2. THE CELTIC CHURCH
From the fourth to the eighth centuries there was a close connection between Christian societies in Britain and Ireland, and they resisted for generations the authority of the Pope of Rome. They had already adopted some characteristics: monasticism, centred in a monastery under an abbot, who was allowed to marry and to transfer the monastery to his son; a tendency towards Pelagianism (it seems that Pelagius was a Briton; it was in order to counteract his influence that German, the Bishop of Auxerre, was sent to Britain in 429, a century and a half before Augustine); a strong missionary incentive; an emphasis on scholarship; a different tonsure from that of Roman monks; and a different way of setting the date of Easter.
However, the Celtic church was never systematized, and during the seventh and eighth centuries it gradually gave in to Rome – southern Ireland was the first, about 632, and north Wales was the last, under Elfodd, Bishop of Bangor, about 777. Nevertheless, many Welsh monasteries refused to give up their old traditions : Giraldus Cambrensis (‘Gerald of Wales’), in the thirteenth century, refers to married priests.
Part of Offa's Dyke, still walked along today
During this period, as the influence of the Anglo-Saxon invaders increased, the indigenous Welsh speakers were pushed into the north and west of Britain. The name Cymru (Wales), like the name Cumbria in north-west England, comes from the Brythonic com-broges, which means ‘people who share the same area’. It was a considerable blow to the Welsh people of Wales to be separated from their fellow-Welshmen in Cumbria following the battle of Chester in 615, when Aethelfrith, the king of Northumbria, conquered Selyf ap Cynan Garwyn, the king of Powys. By the following century, Offa, the king of Mercia, had built his famous dyke to denote the boundary between Wales and his territory. Henceforth, Wales would be the homeland of the descendants of the ancient Britons, and their language would be Welsh.
The earliest fragment of written Welsh is preserved in the Book of St. Chad, a manuscript of the Gospels in Latin. The manuscript is now kept at Lichfield Cathedral, but the references in its marginalia to Saint Teilo and to place-names in Carmarthenshire show that it belonged originally to the church of Llandeilo Fawr. The fragment dates from the eighth century, and records a legal transaction.
The Juvencus Manuscript, which is kept in the Library of the University of Cambridge, dates from the ninth century, and includes two series of Welsh englynion, one of which is a religious poem demanding respect for the Trinity. ‘Ni guor gnim molim trintaut’ (‘It is not too great a task to praise the Trinity’), says the poet, and ‘nitguorgnim molim map meir’ (‘It is not too great a task to praise the son of Mary’). This is the earliest religious poem in the Welsh language, and although the manuscript in which it is preserved dates from the ninth century, the poem itself may be considerably older than that.
Hywel Dda Memorial Garden, Whitland
When Hywel the Good, the king of Dyfed, who succeeded before his death in 950 in bringing most of Wales under his authority, systematised the laws of Wales, Christian priests were accorded special rights and privileges in the king’s court. The Laws of Hywel, however, unlike the earliest law books of the kings of England, do not contain a special section laying down the rights of the Church. The reason for this is that the Church was a new element in English society, and its rights needed to be defined, whereas in Wales the Church had existed from time immemorial, and its rights were taken for granted.
Further research and discussion
- Look at a map of the north of England and the south of Scotland. Can you find place-names that include Welsh elements?
- What do you know about the Pelagian heresy?