The Comparative Development and Expression of
Welsh and Scottish Religious Traditions
Patrick C. Griffin
Professor Alan T. Gaylord
ENGL 96
December 7, 2000
The Comparative Development and Expression of Welsh and Scottish Religious Traditions
In the eons of human habitation of the major British Isle, there have been several flowerings of religion among its people. These outbursts of religiosity are well described by the histories and literatures of Scotland and Wales. The people of these lands expressed religious feeling with a decided vehemence that is readily apparent in the writings and the historical events that make up their cultural evolution. A comparison of these literary and historical items can lead one to an understanding of the themes of religious tradition in each culture.
I. Wales
The Welsh had a comparatively quiet history, not being torn by such continuous and overt war as Ireland or Scotland was. The Welsh did, of course, experience much turmoil, between being conquered by the Romans and the Normans and fostering a major uprising against the English crown under Owain Glyndwr. Their religious consciousness, however, was subject to very few violent campaigns against it, in the end changing because of a change within the people themselves.
Hailing from the earliest times, there has been one theme in the Welsh religious experience that has not only survived, but has grown to permeate the cultural religiosity so completely that it is almost indistinguishable today. It is present in the ancient, clannish shamanism that the Neolithic proto-Welsh practiced, in the complex Druidism of the Celts, and in the abstract Christianity of the later Welsh. The Welsh religious tradition anchored itself to the concept of a local holy man, be he shaman or saint, preaching a very naturalistic form of religion.* The veneration of the religion in a local, rather than a general sense suited the Welsh so well that they adapted every religion they encountered to suit their consciousness. Even the comparatively monolithic forms of early Christianity were altered to conform to this religiosity. The hierarchical organization of the Church was generally less important than the works of the simple village priest.
In the middle of the first millennium AD, we see a proliferation of saints in Wales, most of whom were anchored to a particular area in which they conducted their miracles. In this, they resembled quite closely the Druids and the dimly remembered shamans from prehistory. They ministered to each group of people, bringing the religion directly into their lives, rather than blanketing the people with a complex and occasionally contradictory religion, and centered the consideration of the religion on the individual and his experience in life. They have been remembered in the geography of Wales in the llan, translatable as "holy place," or lech, which translates to "stone." Llanfaglan (near Caernarfon) was the holy place of St. Baglan yg Coet Alun and was built by him near a well that carried powers of healing in its waters. (Henken, 256) Llandysilio is the holy place of St. Tysilio, who lived there as a hermit for seven years. (Henken, 270) "Lech Oudoucui ([St. Oudoceusıs] stone) is used as a boundary marker in the charter concerning the granting of Lann Oudocui by Morgan, King of Glewyssig." (Henken, 282) These tiny places help to preserve not only the path and life of the saints, but also their importance to their communities. Each llan and lech would have been (and sometimes, still is) venerated by the people as a local site for pilgrimage and meditation.
The Celtic Christianity that persisted in Wales before the Synod of Whitby was one that had been imported in large part from both Ireland and France. Monasticism was introduced from the Continent, mimicking somewhat the Druidic school at Anglesey. The houses of the Benedictines and the Cistercians grew to be filled with devout Welsh, learning and teaching about their religion. Interestingly enough, the penchant the Welsh developed for monastic life changed their economy forever. The Cistercians herded sheep and sold the wool to support their monasteries, and were so successful in this that shepherding became one of the lynch pins of the Welsh agricultural life and a cause for their orderıs unintended wealth and power.
As the monasteries formed the scholastic centers of religion in Wales, and the saints and parish priests provided a strong localizing influence, it may have been language that so strongly tied the Welsh to the religion as expressed in their individual vicinities. The Welsh Church was allowed to hold on to its language, and therefore its identity, when Christianity was introduced. This allowed the people to conceptualize the often confusing complexities of Christianity in a context with which they were comfortable, rather than forcing them to try to understand an omnipotent and omnipresent deity in a language not their own.
