Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/643

 WELSH

583

WELSH

whose connexion with Edessa is well known, was buried "in Britio Edessenorum ", while it is quite conceivable that the word Britio, if it occurred, may have been mistakenly emended into Britannio and thus have given us a Lucius, King of Britain (see Harnack in the "Sitzungsberichte" of the Berlin Academy, XXVI and XXVII, 1904). This conjec- ture is by no means certain, but the difficulties against accepting the story of the letter of the supposed Lucius are considerable. Gildas and Aldhelm, who might be expected to refer to the tradition, are both silent, and, although they are equally silent about the mission of St. Germanus, the first introduction of Christianity is a matter of more fundamental interest. The Lucius story is found in Xennius, and Zimmer on that account believes it to have arisen in Britain, but Nennius is a writer of the ninth century and he calls the pope "Eucharistus". Again the name Lucius is not Celtic, a difficulty which Nennius seems to have felt, and he has accordingly celticized the name into "Llever Maur, id est, Magni Splendoris", the great light. The impression thus given, that we must be assisting at the evolution of a myth, is much increased by the later developments. William of Malmesbury makes Eleutherus's missionaries, named Phaganus and Deruvianus, found a Church at Glastonbury Rudbome makes Lucius endow the bishops and monks of \A"inchester with various lands, while the Triads connect the story directly with Llandaff, where "Lle- irwg made the church which was the first in the isle of Britain". Further, somewhere in the eleventh century, as Liebermann has shown, a forger who had distinguished himself in other fields fabricated a letter which is supposed to have been sent by Pope Eleu- therus to the British king.

On the other hand, in contrast to this legendary matter, we have the generally accepted fact of the visit twice paid to Britain by St. Germanus of Aux- erre, in 429 and 447, with the purpose of confuting tlie Pelagians, an object which seems to take for granted a Christianity already widely spread. The Life of St. Germanus by Constantius has been interpolated (cf. Lewison in "Xeues Archiv", XIX), but much of this account belongs to the primitive redaction and is confirmed by Prosper of Aquitaine. Even the story of the "Alleluia Victory" and of the observance of Lent may be true in substance, and the whole evi- dence sets before us a state of things in which Chris- tianity was the prevailing and accepted religion. With this agrees all that we know of the heretic Pela- gius and of his teaching. He was undoubtedly a monk and it is difficult to beUeve that he could have adopted the monastic profession anywhere but in the land of his birth. Zimmer has maintained that Pelagius was an Irishman and that his heresy found acceptance in Ireland rather than in Britain. But Zimmer's \'iews have been severely criticized (cf. Williams in "Cehische Zeitschrift",IV, 1903,.527 sq.), and are not commonly admitted. Professor Williams, indeed, as against Conybeare (Cymmrodorion Trans- actions, 1897-98, 84-^117), casts doubt upon the generally heretical character sometimes attributed to British Christianity, and certainly the tone of the ^Tilings of Fastidius, described as a "Bishop of the Britons" (c. 420), is such as seems reconcilable with orthodox interpretation.

The Period of the S.ocon Conquest (a. d.4.50- 681). — The WTitings of Gildas, usually assigned to the year .547, throw a fitful and somewhat lurid light upon British Christianity during the earlier part of this period. No doubt something of the gloom of this jeremiad may be due to the idiosj-ncrasies of the writer. He seems to have belonged entirely by sym- pathy to the class which, after the departure of the legions, still preserved something of Roman culture. Also if is likely enough that the instability of all institutions, the stress and sufferings of a people con-

tinually harried and overmatched by invaders who were relatively barbarian, did produce an age of great moral degeneracy. Thus the vituperation with which Gildas lashes the vices of the Welsh princes and denounces the clergj' has very probabl}' serious foun- dation. But just as the tide of Saxon conquest was more than once checked, as for example by the British victory at the Mons Badonicus in .520, so there is reason to believe that there was a brighter side to the picture of evil and disaster which Gildas paints with a zest which was more a matter of temperament than conviction. The succession of bishops was evidently kept up, as we learn subsequently from the history of St. Augustine. Monastic fife at the same epoch would seem to have flourished exceedingly. From the fact that Pelagius, as already noticed, was a monk and that St. Germanus is said to have founded a monastery, it seems probable that some kind of cen- obitical life had begun in Britain before the end of the fifth century. Possibly this departure was due to a disciple of St. Martin of Tours who settled in Britain, but more probably the British pilgrims, who, as we learn from St. Jerome, made their way to the East to visit the Holy Land, brought back glowing accounts of what they had witnes.sed around Jerusalem or in the Egyptian deserts. The strongly Oriental char- acteristics of the Celtic Rite as a whole are in all probability due to a similar cause. In any case, both such direct testimony as we possess and the parallel case of Ireland point to the practice of asceticism on a vast scale, and it is possible that the very calamities and evils of the times led the more religiously minded of the Britons to take refuge in the monasteries. It is alleged that St. Germanus himself bestowed the priesthood on St. Illtyd, who became the spiritual father of many monks, and who foumled the mon- astery of Llantwit, where saints like St. Samson of Dol and St. Pol de L(5on (who both ultimately settled in Brittany) as well as many other teachers of note were afterwards trained. But the whole pro\ince of Welsh hagiography is overgrown with legenfl and with wildly inconsistent conjectures and identifications to an incredible extent. Beyond the names of a few leaders and founders, like Dubritius, beheved to have been the first Bishop of Llandaff, David, Bishop of Menevia and patron of Wales, Kentigern, whose chief work was accomplished on the banks of the Clyde, Asaph, who replaced him as bishop of the see which now bears his name, Winefride the martyr and her uncle Beuno, etc., we know nothing practically certain of the age of saints. We are not even sure of the date at which they hved. The object aimed at b)' the supposed Synods of Llandewi-Brefi (.519 ) and of Lucus Vic- toria; (.569 ), both said to have been convened to

suppress Pelagianism, is equally matter of conjecture. Regarding the spread of monasticism, such a state- ment asthat of the lolo MSS., that at Llantwit "Illtyd founded seven churches, appointed seven companies for each church, and seven halls or colleges for each company and .seven 'saints' in each hall or college", does not inspire confidence. Yet we learn from the much safer authority of Bede (Hist.Eccl., II, ii) that at Bangor-is-Coed in a. d. (513 the monastery was divided into seven parts with a superior over each, none of which divisions contained fewer than 300 men. Bede further tells us that when the Northumbrian King Ethelfrith advanced to attack the Brilons near Chester these monks of Bangor came out to pray for the success of the arms of their countrj'men. When the Welshmen were defeated, the monks, twelve hundred in nimiber, were put to the sword. Bede looked upon the incident as a visitation of Providence to puni.sii the Britons for rejecting the overtures of St. .\ugustine, but by the Irish chronicler Tigernarh the incident was remembered as "the battle m which the .saints were m.i.s.-^acred". I'ndoubtedly the most certain facts in Welsh history at this period are those