Cybi (Kebius)
More information
Feast Day: 8 November
One of the Latin Lives give the death of Cybi as 8 November, while a parallel Latin Life gives it as six days before the Ides of November, which would make it 7 November, and the same date given in the calendar found in the same manuscript, with other calendars listing the feast day as 5 or 6 November. Browne Willis gives a feast day of 6 November for the churches at the three places named Llangybi (Caernarfonshire, Ceredigion and Monmouthshire). Churches associated with him in Cornwall have parish feasts on 4 October and 9 November. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources give 13 August.More information
Texts
Two similar Latin Lives are found in the British Library Cotton manuscript Vespasian A. xiv, which recount Cybi's journeys from Cornwall to Jerusalem and Poitiers, and back to Cornwall and thence to Wales and Ireland. The Lives conclude with Cybi's arrival in North Wales, where he comes into conflict with Maelgwn. A further Latin Life was discovered in 2018, in the Osborn fb229 manuscript held at the Beinecke Library, Yale. As well as additional material, the Yale Life has a stronger focus on Holyhead and adds liturgical material.A fifteenth-century englyn by Hywel Rheinallt lists twelve sailors in Cybi's retinue, including Deiniol, Cyngar and Padarn.
One of two medieval Lives of Cybi found in the British Library Cotton manuscript Vespasian A. xiv.
One of two medieval Lives of Cybi found in the British Library Cotton manuscript Vespasian A. xiv.
Medieval Latin Life of Cybi, recently discovered in the Osborn fb229 manuscript, Beinecke Library, Yale.
Fifteenth-century englyn by Hywel Rheinallt.
Places
Cybi is associated with four churches in Wales, whose dedications are all attested by early place-name evidence. Three churches are found at locations in different parts of Wales all named Llangybi, while the fourth, Holyhead, takes the name in the form Caergybi (the fort of Cybi), as the church is located on the site of a Roman fort. Each of the churches have holy wells sited nearby, and both Llangybi in Ceredigion and Llangybi in Caernarfonshire also have stones associated with Cybi, that in Ceredigion being apparently a prehistoric monument. A further holy well near Llannerch-y-medd has been presumed as the meeting place between Cybi and Seiriol at 'the wells of Clorach', near the centre of the island, although other sources locate the wells nearer Llandyfrydog.Further churches dedicated to Cybi are found in Cornwall at Cubert and Tregony, and a holy well of Cybi is at Duloe.
 | Church Dedication |  | Well |  | Placename |  | Landscape feature |  | Modern |  | Text |
Further reading
S. Baring-Gould and John Fisher The Lives of the British Saints (London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1908), 202–15 View online
S. Baring-Gould and John Fisher The Lives of the British Saints (London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1913), 334–5 View online
David Farmer The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 110
Nicholas Orme The Saints of Cornwall (Oxford: 2000), 99–100
K.M. Evans A Book of Welsh Saints (Penarth: Church in Wales Publications, 1967), 58–60
Lewis Morris Celtic Remains (London: J. Parker, 1878), 111
Thomas Charles-Edwards 'Cybi (fl. 6th cent.)' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) View online
Images
No medieval images of Cybi are known although a handful of twentieth-century images were made for churches. Examples in stained glass at Bangor Cathedral, Penmon and the former east window of the Church of St Seiriol in Holyhead (now demolished) show Cybi with Seiriol, and both are joined by Ceinwen in the south aisle window of Bangor Cathedral. An icon of Cybi and Seiriol meeting at the wells of Clorach is found at the Orthodox church at Blaenau Ffestiniog, and has become well-known in reproductions. A small window in the porch of the Church of St Beuno, Penmorfa, shows Cybi as a young man with miniature scenes around the borders.Images of Cybi and Seiriol are found as mosaics in the town centre of Holyhead.
View images of Cybi on the Stained Glass in Wales website