When the Reformation reached Wales, it was not characterized by the bloodshed that plagued most of Europe: the Welsh almost passively accepted the religious alteration, and the conversion was largely complete in a matter of a few years. This may lend some weight to the argument that Christianity for the Welsh was not a doctrinal or ceremonial function, but rather an issue of individual faith and perception of God. It certainly did not damage the cause of Anglicanism that its leadership not only allowed, but encouraged the use of Welsh in its services in compliance with a parliamentary statute. "The statue was ironic, for it meant that parliament was authorizing the use of Welsh in spiritual matters barely a generation after declaring that it was to be banned in secular matters." (Davies, 242) Because of this, the Welsh connection to the political life of the Catholic Church was decidedly more tenuous than the connection to the locally administered, spiritual church that the parishioners attended, and it eased the transition from one religious affiliation to another.
Later, well after the establishment of Anglicanism as the standard religious form in Wales, there was yet another alteration in the focus of religion. Methodism, fostered by John Wesley, was a return to evangelism. It emphasized the strength and meaning of the Gospels and the personal interpretation of them to the greater glorification of God. Wesleyıs Methodism was slightly different from that of the Welsh: Wesley wasnıt a major sympathizer with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, and he did not approve of the use of the vernacular Welsh in the ceremonies. (Davies, 310) Despite this, the Welsh once again adapted the religion to suit themselves, drawing on the customs that most completely suited their religious consciousness and their desire for personalized contemplation of God.
In the course of their history, the Welsh expressed their religious feelings through literature and their religious practices. In the earliest days, prior to the raising of henges, the Welsh practiced a form of consecrated ancestor-worship that focused on the cromlech, or chambered tomb, as the "centres of the ritual of the community." (Davies, 10) Little is known about these prehistoric practices beyond the obvious implication that they venerated the dead and the memories of the people who had preceded them. In about 3600 BC, the first henges were raised: one of the earliest, Llandygái, is theorized to have originally been a meeting place as well as a religious center. (Davies, 12) The henges, which were often consecrated with a human sacrifice, grew in both size and importance. They culminated with the most famous, Stonehenge, in about 2100 BC, one which has unfortunately been so extensively (and carelessly) studied, toured, and excavated that it is next to impossible to draw any valid archaeological data from it. (Hutton, 97)
Despite this inability to infer anything about religious practices from Stonehenge, the fact that it drew its "congregation" from surrounding henges is apparent from the archaeological evidence that the importance of surrounding henges, such as Avebury, were in decline after its raising. (Hutton, 100) Because of this, we may theorize that the same or similar ceremonies were being carried out at each locale, and that therefore the ceremonies at Stonehenge, in keeping with the apparent customs at henges such as Avebury were probably also in celebration of the power of the natural world.
With the advent of the Celts came the Druids, the religious life changing from myriad small naturalistic faiths to a single, unified form of naturalism with established deities. There is little in Welsh literature that describes Druidism, yet we do find some rather powerful evidence that it did find a distinct place in the Welsh mythological stories. In the third branch of the Mabinogion, "Manawydan, Son of Llyr," Manawydan is forced into a conflict with a powerful "bishop" named Llwyd. This bishop is peculiar, as he has powers more often seen in characters such as Cathbad (the chief Druid in Conchubarıs court in the Irish legend of Dierdre). Llwyd has cast a curse on the land and has magically bound Pwyll and Rhiannon to a bowl in order to avenge the beating of his friend Gwawl. He agrees to give up his right to revenge if Manawydan will not hang his wife, who is in the form of a mouse. (Gantz, 95) It is not a very difficult conclusion to draw from this that Llwyd was probably a Druid in the original version of the story, and was changed to a Christian figure in order to keep with the mores of the time.
