Melor (also known in Latin as Melorius; in Cornish as Mylor; in French as Méloir; and other variations) was a 10th-century Breton saint who, in England, was venerated in Cornwall and at Amesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, which claimed some of his relics.
[1] There were probably two or three Breton saints named Melor who were conflated, and a handful of late medieval hagiographies record legends relating to him.
[4] The cult of St Melor in Brittany grew to considerable importance and there are a number of place names and dedications to him.
[5] Amesbury was to become among the most famous of English medieval monasteries but, despite the nuns producing their own version of Mellor's 'vita', William of Malmesbury could not discover any information about its patron.
In the publication "Notes on the Parish of Mylor" (1907) is the following reference to the saint: "This St Melior or Melioris is reputed to have been the son of Melianus, Duke of Cornwall, and is said to have been slain for embracing Christianity, August 28, A. D. 411, by his pagan brother-in-law Rinaldus, or Remigius, who first cut off Milor’s right hand, then his left leg, and finally his head".
But the book later quotes another source (the Somersetshire Archaeological Society, 1898) thus: "If we may credit the Legenda Sanctorum compiled by Bishop Grandisson, Meliorus was the son of Melainus, King of Cornwall, by his wife Aurella, a lady of Devon; that at seven years of age he lost his royal father; that his uncle Rivoldus by his father's side returning from abroad cruelly treated the youth and at length contrived his decapitation".