For the fried pastry, see beignet

Beignet

A beignet in the U.S. is a pastry made from deep-fried dough, much like a doughnut, and sprinkled with confectioner's sugar, or frostings. Savory versions of beignets are also popular as an appetizer, with fillings such as maple or fruit preserves....

.

St. Begnet (7th century?), also Begneta, Begnete, Begnait or Becnait is a patron saint

Patron saint

A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...

 of Dalkey

Dalkey

Dalkey is suburb of Dublin and seaside resort in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County, Ireland. It was founded as a Viking settlement and became an important port during the Middle Ages. According to John Clyn, it was one of the ports through which the plague entered Ireland in the mid-14th century...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. She is noted as a "virgin, not a martyr

Martyr

A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

." Her feast day is November 12. Two ruined

Ruins

Ruins are the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete, as time went by, have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction...

 churches in Dalkey are named for Begnet, one on Dalkey Island

Dalkey Island

Dalkey Island is an uninhabited island about 16 km south of Dublin, near the village of Dalkey, 3 km south of Dún Laoghaire harbour...

, and the other near the 15th-century stone townhouse

Townhouse

A townhouse is the term historically used in the United Kingdom, Ireland and in many other countries to describe a residence of a peer or member of the aristocracy in the capital or major city. Most such figures owned one or more country houses in which they lived for much of the year...

 now serving as Dalkey Castle and Heritage Centre, in the area known as Kilbegnet. A holy well

Holy well

A holy well, or sacred spring, is a small body of water emerging from underground and revered either in a Pagan or Christian context, often both. Holy wells were frequently pagan sacred sites that later became Christianized. The term 'holy well' is commonly employed to refer to any water source of...

 located near the martello tower

Martello tower

Martello towers are small defensive forts built in several countries of the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the Napoleonic Wars onwards....

 on the island is also associated with her; as the Irish playwright

Irish theatre

The history of Irish theatre begins with the Gaelic Irish tradition. Much of the literature in that Celtic language was destroyed by conquest, except for a few manuscripts and fragments, such as the Book of Fermoy...

 Hugh Leonard

Hugh Leonard

Hugh Leonard was an Irish dramatist, television writer and essayist. In a career that spanned 50 years, Leonard wrote more than 18 plays, two volumes of essays and two autobiographies, one novel and numerous screenplays and teleplays, as well as writing a regular newspaper column.-Life and...

 observed:
The name has been incorrectly understood as a corruption of St. Benedict. The stories associated with her suggest that she has also been identified with Saint Bega

Saint Bega

Stained glass window in [[St Bees Priory]] showing the arrival of St Bega on the coast.|thumb|rightSaint Bega was reputedly a saint of the Early Middle Ages; an Irish princess who valued virginity. Promised in marriage to a Viking prince who, according to a medieval manuscript The Life of St Bega,...

 or other virgin saints named as Begha or Becga in Irish calendars

Calendar of saints

The calendar of saints is a traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the feast day of said saint...

.

Sources

Begnet is named in the calendars of two manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 breviaries

Breviary

A breviary is a liturgical book of the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church containing the public or canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for everyday use, especially by bishops, priests, and deacons in the Divine Office...

 which in the 19th century were held by the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. One had belonged to the church of Clondalkin, and the other to the parish church

Parish church

A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....

 of St. John the Evangelist, Dublin, but she is not mentioned in the Martyrology of Oengus.

Life

According to one source on the history of the church in Dalkey, Begnet's father was Colman, the son of Aedh in the parish of Kilbegnatan (Kilbegnet or Cill Becnait). Like many other female virgin saints, she is described as beautiful and desirable, but she refused her numerous suitors in favor of religious devotion. Her social status is sometimes given as "Irish princess", and thus she would have been a valuable bride. She is said variously to have lived as an anchorite

Anchorite

Anchorite denotes someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, and—circumstances permitting—Eucharist-focused life...

 or to have served as the first abbess

Abbess

An abbess is the female superior, or mother superior, of a community of nuns, often an abbey....

 of nun

Nun

A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...

s on a small island off the coast of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Begnet may not have come from Dalkey, despite the genealogical note on her origin. Missionaries

Hiberno-Scottish mission

The Hiberno-Scottish mission was a mission led by Irish and Scottish monks which spread Christianity and established monasteries in Great Britain and continental Europe during the Middle Ages...

 may have founded the two churches in her name there.

