Noyale

Saint Noyale (Latin: Noyala), also known as Noaluen, was a semi-legendary 5th-century Celtic saint, cephalophore, and virgin martyr.[1] She is a popular saint in both Brittany and Cornwall, where she is memorialized at Newlyn East. According to legend, it is there that a fig tree growing from the south wall of the church grew from Noyale's staff. A holy well nearby was the site of her martyrdom.[2] She was one of numerous Celtic settlers who travelled to Brittany during the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England.

Saint Noyale
Statue of Saint Noyale, at Chapelle Sainte-Noyale in Noyal-Pontivy, Brittany
Martyr
BornEngland
Died5th century
Venerated inRoman Catholic Church; Eastern Orthodox Church
Feast11 September

Name

Noyale is also known as Noyala of Brittany, Noyala the White, Noaluen, Nolwenn, Newlyn, or Newlina.

Origins

According to her legend she was English, and Irish according to the earlier hagiographers. Modern scholarship suspects her likely to have been one of the numerous Welsh settlers who travelled to Brittany.[3]

Noaluen was possibly the daughter of an English king. She was educated and pious. She received a strongly Christian education, and became a model of piety distaining the pleasures of the court. When her father wanted to marry her off; she fled to Brittany. She and her nurse sailed to the region around Vannes in France,[3] or Beignan where a local lord also wanted to marry her. She refused him and in a rage he beheaded her.[4] The legend then states that the beheaded saint picked up her head, and led by her maid, returned to England.

Legend

"According to the popular belief in Brittany, unsupported by any evidence, Moyale or Noaluen was a maiden, who floated over to Brittany with her nurse on the leaf of a tree. She was decapitated at Beignan, and walked to Pontivy holding her head in her hands. The chapel dedicated to her at Pontivy was remarkable in the 18th cent. for several interesting paintings on gold grounds representing this fanciful story."[4]

Her legend is typical of the 5th-century cephalophore saints. Noaluen was the daughter of an English king. She was educated and pious. When her father wanted to marry her off, she fled to Brittany, where a local lord also wanted to marry her. She refused him and in a rage he beheaded her.[4] The legend then states that the beheaded saint picked up her head, and led by her maid, returned to England.

Legacy

She is the patron saint of St Newlyn East in Cornwall,[5] and a church building there bears her name. A feast day is celebrated on 27 April.[6] The saint is also revered as a Pre-Schism Western Saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church.[7] Her feast day is July 6.

A small stone image of her carrying her own head was unearthed in the churchyard at Newlyn East.[8]

See also

References
  1. Tristan Gray Hulse, The Land of Holy Wells – 3.
  2. J. Meyrick, A Pilgrim's Guide to the Holy Wells of Cornwall, Falmouth: Meyrick, 1982, p. 110
  3. Kathleen Hanrahan and Mo Langdon St. Noyala of Brittany, Virgin Martyr.
  4. Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould (M.A.). "S. NOYALA, V.M. (DATE UNCERTAIN.)." In: The Lives of the Saints; vol. 7: July - Part I. London: John C. Nimmo, 1898. pp. 137-140.
  5. "St Newlyn East Parish Church". Archived from the original on 1 July 2017. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
  6. David Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford University Press, 1992) p. 534.
  7. Cornwall Online Parish Clerks
  8. S. Baring-Gould and John Fisher, Lives of the British Saints, IV, (London, 1913) pp. 10–14.
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