Abstract
The introduction explains the early, pre-c.1100 traditions of pilgrimage from Wales, and the foundation of many of the sites in Wales which developed into important pilgrimage centres during the period covered by the book. It explores the historiography of Welsh pilgrimage, starting with the works on pilgrimage produced at the turn of the twentieth century but also covering earlier studies on Welsh saints, and explains that the existing works are either outdated or narrow in focus, and most do not explore wider themes in pilgrimage historiography. It explains the source-base for Welsh pilgrimage and concludes by setting out the structure of the book.
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Notes
- 1.
Letter from the Bishop of Bangor to Sir William Cecil, 7 October 1567. Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Edward, Mary and Elizabeth, 1547–80, ed. Robert Lemon (London: Longman & Co., 1856), pp. 300–1.
- 2.
The establishment of St Davids as a monastic community is recounted in Rhygyfarch’s Life of the saint, written in the late 1090s. Richard Sharpe and John Reuban Davies, “Rhygyfarch’s Life of St David,” in St David of Wales: Cult, Church and Nation, ed. J. Wyn Evans and Jonathan M. Wooding (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), pp. 118–21.
- 3.
T. M. Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 350–1064 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 258; Brut y Tywysogyon: The Chronicle of the Princes, Red Book of Hergest Version, trans. Thomas Jones (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1973), p. 9; Brut y Tywysogyon: The Chronicle of the Princes, Peniarth MS. 20 Version, trans. Thomas Jones (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1952), pp. 4–5; Brenhinedd y Saesson, or the Kings of the Saxons, BM Cotton MS Cleopatra Bv and The Black Book of Basingwerk NLW Ms 7006, ed. Thomas Jones (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1971), p. 19; Annales Cambriae, ed. John Williams ab Ithel (London: Longman, 1860), pp. 4–5.
- 4.
Brut y Tywysogyon…Red Book of Hergest, p. 13.
- 5.
See, for example, Richard Sharpe and John Reuban Davies, “Rhygyfarch’s Life of St David,” in St David of Wales, p. 141; Hen Gerddi Crefyddol, ed. Henry Lewis (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1931), pp. 43–52, lines 182–3.
- 6.
CBPM, p. xi.
- 7.
See the review of Hartwell-Jones’ work in English Historical Review 2 (1913): 947–50.
- 8.
J. J. Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, trans. Lucy Toulmin Smith (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1891); Diana Webb, Pilgrimage in Medieval England (London: Hambledon, 2000); Colin Morris and Peter Roberts, ed., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Sidney Heath, Pilgrim Life in the Middle Ages (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1911).
- 9.
CBPM; Hartwell-Jones’ discussion of the crusades has been superseded by Kathryn Hurlock, Wales and the Crusades, 1095–1291 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2011).
- 10.
Glanmor Williams, The Welsh Church from Conquest to Reformation (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1962), pp. 488–503.
- 11.
Ibid., p. 462. For pilgrimage in his other works, see Glanmor Williams, Renewal and Reformation: Wales c.1415–1642 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 123–8.
- 12.
Williams, The Welsh Church, p. 558. For Glanmor Williams’ attitudes to late medieval religion, see Katharine K. Olson and Huw Pryce, “The Reluctant Medievalist?” in Degrees of Influence: A Memorial Volume for Glanmor Williams, ed. Geraint H. Jenkins and Gareth Elwyn Jones (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2008), pp. 45–7.
- 13.
John Ward, “Our Lady of Penrhys,” AC 14 (1914): 357–406 was the first modern study of the shrine at Penrhys; for current scholarship on the site, see Madeleine Gray, “‘Gwyrth yn y coed gynt’: A Rediscovered Miracle Collection from the Shrine of the Virgin Mary at Penrhys?” Studia Celtica 45 (2011): 105–9; Madeleine Gray, “Penrhys: The Archaeology of a Pilgrimage,” Morgannwg 40 (1996): 10–32. The best modern discussion of the site is still Christine James, “Pen-rhys: Mecca’s Genedl,” in Cwm Rhondda, ed. Hywel Teifi Edwards (Llandysul: Gomer, 1995), pp. 27–71.
- 14.
David Thomas, “Saint Winifred’s Well and Chapel, Holywell,” Journal of the Historical Society of the Church in Wales VIII (1958): 15–31; M. J. C. Lowry, “Caxton, St Winifred and the Lady Margaret Beaufort,” The Library (1983): 101–17; Glanmor Williams, “St Winifred’s Well: Ffynnon Wenfrew,” The Journal of the Flintshire Historical Society 36 (2003): 32–51; Anne F. Sutton, “Caxton, the Cult of St Winifred, and Shrewsbury,” in The Fifteenth Century V. Of Mice and Men: Image Belief and Regulation in Late Medieval England, ed. Linda Clark (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 109–26.
