Britain, Ireland and the Crusades, c.1000-1300 by Kathryn Hurlock

Author:Kathryn Hurlock [Hurlock, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Medieval, Military, Wars & Conflicts (Other), Great Britain, General
ISBN: 9781137292735
Google: vDcdBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Macmillan International Higher Education
Published: 2012-12-07T04:57:38+00:00

Wales

No crusade was ever launched in Wales against the Welsh princes; crusade imagery and crusade participation were, however, used on two occasions in Anglo-Welsh relations to attempt to control Welsh leaders and fighters, remove troublesome princes and justify invasion in Wales.

The first time was in 1188, when Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, undertook his preaching tour of Wales and the Marches. The tour had joint secular and religious motivations, which meant that the crusade was being utilised by the archbishop and the English king in Anglo-Welsh relations. Among Baldwin’s reasons for going was the desire to exert metropolitan authority over the Welsh Church. For the preceding century, Canterbury had tried to increase its control over the Welsh dioceses, appointing bishops hopefully sympathetic to this aim, and claiming authority over the Welsh bishops. There was, however, stiff opposition, even from some of the ‘safe’ appointments, and St David’s claim to independence was still being pressed in 1188.

It is clear that these churchmen were concerned by the archbishop’s visit. As the preaching party travelled through Wales, the canons of the cathedral of St David’s became alarmed. Gerald of Wales informs us that these canons,

[j]ealous of the interests of their own church, used every argument they could think of to persuade him [the Lord Rhys] to refuse to allow the Archbishop of Canterbury to continue his journey into the interior of Wales, and more especially, for until then such a thing was unheard of, to visit St David’s itself.63

The archbishop reached the cathedral; he also made a point of celebrating mass in each of the three other seats in Wales. Arguably, he did so to preach the Cross, though there is no mention of him doing so at St David’s, where he left that duty to Gerald, or at St Asaph.64 Where he did preach, his message was not necessarily popular, as Gwion, bishop of Bangor, had to be ‘all but forced’ into taking the Cross, and most of the churchmen who supported him were Norman in origin.65 Gerald was also keen to point out that the tour visited Llanddewibrefi, where St David himself presided over a Synod (c.545) to suppress the Pelagian heresy, as Pelagius’s message had partly been a complaint against political tyranny. Gerald may have been underlining the fact that the archbishop’s tour had a political as well as religious message.66 When preaching in North Wales, Baldwin’s audience was less amenable to his plea, and when he addressed the household of the prince of Gwynedd, Owain, ‘not one of them could be persuaded’.67 Owain Cyfeiliog, prince of Powys, refused to meet the archbishop and was excommunicated as a result, though in fairness the tour did not pass through his lands, and he was in fact on good terms with the English king.68

One way in which Archbishop Baldwin demonstrated his authority over the Welsh Church was by ordering that the body of another prince, Owain Gwynedd, be removed from its burial place in Bangor Cathedral, as the prince had died excommunicate in 1170.

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