An off-list exchange of emails with Rik has got me thinking. If we
think of holy wells from an archaeological perspective then - as he
has been asserting - they must have some ‘material culture’ (most
probably, but not necessarily, a structure of some kind).
However the term ‘holy well’ was not invented by archaeologists,
still less by English Heritage experts. From its origins in the
early Christian era clearly much has changed (not least successive
post-Reformation ideologies). The term evolves over the centuries as
specific water sources are denoted as ‘holy wells’ for a variety of
reasons – indeed, in recent centuries some of these reasons may be
somewhat spurious. I can only refer folk to Jeremy Harte’s extended
discussion of what is - and is not - a holy well in his ‘English Holy
Wells’ (apologies for plugging a book wot I published, but this is a
rather small pond… ).
In essence, holy wells are a cultural phenomena (crucially, more than
just a linguistic concept). Out of all the very many known water
sources a relatively small proportion are dedicated to saints or
otherwise denoted as holy. There *may* be tangible reasons for a
specific well being so denoted – never drying up in drought, being
good for eyes, etc – but as these are as much commonplace folkloric
tropes as tangible attributes, in the final analysis the concept of a
holy well falls under the rubric of ever-shifting social construction.
This is not to say that ‘social constructs’ stand apart from
archaeology – clearly they don’t. But I’m now more sympathetic to
Rik, who is evidently finding it very frustrating that his material
culture perspective is not going down too well among list members who
don’t accept that holy wells can be wholly or neatly contained within
that perspective ;-)
Rik is happy that the EH definition of a holy well is good enough for
EH’s purposes. But I can fully empathise with those on this list who
don’t consider it as fit-for-purpose in the social construct commonly
referred to as ‘the real world’.
Bob
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Bob Trubshaw
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Heart of Albion Press
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Heart of Albion - Explore Books - Alternative Albion
Publishing folklore, mythology, cultural studies and local history
since 1989
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