St. Rumon

St. Rumon
(Born c.AD 515)
(Welsh-Rhufon, Latin-Romanus, English-Ronan)
Rumon is a saint of some controversy. He is chiefly the patron of Tavistock in Devon, but also apparently of several churches in Cornwall and Brittany where he is variously called Ruan or Ronan. It is note completely certain that the character referred to in each was the same man.
According to the relic lists of Glastonbury, Prince Rumon was a brother of St. Tugdual and, therefore, one of the sons of King Hoel I Mawr (the Great) of Brittany. Tradition says he was educated in Britain – probably Wales – but that he later accompanied St. Breaca on her return from Ireland to her Cornish homeland. Like Tudgual, he had presumably travelled to Ireland to learn the Holy Scriptures. He is said to have lived in a hermitage on Inis Luaidhe, near Iniscathy, and was eventually raised to the episcopacy. In Cornwall, he founded churches at Ruan Lanihorne (on the River Fal), Ruan Major & Minor (near the Lizard Peninsula), a defunct chapel in Redruth and at Romansleigh in Devon; but he quickly moved on to Cornouaille in Brittany, with St. Senan as his companion.
Rumon met up with St. Remigius in Rheims, which would place him in Brittany around the early 6th century, the probable time of his birth if he was a son of Hoel Mawr. At any rate, he settled first at St. Rénan and then moved on to the Forest of Nevez, overlooking the Bay of Douarnenez. He seems to have acquired a wife, named Ceban, and children at some point. He may be identical with Ronan Ledewig (the Breton), father of SS. Gargunan and Silan. His lady wife took a distinct dislike to Rumon’s preaching amongst the local pagan inhabitants and considered him to be neglecting his domestic duties. The situation became so bad that she plotted to have Rumon arrested.
Hiding their little daughter in a chest, Ceban fled to the Royal Court at Quimper and sought an audience with the Prince of Cornouaille – supposedly Gradlon, though he lived some years earlier. She claimed that her husband was a werewolf who ravaged the local sheep every fortnight and had now killed their baby girl! Rumon was arrested, but the sceptical monarch tested him by exposing the prisoner to his hunting dogs. They would have immediately reacted to any sign of wolf, but Rumon remained unharmed and was proclaimed a holy man. His daughter was found, safe and well, whilst his wife appears to have received only the lightest of punishments. Despite this, her troubling making persisted and Rumon was forced to abandon her and journey eastward towards Rennes. He eventually settled at Hilion in Domnonia, where he lived until his death.
There was much quarrelling over Rumon’s holy body after his demise. His companion had thought to keep one of his arms as a relic and brutally cut it off. A disturbing dream soon made him put it back though. Later, the Princes of Cornouaille, Rennes and Vannes all claimed the honour of burying him in their own province. The matter was decided by allowing him to be drawn on a wagon by two three-year-old oxen who had never been yoked. Where they rested, he would be interred. However, the body would not allow itself to be lifted onto the cart, except by the Prince of Cornouaille; so it was no surprise when the cattle chose Locronan in the Forest of Nevez, near his former home.
It is unclear when Rumon’s relics left Locronan – despite the 16th century shrine still to be seen there today. It was suggested by Baring-Gould & Fisher that they were removed to safety in Britain during the Viking coastal attacks of AD 913 & 14. Tradition says they were taken to Quimper, thence to Ruan Lanihorne in Cornwall. In AD 960, however, Earl Ordgar of Devon founded his great Abbey of Tavistock, on the edge of Dartmoor. He translated the body of Rumon into the abbey church with much pomp and ceremony and there it remained, working miracles for nearly six hundred years: until the Dissolution of the Monastery in the late 1530s. Some relics, however, may have made their way back to Brittany, by the 13th century, including, perhaps, his head.
Rumon’s feast day is variously given as 1st June (in Brittany), 22nd July (in Ireland) and 28th August (in England); perhaps around AD 560.

Britannia EBK Biographies: St. Rumon

T A V I S T O C K A B B E Y

History of Tavistock Abbey in Devon
Edited by David Nash Ford
T A V I S T O C K
A B B E Y
Ancient Devon Foundation

