Bewnans Ke (The Life of Saint Ke) is aMiddle Cornishplay on the life ofSaint Kea or Ke, who was venerated in Cornwall,Brittany and elsewhere. It was written around 1500 but survives only in an incomplete manuscript from the second half of the 16th century. The play was entirely unknown until 2000, when it was identified among the private collection ofJ. E. Caerwyn Williams, which had been donated to theNational Library of Wales after his death the previous year. The discovery proved one of the most significant finds in the study ofCornish literature andlanguage.
Bewnans Ke is one of only two known Cornish plays based on a saint's life; this and other evidence suggests some relationship with the other such work,Beunans Meriasek. The story has much correspondence with a French text, a translation of a lost medieval Latinhagiography of Kea, allowing gaps in the narrative to be tentatively filled. The play is divided into two distinct sections, which may indicate that it was intended for a two-day performance. The first section deals with the deeds and miracles of Kea, including his conflicts with the tyrannical kingTeudar. The second is a longArthurian episode, describingKing Arthur's wars with theRomans and with his nephewMordred; it does not mention Kea in its current form.
Bewnans Ke survives in one manuscript, NLW MS 23849D, now held at theNational Library of Wales.[1] The play has no title in the text; the National Library gave it its modern name after consulting scholars of Cornish.[1] The manuscript had been in the personal collection ofJ. E. Caerwyn Williams, chair ofIrish at theUniversity of Wales, Aberystwyth. After Williams' death in 1999, his widow Gwen Williams donated his papers to the National Library in 2000, and the previously unknown play was identified by Graham Thomas during the cataloguing process.[2] Thomas publicized his discovery in theNational Library of Wales Journal in 2002, and the manuscript was subsequently repaired and studied.[3]
The manuscript was evidently created in the second half of the 16th century by a scribe copying a document dating perhaps to around 1500.[1] Several leaves are missing, including the entire beginning and ending and, in two places, the copyist complains about the poor quality of the original.[1][3] Theprovenance is entirely unknown, but the language isMiddle Cornish, akin to that ofBeunans Meriasek, the only other surviving Cornish play concerning a saint's life.[4] This and other similarities between the plays suggest that both were composed around the same time and in the same milieu, most probably atGlasney College inPenryn.[5] If this is correct,Bewnans Ke may have been performed in the still-extant "Playing Place" in the nearbyvillage of that name, whereBeunans Meriasek is known to have been performed.[5]
The play clearly relies on traditional material about Kea, which is known to have been circulated in aLatinhagiography written as early as the 12th century. This work is lost, but aFrench translation published inAlbert le Grand'sLives of the Saints of Brittany in 1633 survives.[3] This FrenchLife of Kea has much correspondence with the Cornish text, and has been used to fill in gaps in the action.Bewnans Ke was initially thought to represent two plays, as in its incomplete state it appears to consist of two distinct sections: one on the deeds of Kea and the other on the doings ofKing Arthur, in which Kea is not mentioned.[3] However, comparison with theLife shows that Arthurian material had been added to the saint's story at an early period. This occurs in places that would be missing in the play, leading some scholars to regard it as a single work.[3]
The play consists of two long parts, one concerning the deeds and miracles of Saint Kea, and the other concerningKing Arthur's conflicts with the Romans and with his nephewMordred. The Arthurian section is longer, and is largely adapted from some version of the account inGeoffrey of Monmouth'sHistoria Regum Britanniae.[3]
The lost beginning of the play probably recounted the events of Kea's early life, such as his birth to a noble family, his election as bishop, and his subsequent abdication in favour of life as ahermit. The extant text begins with Kea's resurrection of a deceased shepherd and his departure forCornwall by either boat or flyingflagstone. In Cornwall, he soon comes into conflict with the king, Teudar (theBretonTewdwr Mawr ofPenwith andCornouaille), but is eventually given land near the king's favourite hunting grounds inKea parish. The next section is missing, but context suggests the narrative would have followed the FrenchLife, which has Kea giving refuge to astag being hunted by Teudar. In retaliation Teudar's men take Kea's oxen and then break three of the saint's teeth. The manuscript picks back up as Kea generates aholy well and cures aleper who gives him additional land. Stags come from the woods to plough Kea's fields in place of the oxen. Teudar tries to make recompense for the injury he has caused Kea, and offers him any land he can empark before Teudar gets out of a bath. With Owbra's aid Kea makes a concoction that causes Teudar to get stuck in the bath, allowing him to take much of Teudar's land. The rest of the first section is missing, but probably dealt with Kea's return toCléder inBrittany.[6]