- 15.
F. G. Cowley, “A Note on the Discovery of St. David’s Body,” BBCS 19 (1960): 47–8; St David of Wales: Cult, Church and Nation, ed. J. Wyn Evans and Jonathan Wooding (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007).
- 16.
Michael J. Curley, “The Miracles of Saint David,” Traditio 62 (2007): 135–205.
- 17.
Brynley F. Roberts, “Enlli’r Oesoedd Canol,” in Enlli, ed. R. Gerallt Jones and Christopher J. Arnold (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996), pp. 22–48
- 18.
C. A. Ralegh Radford, “Pennant Melangell; The Church and the Shrine,” AC 108 (1959): 81–113; in 1994, a volume of the Montgomeryshire Collections was dedicated to St Melangell and her shrine at Pennant Melangell, from which see in particular W. J. Britnell and K. Watson, “Saint Melangell’s Shrine, Pennant Melangell,” Montgomeryshire Collections 82 (1994): 147–66; Kathryn Hurlock, “Pilgrimage,” in Monastic Wales: New Approaches, ed. Janet Burton and Karen Stöber (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013), pp. 119–32; an attempt to trace alleged pilgrim routes to Strata Florida Abbey was made, with limited success, in S. M. Powell, “Pilgrim Routes to Strata Florida,” Transactions and Archaeological Record 8 (1931): 9–24; for a more detailed discussion of the route to St Winfred’s Well see Martin Locker, Landscapes of Pilgrimage in Medieval Britain (Oxford: Archaeopress Archaeology, 2015), chapter 5; Madeleine Gray has also retraced the pilgrim route in south Wales from Llantarnam Abbey to Penrhys in “Penrhys: The Archaeology of a Pilgrimage,” pp. 10–32; Francis Jones, The Holy Wells of Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1954) is a detailed but uneven study as Jones concentrated on south Wales, an area he knew and visited, neglecting to visit north Wales, thus omitting some information relating to wells there.
- 19.
For example, see Katharine Olson, “Ar ffordd Pedr a Phawl: Welsh Pilgrimage and Travel to Rome, c.1200–1530,” WHR 24 (2008): 1–40; see also D. Tecwyn Lloyd, “Welsh Pilgrims at Rome: 1471–1738,” Trivium vi (1978): 95–106.
- 20.
Rice Rees, An Essay on the Welsh Saints or the Primitive Christians Usually Considered to have been the Founders of Churches in Wales (London: Longman, 1836).
- 21.
S. Baring-Gould and J. Fisher, The Lives of the British Saints: The Saints of Wales and Cornwall and such Irish Saints as have Dedications in Britain, 4 vols. (London: The Honourable Society of the Cymmrodorion, 1907–13).
- 22.
Arthur Wade-Evans, Parochiale Wallicanum (Stow-on-the-Wold: J. H. Alden, 1911); Arthur Wade-Evans, Life of St David (London: S. P. C. K., 1923); Arthur Wade-Evans, Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae et Genealogiae (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1944); republished as Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae et Genealogiae: The Lives and Genealogies of the Welsh Saints, ed. A. W. Wade-Evans and Scott Lloyd (Cardiff: Welsh Academic Press, 2013).
- 23.
The Poets of the Princes Project: http://www.wales.ac.uk/en/CentreforAdvancedWelshCelticStudies/ResearchProjects/CompletedProjects/ThePoetsofthePrinces/IntroductiontotheProject.aspx (date accessed 01.08.17); The Poets of the Nobility Project: http://www.wales.ac.uk/en/CentreforAdvancedWelshCelticStudies/ResearchProjects/CompletedProjects/PoetsoftheNobility/IntroductiontotheProject.aspx (date accessed 01.08.17); Dafydd ap: Gwilym.net: http://www.dafyddapgwilym.net/ (date accessed 01.08.17); Guto’r: Glyn.net; http://www.gutorglyn.net/gutorglyn/index/# (date accessed 01.08.17).
- 24.
H. Elvet Lewis, “Welsh Catholic Poetry of the Fifteenth Century,” Transactions of the Honourable Society of the Cymmrodorion (1921–12): 23–41; Thomas Roberts, “Cywyddau pererindod,” Y Thraethodydd xcix 430 (1944): 28–39; Glanmor Williams, “Poets and Pilgrims in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Wales,” Transactions of the Honourable Society of the Cymmrodorion (1991): 69–98; E. I. Rowlands, “Religious Poetry in Late Medieval Wales,” BBCS XXX (1982): 1–19.
- 25.
