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Celtic Hagiography and Saints' Cults is a collection of fifteen essays which emerged from a conference held at the University of Wales, Lampeter, in September 2000. As such it provides an academic perspective on its subject. However, this does not mean that it is only accessible to an academic audience: general readers will find the majority of essays in the collection both accessible and illuminating.
The collection considers the role of saints within Celtic regions and the ways in which the stories of their lives were created and maintained. There are essays on saints in Wales, Ireland, Brittany, Scotland and Cornwall, and although primarily focussing on the medieval period, material from the fourth to the twentieth centuries is also considered.
The articles are not confined to looking at written texts and the collection includes examinations of folk songs, architecture, stained glass and saints' wells. As the title suggests, many of the articles consider the written accounts of saints' lives (hagiography) and a number of them shed new light on how and why saints' lives were written. Alongside these are other articles examining more diverse topics, including the significance of pigs in Celtic hagiography, folk customs surrounding the celebration of saints' days, and the role of miracles.
Although the collection covers such a wide range of subjects, a significant theme running through the entire collection is the importance of Christian saints in the spiritual life of Celtic communities. Several of the articles highlight the importance of the figure of the saint in the struggle for regional independence, examining the political as well as religious function of the saint. This political role allowed communities to assert their special role and thus their independence in the face of more powerful groups, including church hierarchies.
Celtic Hagiography does not provide an account of the lives of the saints themselves, but does provide its readers with a fascinating insight into both the spiritual life of Celtic communities and current debates about the role of saints in the Celtic world.
Kate Wright
It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.
Gellir defnyddio’r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.
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Further Information:
Celtic Hagiography and Saints’ Cults
Jane Cartwright
pp xvi339 February 2003 216 x 138 mm Paperback £17.50 0-7083-1749-9
Hardback £40.00 0-7083-1750-2
Cymraeg
Celtic Hagiography and Saints’ Cults provides a detailed overview of saints’ cults in Wales, Ireland, Brittany, Scotland and Cornwall. It is a multidisciplinary collection that brings together recent research by leading scholars in the field in order to explore sanctity and the cult of saints in the Celtic-speaking regions. Among the topics discussed are the early sources for St Patrick, the development of the cult of St David, stones and shrines in Pictland, miracle stories and wonder-working in Irish tradition and the Middle Welsh Lives of Mary Magdalene and Martha. Although primarily concerned with early and medieval sources, attention is also paid to the continued importance of the cult of relics in post-Reformation Britain and the prominence of saintly figures in popular narrative and folklore in Brittany and Ireland.
Drawing on an extensive range of sources, from Latin vitae and vernacular poetry to holy wells and church dedications, Celtic Hagiography and Saints’ Cults sheds new light on the veneration of regional saints and highlights the importance of vernacular hagiography and the cults of universal saints in the Celtic regions.
Editor: Jane Cartwright is Lecturer in Welsh at the University of Wales, Lampeter. She is the author of Y Forwyn Fair, Santesau a Lleianod (1999) and has published widely on Celtic hagiography and medieval virginity literature.
Contributors and Contents:
Jane Cartwright, Introduction (University of Wales, Lampeter)
J. Wyn Evans, St David and St Davids: some observations on the cult,
site and buildings (Dean of St Davids Cathedral)
Elissa R. Henken, Welsh hagiography and the nationalist impulse (University of Georgia, USA)
Nerys Ann Jones (University of Edinburgh) and Morfydd E. Owen (University of Wales,
Aberystwyth), Twelfth-century Welsh hagiography: the Gogynfeirdd poems to saints
Jane Cartwright, The harlot and the hostess: a preliminary study of the Middle Welsh Lives of Mary Magdalene and her sister Martha (University of Wales, Lampeter)
John T. Koch, The early chronology for St Patrick (c.351-c.428): some
new ideas and possibilities (Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies,
University of Wales)
Thomas O’Loughlin, Reading Muirchú’s tara-event within its background as
a biblical ‘trial of divinities’ (University of Wales, Lampeter)
Dorothy Ann Bray, Miracles and wonders in the composition of the Lives
of early Irish saints (McGill University, Montreal, Canada)
T. M. Charles-Edwards, The Northern Lectionary: a source for the Codex
Salmanticensis? (Jesus College, Oxford)
Jonathan M. Wooding, Fasting, flesh and the body in the St Brendan dossier (University of Wales, Lampeter)
Bernard Merdrignac, The process and significance of Breton hagiography (University of Rennes II, Brittany)
Mary-Ann Constantine, Saints behaving badly: sanctity and transgression
in Breton popular culture (Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales)
Thomas Owen Clancy, Magpie hagiography in twelfth-century Scotland: the case of
Libellus de nativitate Sancti Cuthberti (University of Glasgow)
Penelope Dransart, Saints, stones and shrines: the cults of Sts Moluag and Gerardine in Pictland (University of Wales, Lampeter)
Joanna Mattingly, Pre-Reformation saints’ cults in Cornwall – with
particular reference to the St Neot windows (Fellow of the Royal Institution of
Cornwall)
Karen Jankulak, Alba Longa in the Celtic regions? Swine, saints and Celtic hagiography (University of Wales, Lampeter)
Y mae’r gyfrol Celtic Hagiography and Saints’ Cults yn cynnwys nifer o erthyglau manwl sy’n trafod gwahanol agweddau ar gyltiau seintiau Cymru, Iwerddon, Llydaw, yr Alban a Chernyw. Yn yr astudiaeth ryngddisgyblaethol hon cesglir ynghyd ymchwil ddiweddar gan rai o’r ysgolheigion mwyaf blaenllaw sy’n gweithio yn y maes ar hyn o bryd. Nod y llyfr yw edrych yn fanwl ar sancteiddrwydd a chyltiau’r seintiau yn yr ardaloedd Celtaidd. Ymhlith y pynciau a drafodir yn y gyfrol ceir y rhai canlynol: Padrig Sant a’r ffynonellau cynnar, datblygiad cwlt Dewi Sant, meini a chreirfeydd y Pictiaid, gwyrthiau rhyfeddol a’r traddodiad Gwyddelig a bucheddau Cymraeg Canol Mair Fadlen a Martha. Rhoddir y prif sylw i ffynonellau canoloesol, ond yn ogystal ystyrir pwysigrwydd creiriau a ffynhonnau ym Mhrydain yn y cyfnod ar ôl y Diwygiad Protestannaidd ac edrychir ar boblogrwydd y seintiau yn chwedlau llên gwerin a chaneuon Llydaw ac Iwerddon.
Ystyrir ystod eang o ffynonellau, er enghraifft, bucheddau Lladin, barddoniaeth frodorol, tystiolaeth weledol a chysegriadau eglwysi, a theflir goleuni newydd ar gyltiau rhai o’r seintiau lleol, llai adnabyddus, yn ogystal â phrif seintiau y gwledydd Celtaidd. Dadansoddir defosiwn y Cymry a thrigolion Cernyw i nifer o’r seintiau estron a oedd yn boblogaidd yn rhyngwladol a phwysleisir pwysigrwydd a pherthnasedd eu bucheddau a addaswyd i’r ieithoedd Celtaidd.
Golygydd: Darlithydd yn Adran y Gymraeg, Prifysgol Cymru, Llanbedr Pont Steffan yw Jane Cartwright. Ymddangosodd ei chyfrol Y Forwyn Fair, Santesau a Lleianod (Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru) yn 1999 ac y mae wedi cyhoeddi nifer o erthyglau ar sancteiddrwydd benywaidd, hanes y lleiandai a gwyryfdod yn yr Oesoedd Canol.
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