Churches and wells were used by the general population for worship. Priories and abbeys–monasteries in other words–in early Christianity served the same purpose they did in the later middle ages, in that they were places where actual monks and nuns lived. However, these monasteries were often founded by the same saints as the churches and wells. If you recall from the video about St. Cybi two weeks ago, he is credited with the creation of a healing well on the Llyn Penninsula, but he established a monastery at Holyhead on Anglesey. The same was true of St. Seiriol, who had a well at Penmon but also established a monastery there and on Puffin island. Also working in the same time period on Anglesey alone were St. Meched and St. Caffo, both of whom founded monasteries of their own. In this Read more…

Healing wells are part of an ancient tradition dating back possibly thousands of years. Water itself, is, of course, the stuff of life, and the idea that a spring or well would have the power to heal is an ancient one. Holy wells and healing waters played an important part in worship before the advent of Christianity. In a previous video, I talked about the healing spring at Glanum, that was dedicated initially to native Celtic gods, and then went on to become sacred to Roman gods as well. A similar situation occurred, as I also talked about, in Bath, where the holy pool was dedicated to the Celtic goddess Sul, and then to Minerva. Neither of these sacred spots continued to be sacred to the inhabitants after the Roman period. In Wales, however, healing wells were just getting started. Read more…

The Welsh prefix llan has evolved in its meaning over time, first indicating a burial enclosure, then a cemetery with a church, then the church itself, and now it refers to ‘the parish settlement around a church’. Regardless, in Wales, a placename that contains llan implies a continuous Christian locality going back centuries if not millennia. Thus, with a name like Llanrhychwyn you have ‘llan’ as the prefix and then Rhychwyn, which, as is the case with many, many churches in Wales, is the name of the saint who founded it. Read more…

Question: You have a couple of novel series set in this time period, right? One is about King Arthur who’s Christian, and one has a lot of Welsh mythology. So were they Christian or pagan at this time? They were a little bit of both, actually. While many fictional accounts (though not mine) set in this time period focus on the conflict between pagan religions and Christianity, that seems to be a product of the creative mind, rather than an accurate analysis of religion in Britain in the post-Roman era. For there to be conflict there must be a power relationship as well as a degree of hierarchy and organization, and for both the pagans and the Christians in Wales after the Romans left, there were neither. As I talked about a few weeks ago, when the Romans conquered Wales Read more…

Last week, I mentioned that the Roman religion that developed in Britain was different from what was practiced in Rome itself. This was true of the Britons, but it was also true in regard to the beliefs of the legionaries who served in Britain, mainly through their worship of the god, Mithras. Mithras, who was a god of friendship, contract, and order, started out as an Indo-Iranian deity, and once Rome conquered Iran, spread very quickly throughout the Roman Empire. Mithraism is described by scholars as a ‘mystery’ cult because worship of Mithras was secretive and involved seven degrees of initiation, each of which required the initiate to perform a task. The cult was so secretive, in fact, that few written records of the Mithras cult have survived, and virtually everything we know about it comes from carvings and statues. Read more…