Christine James, “‘Y Grog Ddoluriog Loywrym’: Golwg ar y Canu I Grog Llangynwyd,” Llen Cymru 29.1 (2006): 64–109; Brynach Parri, “Crog Aberhodni,” Brycheiniog 35 (2003): 19–36.
- 26.
MWP; see also his excellent Welsh Poetry and English Pilgrimage: Gruffudd ap Maredudd and the Rood of Chester (Aberystwyth: University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 2005).
- 27.
Williams, “Poets and Pilgrims in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Wales,” Transactions of the Honourable Society of the Cymmrodorion 92.90 (1991).
- 28.
The manuscript of the Red Book of Hergest can be viewed online at http://image.ox.ac.uk/show?collection=jesus&manuscript=ms111 (date accessed 01.08.17); The Hendregadredd Manuscript, see https://www.llgc.org.uk/en/discover/digital-gallery/manuscripts/the-middle-ages/hendregadredd-manuscript/ (date accessed 01.08.17). See also Daniel Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000), pp. 193–226.
- 29.
Many lives have already been published, but two new projects are publishing the whole corpus in modern editions. “The Cult of Saints in Wales” project is producing a digital edition of around 100 documents relating to the Welsh saints, thirty of which will be prose lives: http://www.welshsaints.ac.uk/ (date accessed 01.08.17). Some have already appeared in print: Jane Cartwright, Mary Magdalene & Her Sister Martha: An Edition And Translation The Medieval Welsh Lives (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2013); Buchedd Sant Martin, ed. Evan John Jones (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1945); a new edition of the Buchedd Sant Martin is bein produced by Jenny Day; the second project, “Vitae Sanctorum Cambriae,” will produce the Latin Lives of the Welsh saints.
- 30.
St David’s Life was treated on several occasions: Rhygyfarch of St Davids wrote a Latin Life at the end of the eleventh century, Gerald of Wales, based on Rhygyfarch’s Life, at the urging of his fellow canons in the late twelfth, and a Welsh translation was produced in the 1346 Book of the Anchorite of Llanddewibrefi. There is also a Lincoln manuscript of the Life of St David which has not been printed. Rhygyfarch’s Life of St David, ed. A. W. Wade-Evans (London: S.P.C.K., 1914); for a modern edition, see Sharpe Davies, “Rhygyfarch’s Life of St David,” in St David of Wales, pp. 107–55; D. Simon Evans, Buched Dewi (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1959); GC, Opera, iii, p. 377.
- 31.
“The Life of St Winifred: The Vita S. Wenefrede from BL Lansdowne MS 436,” ed. and trans. James Ryan Gregory, Medieval Feminist Forum, Subsidia Series 4 (2016): 16 http://ir.uiowa.edu/mff/vol5/iss3/ (date accessed 24.06.17).
- 32.
NLW MS 3026C, pp. 29–83 (with the Buchedd at pp. 37–62); digitised online at https://www.llgc.org.uk/en/discover/digital-gallery/manuscripts/the-middle-ages/a-gutun-owain-manuscript/ (date accessed 01.06.17).
- 33.
MS Penairth 5 (The White Book of Rhydderch, part 1), 2r‑4r. Henry Lewis and Pol Diverres, Delw y Byd (Imago Mundi) (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1928); Natalia Petrovskaia, “Delw y Byd: une traduction médiévale galloise,” Etudes Celtiques 39 (2013): 257–77.
- 34.
NLW Peniarth MS 15, pp. 155–22; Gwilym Lloyd Edwards, Ystorya Gwlat Ieuan Vendigeit (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999). Selections from the Hengwrt MSS. Preserved in the Peniarth Library, ed. and trans. Robert Williams with G. Hartwell-Jones, 2 vols. (London: Thomas Richards, 1892), ii, pp. 327–35.
- 35.
There are several surviving versions of the Charlemagne Cycle in Welsh. For published editions, see Stephen J. Williams, ed. Ystorya de Carolo Magno (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1968); Selections from the Hengwrt MSS, ii, pp. 1–118.
- 36.
For religion and materiality in Wales, see particularly Peter Lord, The Visual Culture of Wales: Medieval Vision (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), and Madelaine Gray, Images of Piety: The Iconography of Traditional Religion in Late Medieval Wales, Bar British Series 316 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2000).
- 37.
The number and variety of such sources can be seen in the bibliography.
- 38.
CBPM; Jones, The Holy Wells of Wales; Nona Rees and Terry John, Pilgrimage: A Welsh Perspective (Llandysul: Gomer Press, 2002).
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Hurlock, K. (2018). Introduction. In: Medieval Welsh Pilgrimage, c.1100–1500. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43099-1_1
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