After the Welsh had accepted Christianity and had experienced the "Age of Saints," in which myriad local saints appeared throughout Wales, they recorded the exploits of these saints in their Vitae, or Lives. They were written well after the saints had actually lived, and were generally catalogues of the miraculous deeds each saint had performed. They detailed these stories in a highly traditional manner, sounding quite like the bards who had preceded them. A great deal of storytelling (rather than simple hagiography) is seen in the description of the miraculous prophecy of the father of St. David (Henken, 32), or of the Bow of Destiny described in the story of St. Dwynwen, which the Hag of the Night petrified and set in a cave. (Henken, 230) They fed off of a supremely Celtic characteristic of the great embellishment of exploits, delving deep into the bardic tradition for their inspiration.
Later literature that focused on issues of religion was generally either expressive forms, such as hymnals, or proselytization propaganda, such as Parkerıs myth about the Celtic derivation of Protestantism. The literature was now divided between that which attempted to convince people of the rightness of a particular denomination of Christianity, and that which simply attempted to convince people of the rightness of God.
II. Scotland
In stark contrast to the history of Wales stands that of Scotland. The lands to the north of England experienced a past that is almost entirely different from that of Wales. Their ancient history is one shrouded in an almost impenetrable mist. The Neolithic inhabitants of Scotland left many fewer relics and constructs for archaeologists to examine, and the Picts had no established system of writing or recording that has survived to us. Barrows (burial-chambers), megaliths, and cairns are the remnants of the Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples of Scotland. The Beaker Folk, who appeared in Wales as the architects of many of the megalithic sites and were so named because they interred beakers and containers with their dead, also inhabited Scotland around 1800 BC. (Dickinson, 16) The implication that may be drawn from this is that, because these Beaker Folk were largely the same as those in Wales, they may have had similar concepts of the supernatural powers that governed the world. It is probable that ancestor-worship and the veneration of the nameless powers of nature were prominent in the Bronze Age people of Scotland.
Part of the problem with this theory is that, despite having these connections, one cannot necessarily draw the same conclusions about Scottish religious tradition as Welsh because there is so little evidence of a "high shamanism" style. Judging by the archaeological evidence available, the people of ancient Scotland did not have this deep rooting in religion, as there are no major henges or religious centers extant that date from pre-Pictish times. This may derive from the fact that the Scottish people did not have the same advantages of climate and agricultural development as those in Wales. These influence the time that the people would have for contemplation of the forces beyond the natural world, and therefore the organization of anything dealing with it. There is simply little to no evidence of shamanistic control of religion.
The first major "civilizing" groups that controlled Scotland were the Celts and the people known as the Picts. The Picts left little trace in the archaeological history of Scotland itself, though they were mentioned many times by the Roman chroniclers, beginning in 297 AD. (Lynch, 14) The problematic issues with the Picts are very simple: it is utterly unclear from whence they came, and it is at least as unclear to where they disappeared. They had a legendary origin in the sons of Cruithne, each of whom governed one of the major divisions of Scotland, but it is not necessarily rooted in fact. The Celts never really entered Scotland from the south in significant numbers: the Brythonic Celts spread more to the west than to the north when pressed by Rome and, later, the Saxons. The Celts who colonized Scotland came from the west, invading from northern Ireland and establishing a kingly province known as the Dalriada in about 500 AD. (Lynch, 17)
There are some interesting religious issues that arise with this: St. Patrick wrote his Epistula ad Coroticum about the year 450, shortly before he died in about 460 (Hanson, 87-8), which was an invective against a king in Scotland who had been persecuting the Christians. Patrick, in no uncertain terms, "calls Coroticus and his men socii Scottorum atque Pictorum apostatarumque," (Hanson, 108) or allies of the apostate Scots and Picts. It is not entirely clear whether or not the king in question is Pictish, Scottish, or anything else, though Hanson does say that he may be British. (Hanson, 107) The Epistula does provide evidence of the lateness of the arrival and acceptance of Christianity in Scotland. It also shows the struggles that the later missionaries would face in their attempts to convert the pagan tribes of Scotland to the Christian faith.
