Dunawd


Unidentified Saint, late fifteenth century, Church of St Mary, Beaumaris
The patron of Bangor-on-Dee, and the abbot of the monastery at Bangor mentioned by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History. Also known in the forms Dinoth and Dinoot.

Feast Day: Anhysbys/unknown

Texts

According to Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Dinoot was the abbot of Bancornaburg (Bangor-on-Dee) at the time that the British bishops went to meet Augustine of Canterbury. In Welsh tradition he appears in the Bonedd y Saint as the son of Pabo Post Prydain, and the father of other saints, notably Deiniol. As the son of Pabo, he is included in a triad as one of the 'Three Pillars of Battle of the Island of Britain.'

Bonedd y Saint

Genealogical text listing the names of many saints, originally compiled in the twelfth century. Additions and alterations occur in later versions, which continued to be made into the eighteenth century.

Places

The church at Bangor-on-Dee is dedicated to Dunawd. As early twentieth-century scholars argued that the monastery could not have been founded by him, a dedication to Deiniol was proposed, although the earliest known evidence for any dedication at Bangor is only eighteenth century.

  Church
Dedication
  Well   Placename Landscape
feature
 Modern Text

1. Church of St Dunawd, Bangor-on-Dee, (Dedication) Details


Further reading

S. Baring-Gould and John Fisher The Lives of the British Saints (London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1908), 382–6    View online

Rachel Bromwich (ed.) Trioedd Ynys Prydein (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014, fourth edition), 335–6

H.D. Emanuel 'Dunawd, saint (fl. 6th century)' in Dictionary of Welsh Biography (1959)    View online

Images

A wall painting of Dunawd was said to have survived at Bangor-on-Dee into the nineteenth century and was copied before it was destroyed, presumably as part of restoration work at the church.

View images of Dunawd on the Stained Glass in Wales website