Editing Celtic Christianity (section)

====Wales====
{{see also|List of Welsh saints}}
[[File:LeningradBedeHiRes.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|A portrait of [[Augustine of Canterbury]] from an 8th-century manuscript of [[Bede]]'s ''[[Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum]]'']]

Christianity had entered Wales during [[Roman Britain|Roman]] times, initially as an urban religion. At first it was banned by the authorities who were suspicious of its secrecy. The first Christian martyrs, in the fourth century in Wales were executed at the legionnaires' town of [[Caerleon]] (near present-day [[Newport, Wales|Newport]] in South Wales).<ref name="bbc">{{cite web |title=The age of the saints |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/religion/religion_age_of_saints.shtml |publisher=BBC |year=2014 |access-date=8 August 2024}}</ref>

[[Bardsey Island]] has been an important religious site since the 6th century, when [[Saint Cadfan]] founded a monastery there.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-G4AAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA9|last=Baring-Gould|first=Sabine|title=The Lives of the British Saints: The Saints of Wales and Cornwall and Such Irish Saints as Have Dedications in Britain|publisher=C. J. Clark|date=1908|page=9|volume=2}}</ref> In medieval times it was a major centre of pilgrimage.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://britishheritage.com/celtic-saints-wales|last=Ellis|first=Sian|title=Into the age of Celtic saints in Wales|website=British Heritage Travel|date=16 August 2024}}</ref>

The saints seem often to have emerged from native tribal traditions.  They were frequently from community nobility, but inspired by the [[Desert Fathers]], they renounced the privileges of such positions to live remote, secluded, monastic lives.<ref>{{cite web |title=Peaceful places of inspiration along the River Wye |url=https://www.wyevalley-nl.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Celtic-Churches-Leaflet.pdf |publisher=Wye Valley AONB Partnership |access-date=9 August 2024}}</ref> Their identity would emerge separately from the base established in England by [[Saint Augustine]] in 597&nbsp;AD.<ref name="brain" /> Although little else is known about these people, their influence persists in place names all over Wales, pre-fixed by the word Llan: an old Welsh word referring to land consecrated for burials and churches.<ref name="bbc" />

At the end of the 6th century, [[Pope Gregory I]] dispatched a [[Gregorian mission|mission]] under [[Augustine of Canterbury]] to convert the [[Anglo-Saxons]], establish new sees and churches throughout their territories, and reassert papal authority over the native church. Gregory intended for Augustine to become the metropolitan bishop over all of southern Britain, including the existing dioceses under Welsh and Cornish control. Augustine met with British bishops in a series of conferences – known as the [[Synod of Chester]] – that attempted to assert his authority and to compel them to abandon aspects of their service that had fallen out of line with Roman practice. The [[Northumbria]]n cleric [[Bede]]'s ''[[Ecclesiastical History of the English People]]'' is the only surviving account of these meetings: according to it, some of the clerics of the nearest British province met Augustine at a site that was known thereafter as Augustine's Oak. Augustine focused on seeking assistance for his work among the Saxons and reforming the Britons' obsolete method for calculating Easter; the clerics responded that they would need to confer with their people and await a larger assembly.<ref name=Lloyd174175>{{harvnb|Lloyd|1912|pp=174–175}}</ref> Bede relates that the bishops particularly consulted a hermit on how to respond. He told them to respond based on Augustine's conduct: were he to rise to greet them, they would know him for a humble servant of Christ and should submit to his authority but, were he to remain seated, they would know him to be arrogant and prideful and should reject him. As it happened, Augustine did keep his seat, provoking mistrust. In the negotiations that followed, he offered to allow the Britons to maintain all their native customs but three: they should adopt Rome's more advanced method of calculating the date of Easter, reform their baptismal ritual, and join the missionary efforts among the Saxons. The British clerics rejected all of these, as well as Augustine's authority over them.<ref name=Lloyd174175/> [[John Edward Lloyd]] argues that the primary reason for the British bishops' rejection of Augustine – and especially his call for them to join his missionary effort – was his claim to sovereignty over them, given that his see would be so deeply entwined with the Anglo-Saxon [[Kingdom of Kent]].<ref name=Lloyd177>{{harvnb|Lloyd|1912|p=177}}</ref>

The death of hundreds of British clerics to the pagan king [[Æthelfrith]] of the [[Kingdom of Northumbria]] around 616 at the [[Battle of Chester]] was taken by Bede as fulfillment of the prophecy made by Augustine of Canterbury following the Synod of Chester.<ref>{{harvnb|Bede|1999|pp=106}}</ref> The prophecy stated that the British church would receive war and death from the Saxons if they refused to proselytise.<ref>{{harvnb|Lloyd|1912|p=180}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Yorke|2006|pp=118–119}}</ref><ref>{{Cite wikisource|title =Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. Book 1 Chapter XXII|author=Bede|authorlink=Bede|year= 1910|wslink =Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (Jane)/Book 1#32|publisher=J.M. Dent; E.P. Dutton|location=London}}</ref>{{efn|Bede says 1,200 British clergy died; the ''[[Anglo-Saxon Chronicle]]'' says 200. Bede is unclear on the date of the battle, but the current view is that it occurred in 616.}} Despite the inaccuracies of their system, the Britons did not adopt the Roman and Saxon {{langx|la|computus|label=none}} until induced to do so around 768 by "[[Bishop of Bangor|Archbishop]]" [[Elfodd]] of "Gwynedd". The Norman invasion of Wales finally brought Welsh dioceses under [[Kingdom of England|England]]'s control. The development of legends about the mission of Fagan and Deruvian and [[Philip the Apostle]]'s dispatch of Joseph of Arimathea in part aimed to preserve the priority and authority of the native establishments at [[Diocese of St David's|St David's]], [[Diocese of Llandaff|Llandaff]], and [[Glastonbury Abbey|Glastonbury]]. It was not until the death of [[Bishop of St Davids|Bishop]] [[Bernard (bishop of St Davids)|Bernard]] ({{circa|lk=no|1147}}) that St&nbsp;Davids finally abandoned its claims to metropolitan status and submitted to the [[Province of Canterbury]], by which point the popularity of [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]]'s pseudohistorical ''[[Historia Regum Britanniae]]'' had begun spreading these inventions further afield. Such ideas were used by mediaeval anti-Roman movements such as the [[Lollardy|Lollards]] and followers of [[John Wycliffe]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Tuchman |first=B. |date=1978 |title=A Distant Mirror |publisher=Ballantine Books |location=New York |isbn=0-345-34957-1 }}</ref> as well as by English Catholics during the [[English Reformation]]. The legend that Jesus himself visited Britain is referred to in [[William Blake]]'s 1804 poem "[[And did those feet in ancient time]]".  The words of Blake's poem were set to music in 1916 by [[Hubert Parry]] as the well-known song "Jerusalem".