medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
St Teilo
I am sure that Maddie Gray will have more to say on this but papers from the
November conference at St Fagan's, which centered on the reconstructed St
Teilo's, are being mounted on the Museum web site (not mine yet as we are
still sorting out illustrations).
Regards,
Rosemary Hayes
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Dillon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 12:43 AM
Subject: [M-R] saints of the day 9. February
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (9. February) is the feast day of:
3) Teilo (d. mid-6th cent., conventionally). T. (in Welsh, Deilo [as per
usual, the 'd' is unvoiced];in Latin, Teliavus; in Breton, Teliau; in
French,T[h]élo, T[h]éleau, T[h]éliau) is the saint of the church named for
him, Llandeilo (later, to distinguish it from others, Llandeilo Fawr), in
today's Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire. His cult and his bishop's church
there are first attested in a few Latin and Old Welsh marginalia from the
eighth and ninth (_aliter_, ninth and tenth) centuries in the surviving
volume of the Lichfield Gospels and later in a section (_Braint Teilo_) of
the Book of Llandaff that despite the latter's frequent inventions may have
originated in the late tenth or early eleventh century. T.'s regional
prominence was such that in his late eleventh-century Vita of St. David of
St Davids (BHL 2107) Rhigyfarch ap Sulien claimed him for Mynyw (now St
Davids), saying that he had been a monk there.
To judge from the distribution of surviving toponyms, the early center of
T.'s cult will have been Llandeilo Fawr. But in the early twelfth century
T. was appropriated by the new bishop of Llandaff and his family, whose
assertion of their see's supposed archiepiscopal antiquity entailed the
production of T.'s largely legendary Vita (BHL 7997). This claims him as
the see's second incumbent, puts him on a par with the great Welsh saints
David and Padarn, has him buried at Llandaff, and in an expanded version
incorporated in the Book of Llandaff, where it is famously surrounded by a
slew of forged charters, has him spend some years in Brittany in the company
of archbishop St. Samson of Dol. For the remainder of the Middle Ages
pilgrims visited T. in Llandaff Cathedral (of which he is one of five
titulars).
Herewith two views of T.'s holy well at Llandeilo (he also has one on the
grounds of Llandaff Cathedral):
http://www.enchantedtowy.co.uk/St-teilos-Well-2.gif
http://www.enchantedtowy.co.uk/St-Teilos-Well-1.gif
T.'s cult in Brittany is first evidenced from the later twelfth century. In
default of any views of medieval churches dedicated to him (those of
Saint-Thélo [Côtes-d'Armor] and Landeleau [Finistère] are now
post-medieval), herewith a French-language page showing both a dolmen near
Landeleau associated with T. and, in front of the the église paroissiale
Saint-Thelo, a Gallo-Roman sarcophagus in which T. is said to have lain as a
penitent:
http://www.landeleau.org/rubrique.php?catId=77&__w=1272
Back in Wales, as regular readers of this list will know, a medieval church
(ca. 1100-1520) dedicated to T. at Pontarddulais in greater Swansea has,
along with the mural paintings discovered in it, been moved to and
re-assembled at the Welsh National History Museum at St Fagans. The
latter's site on the reconstruction is here:
http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/teilo/
A podcast tour of the church (in English):
http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/rhagor/podcast/?id=280
A podcast tour of the church (in Welsh):
http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/rhagor/podcast/?id=282
A journalistic account of the move with an expandable view of the church on
its original site:
http://tinyurl.com/bcn7q5
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