Short History of Wales | Page 8

church and a
settled creed. Between 400 and 500 there was searching of heart and
creed, and heresies--a sure sign that the people were alive to religion.
Between 500 and 600 there was a translation of the Bible from Hebrew
and Greek into the better-known Latin. The whole of Wales becomes
Christian; and probably St David converted the last pagans, and built
his church among them.
Between 450 and 500 a stream of pagan Teutons flowed over the east
of Britain, and the British Church was separated from the Roman
Church. By 664 British and Roman missionaries had converted the
English; and the two Churches of Rome and Britain, once united, were
face to face again. But they had grown in different ways, and refused to
know each other. Their Easter came on different days; they did not
baptize in the same way; the tonsure was different--a crescent on the
forehead of the British monk, and a crown on the pate of the Roman
monk. In the Roman Church there was rigid unity and system; in the
British Church there was much room for self-government. The newly
converted English chose the Roman way, because they were told that St
Peter, whose see Rome was, held the keys of heaven. Between 700 and
800 the Welsh gradually gave up their religious independence, and
joined the Roman Church.
But there was another dispute. Were the four old Welsh bishoprics--
Bangor, St Asaph, St David's, Llandaff--to be subject to the English
archbishop of Canterbury, or to have an archbishopric of their own at St
David's? By 1200 the Welsh bishoprics were subject to the English
archbishop, and Giraldus Cambrensis came too late to save them.
But through all these disputes the Church was gaining strength.
Churches were being built everywhere. Up to 700 they were called
after the name of their founder; between 700 and 1000 they were
generally dedicated to the archangel Michael--there are several
Llanvihangels {1} in Wales; after 1000 new churches were dedicated to
Mary, the Mother of Christ--we have many Llanvairs. {2}
Times of civil strife, or of popular indifference, came over and over

again; and the old paganism tried to reassert itself. And time after time
the name of Christ was sounded again by men who thought they had
seen Him. In the twelfth century the Cistercian monk came to say that
the world was bad, that prayer saved the soul, and that labour was noble.
{3} He was followed by the Franciscan friar, who said that deeds of
mercy and love should be added to prayer, that Christ had been a poor
man, and that men should help each other, not only in saving souls, but
in healing sickness and relieving pain. In the fifteenth century the
Lollard came to say that the Church was too rich, and that it had
become blind to the truth, and Walter Brute said that men were to be
justified by faith in Christ, not by the worship of images or by the merit
of saints. In the sixteenth century came the Protestant, and the sway of
Rome over Wales came to an end; Bishop Morgan translated the Bible
into Welsh, and John Penry yearned for the preaching of the Gospel in
Wales. The Jesuit followed, calling himself by the name of Jesus, to try
to win the country back again to Rome. Robert Jones toiled and
schemed, and some laid down their lives. The Puritan came in the
seventeenth century to demand simple worship, and Morgan Lloyd
thought that the second advent of Christ was at hand. The Revivalist
came in the eighteenth century, and, in the name of Christ, aroused the
people of Wales to a new life of thought.
After all this, you will be surprised to learn that many of the old gods
still remain in Wales, and much of the old pagan worship. Who drops a
pin into a sacred well, or leaves a tiny rag on a bush close by, and then
wishes for something? A young maiden in the twentieth century, who
sacrifices to a well heathen god. Until quite recently men thought that
Ffynnon Gybi, and Ffynnon Elian, and Ffynnon Ddwynwen, had in
them a power which could curse and bless, ruin and save.
Lud of the Silver Hand was the god of flocks and ships. His caves are
in Dyved still, and his was the temple on Ludgate Hill in London.
Merlin was a god of knowledge; he could foretell events. Ceridwen was
the goddess of wisdom; she distilled wisdom-giving drops in a cauldron.
Gwydion created a beautiful girl from flowers, "from red rose, and
yellow broom, and white anemony." I am not quite sure what Coil did,
but I have heard children singing the history of "old King Cole." Olwen
also walked