As they did with much of Europe, Irish missionaries undertook to establish Christianity in Scotland. St. Columba established a monastery on the isle of Iona in about 565, in response to an argument with Diarmait, the High King of Ireland. (Dickinson, 45) The monastery became the starting-point for the conversion of Scotland; the missionaries brought the highly monastic Celtic Christianity with them to the people of Scotland. Here, we see the reconnection with the Welsh tradition: both Wales and Scotland were influenced by, even converted to, the Celtic style of Christianity by Irish missionaries. In this type of Christianity, "there was no central organisation: indeed, there were many individual saintsı who went out to preach and convert. There was no territorial organisation by parishes, dioceses and provinces, as in the Roman church; and therewith there was no hierarchy.ı" (Dickinson, 46) Several other small differences between the Roman and Celtic versions of Christianity existed, as well. It is told that Columba presented himself to Brude, one of the kings of the Picts, and after performing miracles, was accepted and revered by him. (Dickinson, 46)
Literature at the time was scarce, despite the proliferation of monasticism and the common copying of the Gospels into manuscripts (such as Kells, or the Lindisfarne Gospels). We see examples of Lives, much as we see in Wales: the most prominent of these would be the "Life of Columba," who was for a time the patron saint of Scotland before emphasis was shifted to St. Andrew. (Dickinson, 50-1) "Adamnanıs "Life of Columba" is full of legends and miracles," (Dickinson, 45), following in that bardic style seen in the Welsh Saintsı Lives. Columba was said to have "slept on the bare rock with a stone for a pillow," (MacQuarrie, 85) and to have been able to cure people simply by the laying of hands. If the religious tradition was brought from Ireland in the cases of both Wales and Scotland, as it appears to have been, it stands to reason that the embellishment we see in the chronicling of the saints of one land would also be found in the other. The Lives of Scottish saints, being written in the same style as many Celtic myths, may also point to a lost Scottish mythology, one that does not survive today as the Irish and Welsh legends do, that would complement the traditions in Ireland and Wales.
The Synod of Whitby changed the landscape of Scottish religion entirely. A new, Roman version of Christianity was promulgated in 644, one that created a controlling hierarchy and introduced diocesan politics to the religious environment. It was accepted as the standard doctrine by the king of the Picts, and then by all of Scotland, by about 735. (Dickinson, 120) It removed the religion somewhat from the individual parishes, but incorporated the very devout Celtic sphere into the increasingly powerful Roman church. Because it centralized the control of religion, dioceses began squabbling over the control of the Scottish Church.
There was a decided break in the history of Christianity in Scotland: with the invasion of the Vikings, Scotland was cut off from Rome by pagan peoples on all sides. (Dickinson, 120) There is a resumption of contact around 1066 as the Vikings either retreated or became converts to Christianity. Immediately, the Romanizing factions of the Church strove to stamp out the doctrinal deviations that had arisen in Scotland during their time of separation from Rome. Priests were dispossessed once more, the dates on which Lent and Easter were observed, and the manner of their observation, were all changed to conform to Roman definition. (Dickinson, 121) No sooner had substantial contact been reestablished than a dispute arose over the position of metropolitan bishop of Scotland. The Normans believed that the archbishop of York had the primacy over Scotland, according to the resolutions at the Council of Windsor in 1072, while Alexander I, the King of Scotland, denied that resolution and believed St. Andrews to be the primary Scottish bishopric. (Dickinson, 134) The dispute became even more pronounced when the bishop of St. Andrews died, leaving the diocese vacant. Contention as to appointment and consecration, whether submissive or not, raged for decades, but the attempts to "free it from the jurisdiction of York" were "unsuccessful." (Lynch, 79) By the middle years of the thirteenth century, the Scottish church had begun to react to this enforced submission to an essentially foreign religious authority. "We can sense that the Scottish church is becoming a national church. It is moving towards the position a number of its leading prelates were to take when they supported Bruce in defiance of Rome." (Dickinson, 142)
The literature of the pre-Reformation in Scotland is largely dominated by William Dunbar, a poet from the early 16th century, whose topics ranged from assessments of courtly life to works on the life of Christ. The lines of his poetry carry a deep passion for his subject, and in his poem on the Passion of Christ, he shows a fiery lyricism that burns the image into the mind of the reader:
"Falslie condamnit befoir ane juge,
Thai spittit in his visage fayr,
And as lyounis with awfull ruge,
In yre thai hurlit him heir and thair,
And gaif him mony buffat sair
That it wes sorrow for to se;
Of all his claythis that tirvit him bair,
O mankynd, for the luif of the."