Legend of the bracelet

A legend

Hagiography

Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...

 pertaining to this relatively obscure saint is propagated by historic preservation

Historic preservation

Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...

ists and promoters

Promoter (entertainment)

An entertainment promoter i.e. music, wrestling, boxing etc is a person or company in the business of marketing and promoting live events such as concerts/gigs, boxing matches, sports entertainment , festivals, raves, and nightclubs.- Business model :Promoters are typically hired as independent...

 of tourism

Tourism

Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

. As a child, Begnet was visited by an angel

Angel

Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...

 who gave her a bracelet

Bracelet

A bracelet is an article of jewelry which is worn around the wrist. Bracelets can be manufactured from metal, leather, cloth, plastic or other materials and sometimes contain jewels, rocks, wood, and/or shells...

 inscribed with a cross

Christian cross

The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, is the best-known religious symbol of Christianity...

 as a mark of her vocation

Vocation

A vocation , is a term for an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which they are suited, trained or qualified. Though now often used in non-religious contexts, the meanings of the term originated in Christianity.-Senses:...

. To avoid marriage, Begnet left home and took nothing with her but the bracelet. In this version of the story, Begnet flees to Northumbria

Northumbria

Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

, where she was received into the Church by Bishop Aidan

Aidan of Lindisfarne

Known as Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, Aidan the Apostle of Northumbria , was the founder and first bishop of the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne in England. A Christian missionary, he is credited with restoring Christianity to Northumbria. Aidan is the Anglicised form of the original Old...

. After years of enduring continual raids by pirates, she moved to Cumberland

Cumberland

Cumberland is a historic county of North West England, on the border with Scotland, from the 12th century until 1974. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 and now forms part of Cumbria....

. Her bracelet became an object of veneration

Veneration

Veneration , or veneration of saints, is a special act of honoring a saint: an angel, or a dead person who has been identified by a church committee as singular in the traditions of the religion. It is practiced by the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic, and Eastern Catholic Churches...

 after her death. By the 12th century, the veracity of legal testimony could be asserted by swearing on the bracelet, and the penalty for perjury

Perjury

Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...

 was death.

This story, or a version of it, is told also about Saint Bega

Saint Bega

Stained glass window in [[St Bees Priory]] showing the arrival of St Bega on the coast.|thumb|rightSaint Bega was reputedly a saint of the Early Middle Ages; an Irish princess who valued virginity. Promised in marriage to a Viking prince who, according to a medieval manuscript The Life of St Bega,...

, who is said to have been of Irish origin. One source for Bega's legend is a 15th-century Book of Hours

Book of Hours

The book of hours was a devotional book popular in the later Middle Ages. It is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and...

 held by the Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...

, Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

.

Origins and religious influences

In 1795, the entry on Dalkey Island in W.W. Seward's Topographia Hibernica (Topography of Ireland) claimed that Dalki was so called "on account of the Pagan altar

Altar

An altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices are made for religious purposes. Altars are usually found at shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship...

 there." Seward described the island as having "plenty of herbage and some medicinal plants," and said at that time the only building on it was the ruin of the church. The author also professed to find "some remarkable ruins of Druid

Druid

A druid was a member of the priestly class in Britain, Ireland, and Gaul, and possibly other parts of Celtic western Europe, during the Iron Age....

ic antiquities

Antiquities

Antiquities, nearly always used in the plural in this sense, is a term for objects from Antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean: the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures...

" in nearby Killiney

Killiney

Killiney is a suburb of Dublin in south County Dublin, Ireland. It is within the administrative area of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County. The area is by the coast, south of neighbouring Dalkey, and north to Shankill area in the most southern outskirt of Dublin....

. The possibility cannot be excluded that the legendary Begnet is a Christianized survival of a deity

Deity

A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....

 from earlier Irish religious practice.

As is the case with many other early Celtic saints, aspects of Begnet's narratives and archaeology indicate that the traditional religions of ancient Ireland had been appropriated, rather than stamped out, by evangelizing Christianity. The existence of several similarly named saints in the region may also suggest cross-identification among local Christian religious figures, perhaps in association with one or more deities from Celtic or other traditional religions

Celtic polytheism

Celtic polytheism, commonly known as Celtic paganism, refers to the religious beliefs and practices adhered to by the Iron Age peoples of Western Europe now known as the Celts, roughly between 500 BCE and 500 CE, spanning the La Tène period and the Roman era, and in the case of the Insular Celts...

, though this is no longer a fashionable view in the early 21st century. The epithet sanctus, "holy," from which English "saint" derives etymologically and which is the word for "saint" in ecclesiastical Latin

Ecclesiastical Latin

Ecclesiastical Latin is the Latin used by the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church in all periods for ecclesiastical purposes...

, can appear in epitaph

Epitaph

An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that is inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial...

s of those who had not converted to Christianity

Conversion to Christianity

Conversion to Christianity is the religious conversion of a previously non-Christian person to some form of Christianity. It has been called the foundational experience of Christian life...

