Beunans Meriasek [SEP] language of work or name
Beunans Meriasek
Beunans Meriasek (English: "The Life of Saint Meriasek") is a Cornish play completed in 1504. Its subject is the legends of the life of Saint Meriasek or Meriadoc, patron saint of Camborne, whose veneration was popular in Cornwall, Brittany, and elsewhere. It was written in the Cornish language, probably written around the same time and in the same place as "Bewnans Ke", the only other extant Cornish play taking a saint's life as its subject.
The manuscript of Beunans
in the same milieu, most probably at Glasney College in Penryn. If this is correct, "Bewnans Ke" may have been performed in the still-extant "Playing Place" in the nearby village of that name, where "Beunans Meriasek" is known to have been performed.
The play clearly relies on traditional material about Kea, which is known to have been circulated in a Latin hagiography written as early as the 12th century. This work is lost, but a French translation published in Albert le Grand's