Samson of Dol
Welsh saint who settled down in Brittany (c. C.E.485 — c. 565)
Samson of Dol (also Samsun; born c. 485 AD — died 28 July 565 AD) was a Welsh saint, who is also counted among the seven founder saints of Brittany with Pol Aurelian, Tugdual or Tudwal, Brieuc, Malo, Patern (Paternus) and Corentin. Born in southern Wales, he died in Dol-de-Bretagne, a small town in north Brittany, and was the nephew of Athrwys ap Meurig.
Life
Samson was the son of Amon of Demetia and Anna of Gwent. His father's brother married his mother's sister so that their son Maglor was Samson's cousin twice over. Due to a prophecy concerning his birth his parents placed him under the care of Illtud, Abbot of Llantwit Fawr, where he was raised and educated.
Samson later sought a greater austerity than his school provided, and so moved to Llantwit's daughter house, the island monastery of Caldey off the coast of Dyfed (Pembrokeshire), Wales, where he became abbot after the death of Pyr. Samson abstained from alcohol – unlike Pyr, who was killed when he fell down a well while drunk. As a cenobitic and later an eremitic monk, he travelled from Caldey to Ireland, where he is said to have founded or revived a monastery.
There is one fairly certain date recorded of Samson's life; that he was ordained bishop by Bishop Dubricius on the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter (22 February) at the beginning of Lent, which can be calculated to have fallen in the year 521. If, as is usual, he was 35 years old at the time then he would have been born in 486.
The public source identifies “Samson of Dol” as welsh saint who settled down in Brittany (c. C.E.485 — c. 565). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Samson, Welsh and saint.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1269091. VIAF identifies the subject as 24236630. The Library of Congress control number is no99057346. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Samson of Dol” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.