. The interaction or sometimes reconciliation between Christian missionaries and representatives of traditional religious authority

Authority

The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...

 is expressed in Ireland by, for instance, narratives of St. Patrick and the druids, many of whom are oppositional but some of whom either convert

Religious conversion

Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...

 or assume a welcoming, ecumenical attitude. The 7th-century dating of the earliest surviving sources for these Irish stories coincides with the life of Begnet. Healing, one of her attributes, was an area in which local practitioners and Christian missionaries often competed for authority. At the same time, competition might mean incorporating local religious beliefs and traditions into the Christian message: "the local ecclesiastic, who weaves the cadences and mythology of orthodox liturgy

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

 and cosmology

Cosmology

Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...

 with the exigencies and spirits of the local cosmos

Cosmos

In the general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from the Greek term κόσμος , meaning "order" or "ornament" and is antithetical to the concept of chaos. Today, the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The word cosmos originates from the same root...

, has been well documented in Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and medieval Christian cultures."

Violent martyrdom would have been rare among Irish saints until the Norse invasions of the 8th century. A 7th-century Irish homily

Cambrai Homily

The Cambrai Homily is the earliest known Irish homily, dating to the 7th or early 8th century. It is evidence that a written vernacular encouraged by the Church had already been established alongside Latin by the 7th century in Ireland. The homily is also the oldest single example of an extended...

 describes three kinds of martyrdom: white (bloodless), a separation from all that one loves; blue (or green), the mortification of one's will through fasting

Fasting

Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...

 and penitential labor; and red (bloody), undergoing physical torture or death. Early Christian theologians such as Basil of Ancyra

Basil of Ancyra

Basil of Ancyra, was a Christian priest in Ancyra, Galatia during the fourth century. Very meager information about his life is preserved in a metaphrastic work: “Life and Deeds of the Martyred Priest Basil.” He fought against the pagans and the Arians...

 regarded the forms of martyrdom as external to true virtue. By these criteria, Begnet's description as virgo, non martyr may not be a self-evident rejection of the status of martyrdom for her. The story of how she left behind her former life, carrying with her only the bracelet that marked her service to the cross, suggests a form of "white" martyrdom. The homily's color triad

Triads of Ireland

The title Trecheng Breth Féne "A Triad of Judgments of the Irish", more widely known as "The Triads of Ireland", refers to a miscellaneous collection of about 214 Old Irish triads on a variety of topics, such as nature, geography, law, custom and behaviour...

 of martyrdom appears with a fragment of a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 triad on ethical martyrdom requiring "self-control in abundance, generosity in poverty, chastity in youth." The rejection of marriage by the beautiful young Begnet would be categorized as castitas in iuventute, a form of martyrdom acquired by "chastity in youth" and in early Ireland not considered inferior to that brought about through violence.

During the 7th century in Ireland, saint's bodies were sometimes deliberately dismembered and distributed as relics, and this dispersal offers another explanation for the spread of similarly named saints. In 1837, a topographical dictionary recorded mysterious "stone coffins" on Dalkey Island said to contain disarticulated human remains. This practice may again preserve an earlier feature of ancient Celtic religious cosmology, in which the articulated human body corresponds in numerical proportion to the universe, as preserved in myths of ritual dismemberment by sword. In the 19th century, it was speculated that the builders of the stone tombs on Dalkey Island, sometimes called kistvaen

Kistvaen

A kistvaen or cistvaen is a tomb or burial chamber formed from flat stone slabs in a box-like shape. If set completely underground, it may be covered by a tumulus. The word is derived from the Welsh cist and maen...

s, were "Celtic, or Belgic

Belgae

The Belgae were a group of tribes living in northern Gaul, on the west bank of the Rhine, in the 3rd century BC, and later also in Britain, and possibly even Ireland...

, tribes of a very remote æra."

Selected bibliography

• Crosthwaite, John Clarke. The Book of Obits and Martyrology of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Commonly Called Christ Church, Dublin. Dublin: Irish Archaeological Society, 1844, pp. lxv–lxvi online.
• O'Reilly, Joseph P. "Notes on the Orientation and Certain Architectural Details of the Old Churches of Dalkey Town and Dalkey Island." Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 24 (1902–1904) 195–226.
• O'Reilly, Patrick J. "The Christian Sepulchral Leacs and Free-Standing Crosses of the Dublin Half-Barony of Rathdown." Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 31 (1901), pp. 134–161, especially p. 158ff. online.

External links

• The life of Saint Begnet
• St Begnet's Church within the town of Dalkey