Bewnans Ke [SEP] language of work or name
Bewnans Ke
Bewnans Ke ("The Life of Saint Ke") is a Middle Cornish play on the life of Saint 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 of J. E. Caerwyn Williams, which had been donated to the National Library of Wales after his death the previous year. The discovery
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