In 1567, Nicholas Robinson, bishop of Bangor (1566–85), complained about the continuation of some Welsh cult centres, particularly in the more rural areas of Caernarvon, Anglesey, and Merionethshire, and the lack of learning among the Welsh priesthood:
But touching the Welsh peoples receiving the Gospel I find by my small experience among them here, that ignorance continues many in the dregs of superstition, which did grow chiefly on the blindness of the clergy joined with the greediness of getting in so bare a country, and also upon the closing up of God’s word from them in an unknown tongue …Upon this inability to teach God’s word (for there are not six yet can preach in these three shires) I have found since I came to this country images and altars standing in churches undefaced, lewd and indecent vigils and watches observed, much pilgrimage going, many candles set up to the honour of saints, some reliquaries yet carried about, and all the countries full of beads and knots, besides diverse other monuments of wilful serving God.1
Though critical, Bishop Robinson’s letter was in fact testimony to the vitality of the medieval pilgrimage tradition and its legacy in sixteenth-century Wales, and the range and number of small shrines that were resorted to by those in need. The sites he referred to had, in many cases, been the focus of veneration since the fifth or sixth centuries, when the so-called Age of the Saints produced so many of the native saints around whom the most important cults and pilgrimage centres were focussed. Many of the sites founded by the early saints, such as St Davids, Llantwit Major, or Llandaff, were developed over the following centuries into pilgrimage centres, as well as sites of political and ecclesiastical power.2 Other locations famed as places where these early native saints were venerated took longer to develop, evidence of a cult with associated pilgrimage activity developing only in the twelfth or thirteenth century. St Winifred, for example, whose holy well at Holywell in North Wales was resorted to by pilgrims throughout the middle ages, only established itself as a major pilgrimage site in the period covered by this study, c.1100–1500, although pilgrims had visited there for some time.
At the same time as the native saints were establishing religious settlements, enduring martyrdom, or demonstrating their sanctity through preaching and miracles in Wales, people from Wales were also embarking on overseas pilgrimages to Rome. A man named Guidnerth, for example, went on pilgrimage after killing his brother, Cyngen king of Powys went to Rome in 856, and Hywel ap Rhys of Morgannwg visited thirty years later in 886.3 Hywel Dda (c.880–950), king of a newly formed Deheubarth, also went on pilgrimage to Rome in c.929.4 The difficulty of travelling to Rome might account for the sparse record, though it is worth noting that this could also be a reflection of the comparatively limited number of sources from this early period, or the fact that visits to Rome were only recorded if they were extraordinary in some way. The journeys of Cyngen and Hywel, for example, were worth remembering not because they went to Rome, but because that is where they were when they died. Of overseas pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Santiago there is no early record, though hagiographical works written after the late eleventh century sought to remedy this by creating an early tradition of visiting Jerusalem among the Welsh saints. SS David, Teilo, and Padarn all reputedly went to Jerusalem and Rome, though these journeys were probably fabrications in order to lend them (and their associated ecclesiastical jurisdictions) authority in a period when religious sites in Wales were in competition over lands, rights, and privileges.5
Despite these probable fabrications, there is plenty of sound evidence that the Welsh went on pilgrimage within Wales, to England, and to the major continental sites like Rome, throughout the middle ages, and that there was interest in the cultivation of pilgrimage sites in Wales itself. Following the development of major Welsh shrines in the early twelfth century, the development of Welsh pilgrimage led to the creation of further pilgrim destinations, either focussing on graves, secondary relics or, in the later middle ages, on images—statues of the Virgin, living images of Christ, or miraculous roods. Enthusiasm for such pilgrimage endured throughout the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the period from which some of the richest evidence for material comes, testament to the vitality of Welsh pilgrimage throughout the middle ages and, no doubt, to the veracity of the complaint made by the bishop of Bangor some decades after such pilgrimages were supposed to have come to an end.
