Padarn (Paternus)

Figure on the Llanbadarn Fawr Cross, mwy na thebyg o'r ddegfed ga
Photo © Martin Crampin

Click to show suggested citation for this record

Martin Crampin and David Parsons (eds), The Cult of the Saints in Wales, University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth, (2023)
https://saints.wales/saint/10 (accessed 19 May 2024)

bishop of Llanbadarn

Feast Day: 15 April

Various sources give different dates for the feast of Padarn, which is usually celebrated on 15 April, the date given in the Vita Paterni from the Cotton Vespasian AIV manuscript. 23 September is also attested in early sources, sometimes as the date of his ordination, which is given as 21 May in the Vannes Missal of 1530, although the same date is given for his translation in the 1660 missal. A date of 12 November is recorded against the name of the saint by Browne Willis in 1730, and in the Calendars found in Peniarth MSS 187 and 219.

More information

Texts

The Vita Paterni is found among the collection of Latin Lives in the British Library Cotton manuscript Vespasian A.xiv.

Vita Paterni

Places

Churches in Ceredigion and Radnorshire are both located in Llanbadarn Fawr, and may lay claim to be the primary centre of devotion to Padarn, although the prominence of a known early medieval monastic house at Llanbadarn Fawr near the coast at Aberystwyth overshadows that in Radnorshire, where the place-name has largely fallen out of use.

Further Padarn place-names and churches, attested by the thirteenth or fourteenth century are also found in mid-Wales at Llanbadarn Odwyn, Llanbadarn Trefeglwys and Llanbadarn-y-garreg. Associations with Padarn in place-names near Llanberis, where the Victorian church is now dedicated to Padarn, may represent a separate tradition.

Church
Dedication

Well

Placename

Landscape
feature

Modern

Text

2. Church of St Padarn, Llanbadarn Fawr, (Dedication) Details

3. Church of St Padarn, Llanbadarn Fawr, (Dedication) Details

4. Church of St Padarn, Llanbadarn Fynydd, (Dedication) Details

5. Church of St Padarn, Llanbadarn Odwyn, (Dedication) Details

6. Church of St Padarn, Llanbadarn Trefeglwys, (Dedication) Details

7. Church of St Padarn, Llanbadarn-y-garreg, (Dedication) Details

10. Ffynnon Badarn, Ffynnon Badarn, (Well) Details

11. Ffynnon Badarn, Llanbadarn Fawr, (Well) Details

12. Llanbadarn Fawr, Llanbadarn Fawr, (Placename) Details

13. Llanbadarn Fawr, Llanbadarn Fawr, (Placename) Details

14. Llanbadarn Fynydd, Llanbadarn Fynydd, (Placename) Details

15. Llanbadarn-y-garreg, Llanbadarn-y-garreg, (Placename) Details

16. Llanbadarn Odwyn, Llanbadarn Odwyn, (Placename) Details

17. Llanbadarn Trefeglwys, Llanbadarn Trefeglwys, (Placename) Details

18. Llanbadarn-y-Creuddyn, Llanbadarn-y-Creuddyn, (Placename) Details

Online sources

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Images

A figure on the tenth-century cross at Llanbadarn Fawr, Ceredigion, has been thought to represent Padarn, and a reading of the marginalia... [PR article] supports this idea. It has also been suggested that carvings on the south door of the church at Llanbadarn Fawr in Radnorshire represent Padarn and Arthur, although the theory is more difficult to substantiate.

Several twentieth-century depictions of the saint are found in churches near Aberystwyth, including the Church of St Padarn, Llanbadarn Fawr, and the Church of All Saints, Llangorwen, which was formerly in the large parish of Llanbadarn Fawr. Works from the 1980s in the south transept of Llanbadarn Fawr by Peter Lord and Elizabeth Edmundson include references to the Life of Padarn. Padarn is also depicted in the east window of the Church of St Padarn, Llanberis, flanking the figure of Christ with Peris on the opposite side.

View images of Padarn on the Stained Glass in Wales website