Saint Asaph (or Asaf, Asa) was, in the second half of the 6th century, the first
Bishop of St Asaph
The Bishop of St Asaph heads the Church in Wales diocese of St Asaph.
The diocese covers the counties of Conwy county borough, Conwy and Flintshire, Wrexham county borough, the eastern part of Merioneth in Gwynedd and part of northern Powys. The ...
, i.e. bishop of the
diocese of Saint Asaph.
Biography
No traditional
Welsh account devoted to the life of Asaph exists. He is, though, well-attested to through place names. Local tradition points out many landmarks attested to him; his
ash tree
''Fraxinus'' (), commonly called ash, is a genus of plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae, and comprises 45–65 species of usually medium-to-large trees, most of which are deciduous trees, although some subtropical species are evergr ...
, his church, his well and his Valley. Many local names bear the "asa" associated with his name; Onnen Asa, Ffynnon Asa, Llanasa, Pantasa. All these sites are near
Holywell
Holywell may refer to:
England
* Holywell, Bedfordshire
* Holywell, Cambridgeshire
* Holywell, Cornwall
* Holywell, Dorset
* Holywell, Eastbourne, East Sussex
* Holywell, Gloucestershire, a List of United Kingdom locations: Ho-Hoo#Hol, location in ...
in
Tegeingl
Tegeingl, known as Englefield in English, was a cantref in north-east Wales during the mediaeval period. It was incorporated into Flintshire following Edward I of England's conquest of northern Wales in the 13th century.
Etymology
The region's ...
(
Flintshire
Flintshire () is a county in the north-east of Wales. It borders the Irish Sea to the north, the Dee Estuary to the north-east, the English county of Cheshire to the east, Wrexham County Borough to the south, and Denbighshire to the west. ...
), indicating probably that the saint may once have had a hermitage in that area.
[ Pollen, John Hungerford. "St. Asaph." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 14 Apr. 2013]
/ref> The '' Bonedd y Saint'' tells us that he was a son of King Sawyl Penuchel
Sawyl Penuchel or Ben Uchel ("high-head", "arrogant"), also known as Samuil Penissel ("low-head", "humble"), was a British king of the sub-Roman period, who appears in old Welsh genealogies and the Welsh Triads.
The genealogies, in which he appe ...
from the ''Old North'' or Yr Hen Ogledd
Hen Ogledd (), meaning the Old North, is the historical region that was inhabited by the Brittonic people of sub-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages, now Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands, alongside the fellow Brittonic Cel ...
; his mother was said to be Gwenaseth, daughter of Rhufon Rhufoniog.[Jocelyn of Furness
Jocelin of Furness (fl. 1175–1214) was an English Cistercian hagiographer, known for his Lives of Saint Waltheof, Saint Patrick, Saint Kentigern and Saint Helena of Constantinople. He is probably responsible for the popular legendary associa ...]
's ''Life of St. Kentigern'', which tells the story of Cyndeyrn (Kentigern) alias
. During his exile (c. 545), Kentigern took himself to Wales and there founded the
. Llanelwy is among the best documented of Celtic monasteries: the church was described as built "of smoothed wood, after the fashion of the Britons, seeing that they could not yet build of stone". The 965 disciples, of whom Asaph was one, were divided into three groups: 300 of the unlettered farmed the outlying lands, 300 worked in the offices around the monastery, and 365 (the number corresponds to the days of the year) attended to the divine services. Of these the oldest assisted Kentigern in the government of the diocese, and the rest were subdivided into three choirs. "As soon as one choir had terminated its service in church, immediately another entering commenced it: and that again being concluded another entered to celebrate."