Caian of Anglesey
The Holy Caian of Tregaian in Anglesey
Righteous
Commemorated 25 September — Festival of Tregaian per Rees; the York calendar's day
Caian is a saint of early Wales known from a single church dedication: the church of Tregaian ("Caian's homestead"), a chapelry under Llangefni in Anglesey, bears his name, and late genealogical tracts claim him — with contradictory pedigrees — as a son of Brychan or of Caw. No life, no act and no secure date of his is transmitted anywhere; the dedication, the conflicting pedigrees and a festival on September 25 are the entire surviving record, and this entry says so and stops. The calendar of the Antiochian Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland commemorates him on September 25 as "St. Caian of Anglesey (5th C)."
Nothing narrative survives about Caian. What the record holds is this:
The church. A church at Tregaian in Anglesey, a chapel under Llangefni, is dedicated to him — so the Orthodox England list, and so Baring-Gould and Fisher, who add that he was also patron of a church in Powys which their source does not name.
The pedigrees. The late Welsh genealogical tracts disagree about his family, and neither claim can be pressed. In Peniarth MSS 75 and 178 and in the Myvyrian Archaiology he is included among the children of Brychan, the famous saint-begetting chieftain of Brycheiniog; the Iolo MSS make him instead a son of Caw of Prydyn, the northern house to which tradition also assigns Gildas. Both attributions rest on late genealogical compilations, and the second rests on the Iolo manuscripts — the collection of Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg) — which this corpus treats as contaminated unless independently attested, per the standing rule of this pass. A Brychan affiliation would place Caian in the fifth century, as the York calendar and Orthodox England date him; a Caw affiliation would imply the sixth. The frontmatter follows the witness.
The festival. Rees, on the authority of Sir Harris Nicolas, gives September 25 as his festival — the day this calendar keeps. Browne Willis, however, records the wake at Tregaian on November 1, and another authority gives the village festival as November 15; Baring-Gould and Fisher report all three without deciding.
That is the whole of it. The poverty of the record is the record: a name on a church in Anglesey, a disputed pedigree, and a feast day.
Feast and commemoration
September 25 (church date; New Calendar civil September 25, Old Calendar civil October 8). The witness is the calendar of the Antiochian Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland (St Constantine York feed): "St. Caian of Anglesey (5th C)." Independent corroboration of the day: the Orthodox England list keeps the same day and century, and behind both stands Rees's September 25 on the authority of Harris Nicolas; the divergent November dates of the Tregaian wake are recorded above. The OCA calendar for September 25 was checked live and does not carry him. No service of any kind is transmitted.
Iconography
No image of Caian, Orthodox or Western, is known to this entry; nothing is recorded of any medieval imagery at Tregaian. He is listed in the the list of icons still being sought queue with no current lead.
Disputed questions
- Pedigree: son of Brychan (Peniarth MSS 75 and 178; Myvyrian Archaiology) or son of Caw (Iolo MSS, a contaminated source)? Recorded, not resolved; the century (5th, per the witness) follows the Brychan dating.
- Festival: September 25 (Rees, after Harris Nicolas — and the York calendar) against November 1 (Browne Willis, the Tregaian wake) and November 15 ("the village festival," Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1847).