Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/496

 HOLYWELL

438

HOLYWELL

before midnight. To this day the brevity of both the Easter Mass and the Easter Matins preserves a memo- rial of the fatigue of that night watcii which terminated the austerities of Lent. Again the con.seeration of tlic new fire with a view to the lighting of the lamps, the benediction of the paschal candle (q. v.), with its suggestions of night tm'ned into day and its reminder of the glories of that vigil which we know to have been already celebrated in the time of Constantine, not to dwell upon the explicit references to "this most holy night" contained in the prayers and the Preface of the Mass, all bring home the incongruity of carrying out the service in the morning, tweh'e hours before the Easter " vigil" can strictly speaking be said to have begun. The obtaining and blessing of the new fire is probably a rite of Celtic or even pagan origin, incor- porated in the Gallican Church service of the eighth century. The magnificent " Pra'conium Paschale", known from its first word as " the Exsultet", was originally, no doubt, an improvisation of the deacon which can be traced back to the time of St. Jerome or earlier. The Prophecies, the Blessing of the Font, and the Litanies of the Saints are all to be referred to what was originally a very essential feature of the Easter vigil, viz., the baptism of the catechumens, whose preparation had been carried on during Lent, emphasized at frequent intervals by the formal " scru- times", of which not a few traces are still preserved in om- Lenten liturgy. Finally, the Mass, with its joyous Gloria, at which the bells are again rung, the uncovering of the veiled statues and pictures, the triumphant Alleluias, which mark nearly every step of the liturgy, proclaim the Resurrection as an accom- plished fact, while the \'esper Office, incorporated in the very fabric of the Mass, reminds us once more that the evening was formerly so filled that no separate hour was available to complete on that day the usual tribute of psalmody. Strictly speaking, Holy Satur- day, like Good Friday, is "aliturgical", as belonging to the days when the Bridegroom was taken from us. Of this a memorial still remains in the fact that, apart from the one much anticipated Mass, the clergy on that day are not free either to celebrate or to receive Holy Communion.

PuNKES in Kirchenlexikon, g. v. Charwoche; Cabrol, Le Litre de la Fri.re Antique (Paris, 1900), 252-57; Thcrsto.v. Lent and Holy Week (London, 1904): Martene, De Anliquis Ecclesiw Rilibuii,lll;KvTSCUKER, Die heiligenGebr(iiu:he (I8i2); Duchesne. Christian Worship (tr., Ix)ndon, 1906); Cantel- LlERi, Settimana Santa (Rome, ISOS); Kellner, Heortoloijt/ (tr., London, 1908); Venables on Hola Week and other arti- cles in Dirt, of Christ, Antin. The .articles on various points of detail, such as, e. g., that of Canon Callewaert on Palm Sun- day in the CoUaiiones Brugense^ (1906) or that of Edmund Bishop in the Proceedings of the Society of St. Osmund, are too numerous to specify here.

Herbert Thurston.

Holywell, a town in North Wales, situated on the declivity of a hill overlooking a picturesque valley, through which flows a Ijroad st^ream, the effluent from St. Winefride's Well, joining the River Dee at a dis- tance of two miles from the town. It was once a flourishing place because of the lead and copper mines in its vicinity, but with the decay of the niinmg indus- try its commercial glory has fled, and at present the only attraction to visitors is St. Winefride's miracu- lous well.

L The Miraculous Well. — For more than a thou- sand years this well has attracted numerous pilgrims. Two documents of the twelfth century, preserved in the British Museum, and printed by the Bolland- ists, give us its history, with the earliest record of the miraculous cures eftected by its waters. These ancient cures included ca.ses of dropsy, paraly- ses, gout, melancholia, sciatica, cancer, alienation of mind, blood spitting, obstinate cough, chronic pain and fluxion of the bowels, also deliverance from evil spirits. The concourse of pilgrims to the well con- tinued in the sixteenth century during the days of

persecution, and Dr. Thomas Goldwell, Bishop of St. A.saph, who went into exile at the accession of Eliza- beth, olitained from the sovereign pontiff the con- firmation of certain indulgenoes grante<l by Martin V (1417-31) to pilgrims who visited the well. In the seventeenth century, in spite of the severe penal laws, pilgrims still resorted to the well, and the record has been kept of many remarkable cures, one being that of Venerable Father Oldcorne, S.J., the martjT, who was healed miraculously of a gangrene that had formed in the roof of his mouth.

II. On'tjin and Ilidorii of the Well. — The stream is said to have burst from the ground more than 1200 years ago on the spot where St. Winefride (Ciwen- frewi) was slain by Caradoc, son of an Armorican prince, about the year 634 (see Winefridk, St.), and has flowed unceasingly ever since. The place where it rises was pre\iously known as Sechnant or the "Dry Valley"; but the name was changed to Ffynnon Gwenfrewi (Winefride's Well), and later to Trefynnon (Holywell), the appellation which it re- tains to the present day. In 1093 the churcli at Holy- well and the sacred fountain were given by Adeliza, Countess of Chester, to the monastery of St. Werburgh in that city. In 1115 Richard, Earl of Chester, her son, went on a pilgrimage to St. Winefride's Well. In 1240 David, son of Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, granted the church and well with extensive possessions to the monks of Basingwerk Abbey, who held them until 15.37, the year of the dissolution. King Richard III ordered the sum of ten marks to be paid annually from the treasury for the support of the chapel of St. Wine- fride, and the stipend of the priest, and a few years later, probably before 1495, the beautiful buildings now surrounding the Well were erected.

III. Description of the Well. — The buildings referred to are in the perpendicular style, and were erected over the spring partly through the munificence of Margaret, Coimtess of Richmond and Derby, the mother of King Henry VII ; but the armorial bearings introduced into the sculpture show that several noble WeLsh families, including those of Stanley, Pennant, and Lewis, had a share in the work. Though time has dealt somewhat harshly with the stonework, sufficient remains to show that it was originally a most beautiful structure, abounding in delicate tracery and other carved work. The spring forms a basin enclosed by an octagonal parapet, from which rise eight delicately chiselled columns; these meet overhead in a beautiful traceried canopy, forming a crj^it or vault. Above this stands what was once the chapel or oratorj' of St. Winefride, where pilgrims were wont to spend the night in vigil before bathing. Unfortunately it is now m Protests ant hands, and usetl for the Welsh .services of the par- ish church; but the AVell itself, the property of the corporation of Holj-well, has for a considerable time been held at an annual rent by the Jesuit Fathers of the Mission.

The water of the spring is of a pale bluish colour, and so clear that at the bottom of the basin, seven feet below the surface, even a pin may be seen. The stones at the bottom, as well as portions of the ma- sonry, are marked with deep crimson or purple stains, which Catholic tradition loves to regard as the blood of the martjT, but which naturalists account for as a peculiar kind of moss, Jnnger mannia asplenioides. The spring sends forth eighty-one tons of water per minute, the water being very cold, never rising above 50° Fahrenheit in any weather, and never freezing. Chemical analysis has never detected any mineral or medicinal properties peculiar to it, that would account for the extraordinarj- cures, which are often instanta- neous. The overflow from the octagonal basin pa.sses into a long narrow piscina, which is entered by steps at either end. Tho.se seeking a cure pa.ss through this piscina, reverently kneeling in the cold water and kissing an ancient cross carved in the stonework. The