Dr John Davies
University of Glasgow
10 January
John Davies presents the possibilities offered by saints and their veneration for adaptation, use and invention in later times. There are convincing reasons for regarding Kentigern (known in Glasgow as Mungo) as an historical bishop and church founder in late-sixth-century North Britain. But the twelfth-century growth of the cult of St Kentigern in Scotland and Cumberland seems to be bound up with the rise of the bishopric of Glasgow in the twelfth century under the sponsorship of the kings of Scots; and the appearance of Saint Kentigern’s cult at St Asaph in North East Wales could have been the result of the inventive mind and political manoeuvrings of Geoffrey of Monmouth.Saint Kentigern as bishop, and the origins of the diocese of Glasgow.