Saint, Volume 14 #3

Christianizing Britain in Small Strokes

The life of St. Mungo, lived in Scotland in the sixth century, is a veritable soap opera with feuding cousins, uncles and nephews. In the century before Mungo's birth, the Roman legions that had occupied the island of Britain for four centuries were suddenly withdrawn. The islanders drifted into minor kingdoms from which they defended themselves against invaders and opportunist neighbours. Mungo was born into an unprecedented calm: the island was enjoying a twenty-year peace won by the legendary King Arthur. But his arrival was anything but calm for his unwed teenage mother.

High on the great rock lookout of Traprain Law, thirty kilometres east of Edinburgh, King Loth ruled as far as the eye could see. Although he wasn't strictly a believer, he had agreed to the founding of a convent within his realm and allowed his daughter Tannoc to be schooled there.

When Tannoc was fifteen, she was summoned to the king's court to be presented to a noble suitor, Prince Owen. It was a promising moment, but unexpectedly, Tannoc rejoined that she was already "promised to a king far greater" than the prince would ever be. Infuriated, King Loth banished her to work for a swineherder. While she was herding her pigs, the spurned Prince Owen discovered her and raped her. Learning some time later that his daughter was pregnant, King Loth had her thrown over a hundred-metre cliff in a cart. A troop of soldiers then towed her, miraculously still alive, out to sea where she was set adrift.

The tides, being tides, changed, and Tannoc drifted towards land again. As she dragged herself ashore, the first birth pangs struck. She discovered an abandoned campfire and there in the open spaces, in a region she knew not, she gave birth to a baby boy. The next day local shepherds discovered the mother and child and took them to the kindly priest of the village of Culross, who lifted the little boy into his arms and uttered the words "my beloved" or Mungo, although Kentigern would be his Christian name. The priest gave refuge to the mother and child.

Mungo's life was not particularly spectacular, although he did recite the entire book of Psalms every day, sometimes neck-deep in frigid Scottish rivers. As a young priest and eventually a bishop, he was more influential in small strokes.

By the time Mungo had reached his mid-twenties the only bishop in Scotland had been murdered, and Mungo reluctantly agreed to become bishop of Strathclyde. The death of King Arthur in a fierce battle with Prince Mordred--possibly Tannoc's brother--had touched off another century and more of warring. Morcant Bulc, a local petty king who was no friend of Christians in general or of Mungo in particular, arrived to visit the new bishop. He had unseated Mungo's paternal grandfather in the north and was swaggering before the bishop as the new king of Strathclyde. Riding with him was a young man named Caten, Mungo's cousin, who sidled his horse up to Mungo, kicked him in the chest with his stirrup, and shouted, "Bastard bishop!"

On his way to Wales and exile, Mungo was obliged to approach Prince Urien--his paternal uncle--to cross his territory and work among the pagans of the lake district. The two became fast friends and Mungo spent several years in the region, travelling daily from well to well as the town crier, giving out news, harmless gossip and the Gospel. His influence spread as bitter rivalries were resolved at the wells, thieves returned loot and embittered neighbours were reconciled.

Mungo was a missionary bishop who travelled extensively, but he always felt that a missionary offensive from the south of England was necessary to Christianize the island once and for all. To this end in 590, he went to Rome to visit Pope Pelagius II, who agreed to send his prefect Gregory and others of his best to Britain. Just as the crew were to reach land, word came to them that Pelagius lay dying and Gregory was to succeed him. For the time being the mission was abandoned. But Gregory would make good on his intent: before the end of the century, St. Augustine of Canterbury would land in Kent with forty missionaries.

While there was good news from the south, yet another pagan army stood on the brink of taking Scotland again and undoing all the work of St. Mungo's lifetime. But he would know little of it. His last days were lived quietly in his parish in Glasgow. On January 13, 603, the eighty-five-year-old Mungo had a keen urge for a hot bath. When he was lowered into the warm water he muttered his last few phrases, "My children, love one another; be hospitable; keep the laws of the church."