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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
THE cult of St Eiluned is much more fully documented than the Saint herself, being described in two sources, of the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. These must therefore be the starting-point for an investigation both into the Saint’s historicity, which is at best dubious, and into the significance of the cult, which throws light on religious practices over a very lengthy period. Aspects of these practices, and comparisons with other cults elsewhere, may well point to an early origin for this one.
I am grateful to my colleague Dr S. R. Airlie for reading an earlier draft of this paper and for making various suggestions to improve it.
1 Aberhonddu or Brecon.
2 Cambrensis, Giraldus, Opera, ed. Dimock, J. F., RS (London, 1868), 6, pp. 31–3.Google Scholar
3 Wood, I. N., ‘Early Merovingian devotion in town and country’, in Baker, D., ed., The Church in Town and Countryside, SCH, 16 (1979), pp. 62–3.Google Scholar
4 Recte, 36 miles.
5 Worcestre, William, Itineraries, ed. Harvey, J. H. (Oxford, 1969), pp. 154–5 Google Scholar. I have made one or two slight modifications to Harvey’s translation. Worcestre also refers, pp. 62–3, to the twenty-four children of Brychan. Eiluned is here called ‘Adwenhelye’.
6 London, BL, MS Harley 4181, fol. 70r.
7 Ibid., fol. 76r.
8 Ibid., fols 76r—v. The account was printed, with some modifications to avoid offending the susceptibilities of the readers—for example, the transcript omits the fact that in one village the Saint was suspected of being a harlot—by G. E. F. Morgan, ‘Forgotten sanctuaries’, Archaeologia Cambrensis, ser. 6, 3 (1903), pp. 215–18.
9 BL, MS Harley 4181, fol. 77r.
10 Both were edited by A. W. Wade-Evans, Vitae sanctorum Britanniae et genealogias — Board of Celtic Studies, University of Wales, History and Law Series, 9 (Cardiff, 1944). The same author studied the texts in ‘The Brychan documents’, Y Cymmrodor, 19 (1906), pp. 18–50. The only reference to the Saint in the Bollandist Acta sanctorum augusti, 1 (Paris and Rome, 1867), derives from Gerald.
11 Hughes, K., ‘British Museum MS. Cotton Vespasian A. XIV (‘Vitae Sanctorum Wallensium’): its purpose and provenance’, in Chadwick, N. K. et al., Studies in the Early British Church (Cambridge, 1958), p. 197 Google Scholar. There was a slightly earlier parallel interest in early saints in Brittany in the eleventh century. Smith, Julia M. H., ‘Oral and written: saints, miracles and relics in Brittany, c. 850–1250’, Speculum, 65 (1990), p. 313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Phillimore, E. G. B., ‘A fragment from Hengwrt MS. 202’, Y Cymmrodor, 7 (1886), pp. 105–6.Google Scholar
13 Wade-Evans, Vitae, ix, xiii, p. 315.
14 Ibid., xix.p. 318.
15 Wade-Evans, The Brychan documents’, p. 34.
16 I owe this suggestion to Professor Derick S. Thomson.
17 Wade-Evans, Vitae, xiii.
18 I owe this suggestion to Mr Donald G. Howells, to whom I am deeply indebted for help with this paper, particularly on linguistic problems.
19 Morgan, ‘Forgotten sanctuaries’, p. 219.
20 Dumville, D. N., ‘Sub-Roman Britain: history and legend’. History, 62 (1977), p. 175 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, warns justifiably against overreliance on medieval sources for the Dark Age period.
21 Wade-Evans, Vitae, pp. 313–18. ‘The Brychan documents’, p. 7.
22 Foster, I. Ll., ‘The Emergence of Wales’, in Foster, I. Ll. and Daniel, G., eds, Prehistoric and Early Wales (London, 1965), p. 218 Google Scholar. Nash-Williams, V. E., The Early Christian Monuments of Wales (Cardiff, 1950), pp. 69–82.Google Scholar
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25 Ross, Anne, Pagan Celtic Britain (London, 1967), pp. 20, 104–5 Google Scholar; Green, Miranda J., The Gods of the Celts (Gloucester, 1986), pp. 31—2, 131, 155, 218 Google Scholar. Smith, ‘Oral and written’, pp. 323, 329, 335, notes similar well cults in other parts of the Celtic world.
26 Morgan, ‘Forgotten sanctuaries’, pp. 222–3; Jones, F., The Holy Wells of Wales (Cardiff, 1954), pp. 96, n. 37, 146.Google Scholar
27 Gregory of Tours, Liber, in gloria confessorum, ed. W. Arndt and B. Krusch, MGH.SRM, I (Hanover, 1885), pp. 740–50. P. Brown, The Cult of the Saints (Chicago, 1981), pp. 125–6, attributes this story to the Vitae Palrum, but the reference appears to be incorrect.
28 Bede, , Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R. A. B., OMT (1969), 1, 20, pp. 106–9.Google Scholar
29 Severus, Sulpicius, Life of St. Martin, tr.Peebles, B. M., in The Fathers of the Church, 7 (New York, 1949).PP. 118–21.Google Scholar
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31 Brown, Cull of the Saints, p. 91.
32 Register of Robert Moscati, CYS, 21 (1917), pp. 74–5.
33 Hair is not a common feature in connection with Welsh wells: Jones, Holy Wells of Wales, p. 96. One wonders if there is a link with the association of Medusa-type heads and healing springs in the pagan period: Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain, pp. 90–1.
34 Dugdale, W., Monasticon Anglicanum (London, 1823), 4, p. 591.Google Scholar
35 Hearne, T., ed., Leland’s Itinerary (Oxford, 1744), 5, p. 12 Google Scholar. Valor Ecclesiasticus, 4 (London, 1822), pp. 365–6.
36 Morgan, , ‘Forgotten sanctuaries’, p. 219. Valor Ecclesiasticus, 4, p. 401.Google Scholar