The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-09-16
CATHOLIC FAITH IN MEDIEVAL WALES
WELSH LAWS, MoNAsTIc REC
oRDs AND BARDIc LITERATURE
PROOF OF THE CATHOLIC LIFE
OF WALES IN PRE.REFoRMA.
TON DAYS.

PHOOF OF HE CATHOLIC LIFE
OF WALES IN PRE.REFoRMA-
TON DAYS.
Three years ago (says the London
UniVerse) Mr.. De Hirsch-Davies, who
had until then been an Anglican cler-
gyman in North Wales, was received
into the Catholic Church. He had
long devoted himself to Welsh his
torical studies, and had alre dy pub
lished apopular history of the Church
in Wales, which, although written
from the Anglican standpoint, was
marked throughout With singular
fairness and candor. 1t would seem
that, as has been the case with SO
many original workers in historical
research, it was his study of the past
that led him to the true Church.
Those who were present at the Ma
tional Catholic Congress held at Car
diff on the eve of the war will re-
member the remarkable paper which
Mr.. De Hirsch-Dayies read on the
Catholic Church in Medieval Wales.
1t is not too much to say that to all
who heard it, it was something like a
revelation. From his rich stores of
knowledge the writer brought forward
an abundance of striking evidence to
show that the faith of Wales in the
centuries before the Reformation and
the religious life of it's people were
Identical with that of the Catholic
Church of today. The present work
is an expansion of the paper read at
Cardiff, and is one of the most valu-
able contributions which has been
made to our Catholic historical litera-
ture in recent years. There is prob
ably no other living writer who could
have produced it, for Mr.. Hirsch-
Davies is perfect master of the
Welsh language, and able to deal not
merely with printed, but also with as
yet unpublished original materials for
Welsh history.
Except to a comparatively few ex-
pert students of the subject, the book
will have all the interest of the rec
ords of discovery. The old fiction
that Celtic Christianity was not Cath
Ollie, and the wild theory that the old
religion of Wales was a kind of early
Puritanism, has long since been re-
jected by all competent authorities
But it takes some time for the results
of scientific historical research to fill
ter down into general popular knowl-
edge, and the exploded legend of an
early Welsh Church which differed
from that of the rest of Christendom
in doctrine and practise is still to be
found repeated in many of our popu-
lar histories. The general ignorance
and neglect of Welsh history among
Englishmen tends to keep the old
fable alive. The evidence accumu-
lated in Mr.. De Hirsch-Davies' book
makes one wonder how it ever found
acceptance anywhere.
The sources upon which Mr.. De
Hirsch-DaVies draws are the old
Welsh laws and collections of char
ters, the monastic records, and above
all the bardic literature which century
after century reflects the life of the
people. Of this he tells%us:
welsh bardic literature i, particu-
lar from the eleventh to the sixteenth
century is full to overlooking of the
most definite and spontaneous testi-
mony to the religious faith of our
forefathers. The Sacrifice of the
Mass, the invocation of saints, the
doctrine of Purgatory, auricular con-
fession, penance, fasting, the cult of
the Blessed Virgin Mary, Extreme
Unction, the supreme authority of the
See of Peter-these are the constant
and essential elements in the relig-
ious as we'll as the secular poetry of
medieval Wales
Our author, documents in hand,
shows us what the Catholic life of
old Wales was in pre-Reformation
days. He goes beyond the strict linn
it's of his subject (and one is glad
that he has done so) in the pages in
which he tells how the Welsh people,
deprived of priests and Sacramento,
gradually drifted away from the
Church They absolutely refused to
accept the new official Professionalism
They called it the Saxon religion"
One cannot doubt but that if means
had been taken toe supply priests to
the scattered folk of Wales, they
would have chung to the faith as firmly
as their brother Celts of Ireland. The
fragmentary literature of the post
Reformation period is full of laments
for the past. In the darkness of the
Cromwellian regime Welsh poet in
pathetic verse predicts that the old
faith will yet be that of Wales. eve
shall have our world happy again."
he says.
"The Old Faith will come back again,
And Bishops will elevate the Host,
When the Holy Catholic Faith is
here
And the priest in his vestments.
When we hear the music of the
Mass,
And the Church again in her priyi-
lege,
Then through the blessed Commun-
ion of the Saints.
Our world will be happy again"
Even in this desolate time, Wales
had her missionary priests-though
all too few-and her martyrs. Far on
into the seventeenth century many of