Historiography
The first study wholly devoted to medieval Welsh pilgrimage was the Rev. G. Hartwell-Jones’ Celtic Britain and the Pilgrimage Movement (1912), a hefty volume in which he sought to highlight “the special parts played in the pilgrim movement by…the Welsh.”6 Looking at all “Celtic” peoples, but in reality focusing really on the Welsh, Hartwell-Jones’ study made many of the poems relating to Welsh pilgrimage accessible in print, and gave considerable context on the reasons for pilgrimage as a whole.7 His book followed the flourishing of interest in the same subject in England, which had really begun with the works of Jusserand on English Wayfaring Life (1891), Hall on English Medieval Pilgrimage (1905), and the lighter-toned Pilgrim Life in the Middle Ages (1911) by the illustrator Sidney Heath.8 Hartwell-Jones’ work remained the standard reference on the subject and shaped the modern field of pilgrimage studies in Wales. It covered domestic pilgrimage, overseas travel to Rome, Jerusalem, and Santiago, and the motives for pilgrimage and the crusades, amongst other things. It is not without issue, as the scholarship is now outdated, and at times the text presents information without supporting evidence.9 Even with these issues, Hartwell-Jones’ work is the first port of call for reference. Nona Rees and Terry John’s Pilgrimage: A Welsh Perspective (2002) has been the only real attempt to provide a new narrative of Welsh pilgrimage. It is an interesting work but not overly rigorous, often relying on modern work as evidence for medieval actions, and, as with the work published ninety years earlier, fails to engage with modern debates about pilgrims and pilgrimage.
Discussion of pilgrimage was developed in the works of Glanmor Williams (1920–2005), whose The Welsh Church from the Conquest to the Reformation (1962) made the first attempt to discuss pilgrimage in the context of both the Church and lay piety in medieval Wales.10 He returned to discussion of lay piety and pilgrimage in subsequent studies, but monumental though his contribution to the field was, it was heavily influenced by both his 1950s education and his life-long devotion to the Baptist faith. His general tone was critical of medieval faith, and he viewed Welsh devotion in the pre-Reformation period as superficial and perfunctory. Lay Welsh religiosity was, he argued, a combination of “sincere devotion and blatant superstition, of…gross credulity.”11 The Welsh blindly believed what they were told without really understanding their faith, continuing their devotions out of habit or tradition.12
Lacking a major modern study of Welsh pilgrimage, the field has instead largely been advanced through articles which focus on individual aspects of pilgrimage. A site of scholarly interest since the eve of the early twentieth century, the shrine to the Virgin Mary in the Rhondda, for example, has been the focus of study by Christine James (1995) and, at greater length, by Madelaine Grey (1996, 2011), who has analysed the site in relation to the natural world, amongst other things.13 St Winifred’s Well in North Wales also has its own substantial historiography covering the well-building, St Winifred’s relics, her vita and miracles and, together with St Davids, is one of the few pilgrimage site in Wales to really find its way into English historiography on pilgrimage and pilgrimage shrines.14 Unsurprisingly as the premier pilgrimage site in Wales, pilgrimage to St Davids and the cult of the saint is the most heavily studied topic in medieval Welsh pilgrimage, scholarship relating to which culminated in the 2007 edited collection on St David of Wales: Cult, Church and Nation, a work that included contributions on the spread of David’s cult, his Vita and Life, and his relics.15 This work was complemented by the publication in the same year of Michael J. Curley’s study on the miracles of St David.16 Not every pilgrimage site is so well-studied: Bardsey Island, arguably second only to St Davids in terms of spiritual importance, had to wait until 1996 to receive comprehensive treatment in a Welsh-language collection covering the island up to the modern era.17 Pilgrimage to other sites in Wales, such as Pennant Melangell, or the Welsh monasteries, has also been the focus of a number of studies, as have holy wells (first studied at length in 1954 by Francis Jones in his classic book), and pilgrimage routes.18 Overseas pilgrimage has also been a popular avenue of research since Hartwell-Jones’ time, for the most part in wider works on religion or poetry, though Katharine Olson’s 2007 article on Welsh pilgrims to Rome offered detailed analysis of when and why the city was so popular among the Welsh.19
Closely allied to studies of pilgrimage in the information they study, though not the primary focus of this present work, are studies of the Welsh sa...