter from Lucius, King of Britain, asking him to appoint

2695-559: The time of the Roman Emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius , a time of general tolerance towards the religion . St Gildas had described the first apostles as arriving during the reign of the emperor Tiberius . William of Malmesbury's cautious account in the Deeds of the Kings of the English allows that St Philip may have reached the island but quickly leaves such "vain imaginations" in favor of praising

2750-521: The time was mostly based on "common report" and not certain history. The Book of Llandaff composed around 1125 names neither emissary from Rome but gives " Elvan " ( Elvanus ) and Medwin ( Medwinus ) as the names of Lucius's messengers bearing his letter to the pope. The two accounts were later combined, so that Elfan and " Medwy " are sent off and honored in Rome and then return with Fagan and Deruvian. Fagan and Dyfan were also sometimes credited with

2805-571: The whole island until the Great Persecution under Diocletian . He states that the pagan temples were remade into churches and 2 8 " flamens " and 3 " archflamens " were replaced by 28 bishops under the 3 archbishops of London (over Loegria and Cornwall ), York (over Deira and Albania ), and Caerleon (over Wales ). Fagan and "Duvian" were then said to have personally returned to Rome for confirmation of their work, returning again with still more clerics. This all supposedly occurred before

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2860-506: The yeerys of our Lord God an clxxix [AD 179]. Lucius the fyrst christen kyng of this lond, then callyd Brytayne, fowndyd the fyrst chyrch in London, that is to sey, the Chyrch of Sent Peter apon Cornhyl, and he fowndyd ther an Archbishoppys See, and made that Chirch the Metropolitant, and cheef Chirch of this kingdom... A replacement, in the form of an inscribed brass plate, was set up after

2915-490: Was a spurious addition by the abbey's scribes, of a piece with the passages in the present text that include a patently fraudulent "Charter of St Patrick ", that describe Abbot Henry of Blois ( d.  1171) as "of blessed memory", and that mention a fire which occurred at the abbey in 1184. Robinson and Bartrum proceed to treat Fagan as an invention of Geoffrey subsequently taken up by others. Baring-Gould , Rees , and Mullins modify this somewhat: while admitting

2970-521: Was influential for centuries and its account of SS  Fagan and Deruvian were used during the English Reformation to support the claims of both the Catholics and Protestants . Geoffrey's account is now considered wholly implausible, but Christianity was well-established in Roman Britain by the third century. Some scholars therefore argue the stories preserve a more modest account of the conversion of

3025-408: Was never called Lucius of Britio/Birtha in contemporary sources, and that to call Lucius King of a 'Citadel' (eg Britio) is non-sensical. Furthermore, Agbar was only granted additional his Latin names; Lucius Aelius Septeimus, sometimes after 193 AD, several years after Lucius' conversion. Knight therefore argues for accepting the traditional identification of Lucius as a British ruler. For centuries

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