Ordgar, Earl of Devon, is the reputed founder of this Abbey, about AD 960, and is so described by the medieval historian, William of Malmesbury. However, an extract from an old chartulary printed in the Monasticon, has a much longer tale to tell of his son, Ordulph. Going out of doors, one night, to pray, as was his custom, Ordulph saw a brilliant column of light in the sky. It moved him to great fear. Later, when he returned to bed and slept, he saw a vision of an angel, in white, who bade him search out the place where the pillar of light had stood – he would find it marked out in a square by four rods – and there build a chapel to the four Evangelists. Ordulph told his wife of the vision; but (as so often), it had to be repeated a second, and a third, time before he took any action. When he did, however, he founded, not only a chapel, but a large monastery.
In AD 981, its liberties were confirmed by Ordulph’s uncle, King Aethelred, and the names of Dunstan, Oswald and Aethelwold appear on its charter. Ordulph and his wife bestowed numerous manors on their foundation, that of Tavistock included. He was a man of enormous strength and stature. Great bones, traditionally his, are still shown in the parish church of Tavistock and William of Malmesbury has a story of Ordulph breaking down a heavily barred gate with part of the adjacent wall, apparently without effort. He is also said to have been able to and stride across a river of ten feet wide. William also tells us that the saint translated to Tavistock at this time, was a Bishop Rumon, whose written life was lost until quite recent years. Leland saw it at Tavistock and records that he came to Britain from Ireland and his bones were translated to Tavistock by Ordgar. Baring-Gould & Fisher have little doubt that he is to be identified with St. Ronan of Locronan in Brittany. He rested in a beautiful shrine in the abbey and wrought many a miracle until removed at the Reformation. 
Amongst other benefactors, King Aethelred was a considerable one to his nephew’s establishment and the institution became very wealthy and flourishing. However, in AD 997, the Danes, sailing round Land’s End, entered the mouth of the Tamar, and, proceeding a considerable distance up that river, marched to Tavistock; where, after having spoiled the monastery, they burnt it to the ground and carried off the plunder to their ships.
The Abbey was, shortly after this devastation, rebuilt and soon became more flourishing than ever, additional grants and immunities having been given by various persons. Lefing, or Living, Bishop of Worcester, is mentioned by Speed as “a special benefactor.” King Henry I granted, to the Abbot, the jurisdiction and whole hundred of Tavistock, together with the privilege of a weekly market and a fair, once a year for three days. In the succession of Abbots, several were learned men and, soon after the introduction of the art of printing into England, there was established, in the Abbey, a press from which many books were issued – only the second set up in the whole country. The best-known production is perhaps Walton’s English version of Boethius’ “Consolation of Philosophy,” printed in 1525 by Dan Thomas Rychard, a monk of the house. Such works are now extremely rare. Richard Barham, the thirty-fifth Abbot, obtained from Henry VIII, in 1513, the privilege of sitting in the House of Lords; or, in other words, became a mitred abbot. This, he probably gained by purchase, in order to be revenged upon Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, with whom he had great disputes and finally caused to be excommunicated. In 1539, John Peryn, the thirty-sixth and last Abbot, surrendered his monastery on being allowed the sum of £100 per annum for life. The abbey lands were granted, by Henry VIII, to John, Lord Russell, whose descendant, the Duke of Bedford, is now owner of its site and ruins. The revenues of the Abbey were valued at the Suppression at the yearly rent of £902 5s 7d; but it must be observed that the Abbots and Priors, foreseeing the impending storm, set the yearly rents very low and the fines very high, so that they might have sufficient support if expelled from their houses.
Of the church, William of Worcester tells us that it measured 126 of his steps and the eastern Lady Chapel 36 more. Reckoning the step at 19 inches, this works out at 2,561 feet. There were aisles, but nothing is said of transepts. It stood in the present churchyard, just south of the parish church, and the last substantial remains are said to have been pulled down about 1670.
Of the Abbey buildings Browne Willis, in the early eighteenth century, tells us something. After saying that the church has gone, he continues, “The kitchen, which was left standing of late years, though now raised to the foundation, was a large square room, open to the roof, which was composed of elegant workmanship. The chapter-house is likewise ruined. It was a pile of great beauty, built as round as can possibly be worked with a compass; and yet the dimensions thereof were large, there being thirty-six seats in the inside, wrought out in the walls, all arched overhead with curious carved stones. The Refectory with several of the offices is still standing, being of great length, breadth and height. The ‘Saxon School’ ….. is a large building, as is the area where the cloisters stood, which were 45 paces or yards in length, the east side of which opened into the chapter-house. . . . In two arches on the north side of the cloisters are one or two broken monuments, one of which, tradition says, belonged to the founder.”
Archbishop Parker, about 1574, apparently originated the myth that there was, before the Reformation, a school of Anglo-Saxons at the Abbey (he calls it a nunnery, coenobium monialium). The statement was seized upon by writer after writer and came to be a commonplace of historians. There is no foundation for it at all. The building generally, and erroneously, referred to as the ‘Saxon School’ and the Chapter House, nearby, were demolished in 1736 and a house for the Duke of Bedford’s steward built on the site. 
The standing remains consist of the north-east angle of the cloister in the churchyard (sometimes said to be a part of the north wall of the church and called ‘Ordulph’s Tomb’); two gate houses, west and east, the western one called Betty Grimbal’s tower; a fine pinnacled porch and the frater, in a much restored condition and converted into a unitarian chapel. Further south, running along the river, is a portion of the precinct walls and a tower called the Still-tower. At the northern extremity of the precinct, behind a row of houses on the east side of Market Street, is a building, in private hands, which was inside the precinct and is reputed to have been one of the monastic buildings.
Edited from John Timbs & Alexander Gunn’s “Abbeys, Castles & Ancient Halls of England & Wales” (1872) and MR James’ “Abbeys” (1925)

Britannia Abbeys and Priories: Tavistock, Devon