On guard of the past: The Lives of locally venerated saints in the context of the Anglo-Welsh confrontation at the end of the 11th — 12th century

Abstract

In the second half of the 11^th century, having completed the political conquest of England, William I undertook to establish control over the local church. To do this, he initiated a religious reform in his new possessions, which was led by the Archbishop of Canterbury Lanfranc (1070–1089) and his followers. This reform, directed against the “old” clergy, endangered the position of many religious centers associated with local cults. The reaction to it was the emergence of a wave of hagiographic literature, designed to legitimize both the cult itself and the status of the community representing the saint. The article is devoted to the analysis of the main features and assessment of the political role of hagiography of the late 11^th — early 12^th centuries, based on the case of the Lives of St. David and St. Beuno, which were directed against the reforms of both Lanfranc and his successors. From the beginning of the 12^th to the beginning of the 13^th century the appeal to the image of St. David and his Life were the main tools of the bishops of St. Davids in their struggle to gain the status of an archbishopric, which would remove the issue of the subordination of the Welsh clergy to Canterbury. Each stage of the confrontation was accompanied by the appearance of a new edition of the text. The Life of St. Beuno, which displayed signs of actualization at the beginning of the 12^th century, expressed the fear of local religious communities to lose part of their income due to active hostilities in East of Wales. Despite all the efforts of the Welsh clergy, by the end of the 13^th century the influence of the king of England and English church hierarchs on local dioceses was already unquestionable.