Endelient (also Endelienta, Edellienta or Endellion) was a Cornish

saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

of the 5th and 6th century. She is believed to be a daughter of the Welsh King

Brychan Brychan ap Anlach of Brycheiniog was a legendary 5th-century king of Brycheiniog (Brecknockshire, alternatively Breconshire) in Mid Wales. Name variations Brychan had Irish ancestry and came from Ireland to Wales, therefore his original name ...

, and a native of South Wales who travelled to North Cornwall to join her siblings in converting the locals to Christianity. Legend says that she was a goddaughter of

King Arthur According to legends, King Arthur (; ; ; ) was a king of Great Britain, Britain. He is a folk hero and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In Wales, Welsh sources, Arthur is portrayed as a le ...

, and that she lived as a

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Chr ...

at Trentinney where she subsisted on the milk of a cow. The saint is commemorated in the church and village of

St Endellion St Endellion () is a civil parishes in England, civil parish and hamlet in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The hamlet and parish church are situated four miles (6.5 km) north of Wadebridge. The parish takes its name from Saint Ende ...

which bear her name; Endellion being an

Anglicised Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language ...

version of her name. Her feast day is 29 April.

Life

Tradition makes her a daughter of King

, of

Brycheiniog Brycheiniog was an independent kingdom in South Wales in the Early Middle Ages. It often acted as a buffer state between England to the east and the south Welsh kingdom of Deheubarth to the west. It was conquered and pacified by the Normans ...

South Wales South Wales ( ) is a Regions of Wales, loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the Historic counties of Wales, historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire ( ...

. The village of Saint Endellion in

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

, named after her, is from where she is said to have evangelized the local population. Two former wells near the village were named after her. She is called "Cenheidlon" in Welsh records, with ''Endelienta'' being a Latinised form of the name. Her feast day is 29 April.Orme, Nicholas. ''The Saints of Cornwall'', OUP Oxford, 2000, p. 113
The saint is believed to have been a native of

who crossed the

Bristol Channel The Bristol Channel (, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales (from Pembrokeshire to the Vale of Glamorgan) and South West England (from Devon to North Somerset). It extends ...

to join her siblings in converting the people of North Cornwall to Christianity. During her journey, she initially landed on the island of

Lundy Lundy is an English island in the Bristol Channel. It forms part of the district of Torridge in the county of Devon. About long and wide, Lundy has had a long and turbulent history, frequently changing hands between the British crown and ...

, where she is believed to have founded a small chapel, which would later be wrongly rededicated to Saint Helen. She subsequently moved on to the mainland where she stayed with her brother, Saint Nectan, at Hartland, before eventually choosing to settle at Trentinney, south-west of the present day village of

, although she would return to Lundy from time to time on retreat for meditation. She lived at Trentinney as a hermit, where legend says that she subsisted solely on the milk of a cow, and the water from two nearby wells. Her sister, St Dilic (whose church is at Landulph), settled nearby and the two would often meet along a certain path whose grass would ever afterwards grow greener than elsewhere. The cow was killed by the Lord of Trentinney after straying onto his land. He in turn is said to have been killed by Endelienta's Godfather, reputed to be

, after Arthur was angered by the deed and sent his men to exact revenge. However, Endelienta was said to be unhappy that Trentinney had been killed in her name, and restored the nobleman back to life. Following a vision of her death, the saint is said to have asked that upon her death, her body should be placed on a sledge or cart drawn by bullocks, and that she should be buried at the place where they stopped. She is thought to have died on 29 April some time in the 6th century, and possibly at the hands of Saxon pirates. She was buried at the top of a hill, and a church built over her grave. The present church at St Endellion stands on that site.

Legacy

According to local folklorist Nicholas Roscarrock, a chapel dedicated to Saint Endelienta survived on the site of her hermitage at Trenteney until the 16th century, while her shrine at the Church of St Endellion was a site of pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages. It was virtually destroyed during the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

, but the base survives to the present day and can still be viewed. The St Endellion Music Festivals take place at Easter and in the Summer every year in the St Endellion church. Endellion is depicted in the Langdale rosary, a 16th Century work believed to have belonged to Lord William Howard; it is now in the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

. In 2005 a local iconographer was commissioned to produce an icon of Saint Endelienta, even though there were no known images of her on which to base the work. On 25 August 2010 it was announced that British Prime Minister,

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...

, and his wife Samantha had named their newborn daughter Florence Rose Endellion after the village of St Endellion, reflecting the fact she was born while the Cameron family were holidaying in Cornwall.

References

External links

*, thisisnorthcornwall.co.uk {{DEFAULTSORT:Endelienta Children of Brychan Female saints of medieval Cornwall Medieval Cornish saints Welsh hermits Year of birth unknown 6th-century Christian saints 6th-century Welsh women 6th-century Welsh people 5th-century Welsh women 5th-century Welsh people 6th-century deaths