The second section begins as King Arthur receives a long list of nobles at his court, including names familiar fromGeoffrey of Monmouth such as DukeCador, Augelus ofScotland,Bedivere, a different Ke (Sir Kay),Mordred, andGawain. The scene jumps to Rome, where EmperorLucius has heard that Arthur refuses to recognize him. He sends twelve emissaries to exact tribute from Arthur. A gap occurs just after the emissaries arrive in Britain and greet the king. In the next extant section, Arthur refuses to pay tribute and sends the legates back to Lucius empty-handed. Lucius confers with his advisors, and decides to raise his forces against Arthur. Leaving his nephew Mordred in charge, Arthur says his goodbyes toGuinevere and then departs for France to meet Lucius. The two armies battle, and Arthur defeats and kills Lucius, and sends his severed head back to Rome. Meanwhile, Mordred and Guinevere conspire to usurp the throne, and Mordred is crowned king in Arthur's place. Arthur hears of this treachery and assembles his counsellors, while Mordred allies with theSaxon Cheldric. Arthur returns to Britain, and the two armies clash. The text breaks off during a scene with Guinevere in the castle; the end is missing. If it followed theLife, Kea would have re-entered the picture. In theLife, Kea is summoned to mediate between Arthur and Mordred, but he comes to realize that the endeavour is futile. He heads back to Brittany, stopping inWinchester where he castigates Guinevere. The remorseful queen enters aconvent. Kea returns to Cléder, where he eventually dies peacefully.[7]
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Scholars have pointed out a number of similarities withBeunans Meriasek. The two are comparable in subject matter: they are the only known vernacular plays on saints' hagiographies to have been produced in Britain.[8] The language in both works is similar and dates to the same era, leading to the conclusion that they originate around the same time and place. Both plays include the court at Goodern of the tyrannical kingTeudar, who may be intended as a parody of KingHenry VII after his crushing of theCornish Rebellion of 1497.[9] As such, it is thought thatBewnans Ke, likeBeunans Meriasek, was written atGlasney College at the beginning of the 16th century. It is possible that the surviving manuscripts of the two plays were brought to Wales together.[1]
The substantial length and distinct nature of the two sections may imply that the play was intended for performance over the course of two days, as was the case withBeunans Meriasek.Beunans Meriasek contains diagrams at the end of each section indicating the completion of a day's performance; these occur in places that would be missing in theBewnans Ke manuscript.[5] John T. Koch finds the first section to be more dramatic and effective, calling the second section "stolid", though he notes its importance to Arthurian studies.[5] On top of Cornish, the text is peppered with lines and words in English, Latin, andAnglo-Norman French, particularly in the second section. Thestage directions are mostly in Latin, but some are in Cornish and English, though the latter may have been added later.[5]
The discovery of the play was the first addition to the corpus of historical Cornish literature sinceJohn Tregear'sHomilies were found in 1949.[10] It is also of vast importance to the study of the Cornish language, as it provides valuable evidence of the state of Cornish in theTudor period, which was transitional between Middle andLate Cornish.[11] Many words in the play are not attested in any other sources.[1] The Cornish stage directions, though relatively few, contain some of the oldest known Cornish prose.[5]
A scholarly edition of the play was published in March 2007 by theUniversity of Exeter Press in affiliation with the National Library of Wales; it was edited by Graham Thomas andNicholas Williams.[12] The National Library also created a digital copy of the manuscript which was released on the Library's web page in 2006.[1] Prior to publication, study of the play was aided by a summary of the text byO. J. Padel, and a tentative translation by Michael Polkinhorn. These were released on the web and removed when the Thomas and Williams edition was published.[8] Prior to this, in 2006Kesva an Taves Kernewek (The Cornish Language Board) published an edition of the play edited byKen George, entitledBywnans Ke; this caused some friction with the National Library.[13]
