Clervie

Klervi (Breton: Klerwi; French: Clervie; Latin: Creirvia; Welsh: Creirwy; born ) was a 5th-century pre-Congregational saint from the Welsh settlement of Ploufragan in Armorica, later a part of Brittany and France.

Lineage and life

Parentage, ancestry and flight Klervi was the daughter of Prince Fragan (Fracan) and the Princess Gwen Teirbron (Gwen the Three Breasted), both also considered saints. That lineage places him as having inherited the Kingdom of Cornwall upon Selyf's death. Other sources claim that Fragan was the Prince of Albany in Scotland, although that claim is less corroborated. Gwen Teirbron was a Breton noblewoman and the daughter of Budic II of Brittany. Fragan was Gwen Teirbron's second husband, her first being Eaneas Lydewig, also called Eneas the Breton. Fragan accepted his stepson born from Gwen's first marriage as his own and so brought him to Brittany as part of his entourage.

The reason for Fragan and Gwen Teirbron's flight to Armorica is similarly debated. Some sources cite a plague believed to have broken out in Devon in 507 caused Fragan to bring his family and a large number of his subjects onto ships on the English Channel. From there they fled to Gwen's homeland in Brittany and were permitted to create a permanent settlement. Another claim is that the flight was in response to Brittonic defeats by the invading Anglo-Saxons. Many sources simply state that Fragan resolved to relocate his family.

Upon the party's landing in Armorica and subsequent settling in arable land, Gwen appealed to her father and the family gained an official claim to the territory on which they founded their settlement, so founding the still existing commune of Ploufragan.

There is a statue of Klervi, Winwalo and the goose on the fountain of St. Genoa in Saint-Frégant in Finistère, and on the doors of the nearby church. The statue shows Winwaloe holding the goose in one hand and an eyeball in the other with the much younger Klervi standing at his side.