(Kinsley, 3)
Dunbarıs words draw the reader into his fervor, bringing one to the trial of Christ, depicting the scene as vividly as any painting by Caravaggio could have. The description of the judgesı actions carries not only the sense of the trial, but the feeling, as well. In another poem, titled by its first line, "Done is a battel on the dragon blak," he speaks to the belief that Christ conquered "the deidly dragon Lucifer/The crewall serpent with the mortall stang" (Kinsley, 7) in rising from the grave (or, as Dunbar puts it, Surrexit dominus de sepulchro). Dunbarıs works provide an insight into the religious consciousness of the Scottish world: one that clings somewhat to the ancient Celtic lyricism and ability for powerful representation, yet is also influenced by English and continental factors that modify the style to a hybridization of the two literary traditions. The Scottish church seems to have followed the same path: at once cosmopolitan and traditional. It was the religion of a largely sovereign nation that had a distinct and unique religious heritage, yet was constantly being bombarded by the mores of the great theologians of Europe.
In the middle years of the sixteenth century, the Reformation swept over Scotland in a firestorm of religious uprisings. The French desired to keep the increasing tide of Scottish reformers in check, but were defeated by an army of allied Scots and Englishmen. (Dickinson, 317) Within a couple of years, the English were fighting both the Scots and the French after attempting to conquer Scotland when the Scots annulled their treaty with England, a struggle that concluded in English defeat and concession in the Treaty of Bolougne, in 1550. (Dickinson, 321) In the middle of this powerful struggle was one John Knox, a firebrand of a reformer, one who was committed to the defense of his faith and the conversion or destruction of anyone who was not an ally. (Dickinson, 319) At Perth, in 1559, Knox and a band of congregations from around Scotland established the denomination known as Presbyterianism as the state religion, despite a "swarm of Papists" attacking their fortifications. (Knox, 179) After bloody war and struggle, and much wrongdoing on each side in the name of religious design, the Catholic forces retreated to France and Spain, and any affiliation with, or support of, the papacy was essentially dissolved in a resolution at Edinburgh on July 20, 1567.
Knox provides us with the most prominent example of literature in this tumultuous period of Scottish history. The accounts he gives are certainly factual in foundation, and carry enormous significance for his followers as a whole, but they are essentially and inescapably marred as an historical work by the obvious prejudices he holds against the several groups he treats in his "History of the Reformation in Scotland." Knox refers to Catholics throughout his polemic history as "idolators" who are guilty of "insatiable cruelty" and "crafty deceit." He emphasizes and re-emphasizes the perceived rightness of his cause, and the apparent and obvious wrongness of the opposing cause.
Despite all of this anger and self-righteousness, Knox represents the absolute religious pinnacle of the independent Scot, focused not just on localism of religion, as the Welsh reformers were, but rather on the almost oxymoronic individualization and communization of the religious ceremony. Knox was greatly influenced by the teachings of Calvin, and brought the concept of predestination towards good and evil into the doctrine of Presbyterianism: that, though we do have free will under God, once one does start down a path, one is confined to that path for the rest of his life, as he has predetermined himself to be good or evil. (Macpherson, 46-48) The individualizing of each personıs religious experience as it is defined by oneıs initial choice of character is starkly contrasted with the enormous emphasis put on the congregation as a whole, both local and general, as Knox refers to the Reformation in Scotland as a congregational effort throughout his History.
