Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pedrog
PEDROG (fl. 550?), British saint, commemorated on 4 June, was the founder of the ancient church of Bodmin, where his relics were long preserved. The life in ‘Acta Sanctorum’ (June, i. 400–1), previously printed by Capgrave (Nova Legenda Angliæ, p. 266), is meagre and of no authority. We only learn from it that Pedrog was ‘natione Cumber’ (i.e. a Welshman), and of royal birth. On the death of his father he declined the succession to the crown, and, with sixty companions, retired to a monastery. After studying in Ireland for twenty years, he spent another thirty in monastic seclusion in Britain. Then he visited Rome, Jerusalem, and India, living for seven years on a desert island in the Indian Ocean. He returned to Western Britain, and ultimately died there on 4 June. The Life of St. Cadoc in ‘Cambro-British Saints’ (pp. 22–3), which was apparently written about 1070, so far confirms this account as to make Pedrog a son of King Glywys of (what is now) Glamorgan, who did not take his share of the royal inheritance with his brothers, but served God at ‘Botmenei’ in Cornwall, where a great monastery was afterwards founded in his honour. The Hafod MS. of ‘Bonedd y Saint,’ however, and other manuscripts of the same class call Pedrog the son of ‘Clemens tywysog o Gernyw’ (i.e. a prince from Cornwall) (Myvyrian Archæology, 2nd edit. pp. 416, 429; Cambro-British Saints, p. 267).
Pedrog is called by Fuller ‘the captain of the Cornish saints,’ and the number of dedications to him in Devonshire and Cornwall show that his name was widely revered in the district. He is the patron saint of Bodmin, Padstow, Trevalga, and Little Petherick in Cornwall, and of West Anstey, South Brent, Clannaborough, St. Petrock's, Exeter, Hollacombe, Lidford, and Newton St. Petrock in Devonshire. Llanbedrog, Carnarvonshire, and St. Petrox, Pembrokeshire, are also dedicated to him. He was, moreover, honoured, as St. Perreux, in the monastery of St. Méen in Brittany, and in 1177 the monks of St. Méen made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain possession of his relics (Rog. Hov. sub anno).
[Acta Sanctorum, 4 June; Cambro-British Saints; Rees's Welsh Saints; Stanton's Menology of England and Wales, 1887; Boase in Dict. of Christian Biography.]