Saint Indract of Glastonbury

Indract or Indracht was an Irish saint who, along with his companions, was venerated at Glastonbury Abbey, a monastery in the county of Somerset in south-western England. In the High Middle Ages Glastonbury tradition held that he had been an Irish pilgrim – a king's son – on his way back from Rome who was molested and killed by a local thegn after he had stopped off to visit the shrine of Saint Patrick. This tradition synchronised his life with that of King Ine (688–726), though historian Michael Lapidge has argued that he is most likely to represent a 9th-century abbot of Iona named Indrechtach ua Fínnachta. The cult seems to date from the late 10th or early 11th century, though this is uncertain. There is one main extant account, the anonymous 12th century Passio sancti Indracti. An earlier text written in Old English is said to have existed and been used by the writer of the Passio. There is also evidence that the 12th-century historian William of Malmesbury wrote his own saint's life, and although now lost it may also have used the Old English text. In the 14th century a St Alban's monk added significant new material of probable Cornish origin, mentioning a sister named Dominica (for whom St Dominic, Cornwall is named) and some miracles. The body of Indract supposedly lay in a stone shrine, with Saint Patrick's, in the Old Church of St Mary at Glastonbury Abbey. The historical identity of the Indract resting in this shrine is obscure, but it is unlikely that he can be identified with any known figure of the 7th or 8th centuries, the period of his life according to later Glastonbury sources. There is however a strong similarity between the story of the Glastonbury Indract and that of a 9th-century abbot of Iona, Indrechtach ua Fínnachta, whom several contemporary Irish sources report as being "martyred among the English (apud Saxones)" in 854. These sources give his death date as 12 March, which differs from the Canterbury date of 8 May.