The Scottish religious consciousness evolved in a vastly different manner from that of the Welsh. Scotland was never colonized by the Romans, and thus did not experience either the "civilizing" force or the religious influence that Wales experienced. Irish missionaries proselytized the Scots as well and, though they experienced the same Celtic Christianity as the Welsh, they fought later to keep their particular religious identity, struggling against both England and Rome to maintain local control over their own religion. After the revolution in which Robert Bruce emancipated Scotland, it was essentially a free nation that could determine its religion by itself. Later struggles established a new and completely different religion that at once suited both the individualism and the congregationalism of the Scottish religious feeling.
III. Differences in the Traditions
The Welsh and the Scots differed quite distinctly in their religious backgrounds and evolutions. The Welsh, for example, had a very highly developed, strong shamanistic tradition. There remains a vast body of archaeological evidence to support the theory that the Welsh pre-Celtic faiths had a strong connection to the community and were highly sophisticated in their execution of religious ceremonies. In Scotland, sadly, we do not have the same amount of surviving structures: the simple relics of individual, clannish faiths and some few monuments in the southern half of Scotland are all that remain. It does not lend itself to a strong thesis of a powerful shamanism in Scotland, though it certainly does not exclude it. Reasons for this muting of the power of "organized" religion may include the differences in climate and agricultural development that retarded somewhat the early advancement of the more northerly peoples.
While Scotland and Wales shared a tradition in their affiliation with both the Celtic and Roman forms of Christianity, they differed greatly in their conversions from the Roman form to Protestantism. The Welsh religious consciousness seemed not to be so much concerned with the actuality of the religion and its practice, but more with the meaning of the religion as it pertained to the individual, and to the local community. Their conversion from Catholicism to Anglicanism, and then from Anglicanism to Methodism, was nearly bloodless, seeming to be more a fine-tuning of the religious expression than anything else. In stark contrast, the Scots waged bloody, devastating wars, allying alternately with England and France to protect their religious rights, as they had tried to do when they protested the primacy of York. The Scots, or at least their leaders, appear to have seen the actual practice, the core theology, as the issue of central contention. Wesley was a very peaceful reformer, presenting his case to the people as an alternative fashion of praising God that emphasized the community. Knox was more directly combative, his invective against Catholicism and other "heresies" reminiscent of the action of a sledgehammer. Despite being an undeniably confrontational and overzealous proponent of reform, Knox served his purpose well, bringing people to what he considered a greater understanding and glorification of God. He brought an interpretation of Christianity to the people that was at once personal and public, one that did not disregard the power of the individual nor detract from the power of the community as a whole.
The Scottish and Welsh religious traditions developed out of the circumstances of history and were expressed in literary and artistic forms by the people closest to them. Whether the expression took the form of the consecration sacrifice for the dedication of a henge, the retelling of the mystical tale of a particular saint, the articulation of faith in poetry, or the soul-searing ragings of a modern zealot, each is evidence of a deep connection to the powerful feelings involved once belief transcends the visible.
Bibliography
Davies, John. Hanes Cymru (A History of Wales). New York: The Penguin Press, 1993.
Dickinson, William Croft. Scotland: From the Earliest Times to 1603. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1961.
Doble, G. H. Lives of the Welsh Saints. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1993.
Gantz, Jeffrey. The Mabinogion. London: Penguin Books, 1976.
Griffin, Patrick C. "The Evolution of the Welsh Religious Tradition." (unpublished essay), 2000.
Hanson, R. C. P. Saint Patrick: His Origins And Career. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Henken, Elissa R. Traditions of the Welsh Saints. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1987.
Hutton, Ronald B. The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992.
Kinsley, James. William Dunbar: Poems. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.
Knox, John. A History of the Reformation in Scotland, vols. 1-2. New York: Philosophical Library, 1950.
Lynch, Michael. Scotland: A New History. London: Century, 1991.
Macpherson, Rev. John. The Confession of Faith. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, Ltd., 1880?
MacQuarrie, Alan. The Saints of Scotland: Essays in Church History, AD 450-1093. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, Ltd., 1997.
Piggot, Stuart. The Druids. New York: Penguin Books, 1981.
Williams, Gwyn A. When Was Wales? London: Black Raven Press, 1985.