‗And the Word became Welsh‘: The Correlating Careers of Christianity and Cymraeg† in Wales

by the Very Rev. Bill Roberts Rector, St. Gregory‘s Episcopal Church, Deerfield, Illinois, USA Dean, Waukegan Deanery, Diocese of Chicago

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. Revelation 7:9

SUMMARY

Four years ago I spent my first Sabbatical in the United Kingdom exploring the roots of our Anglican heritage. As part of my preparation I bought a cassette tape to learn how to pronounce Welsh consonants and vowels. The response I received encouraged me to study Cymraeg— the Welsh word for the Welsh language.

Over the past four years, as I learned more about the Welsh language, I discovered that the destinies of Christianity and Cymraeg in Wales have intertwined. This Project was my opportunity to learn more about their ‗correlating careers‘ and to describe them in an orderly, and, I hope, interesting and enjoyable fashion.

I begin with an introduction to the Welsh language, and then proceed to tell the story of its relationship first to Celtic Christianity, and then to Roman Christianity, English Reformation Christianity, and, finally, to the denominational expressions of Christianity since the sixteenth century.

In a Project of this sweep but limited length, I have necessarily had to omit many important developments in the history of the Welsh language, of Wales, of England, and of Christianity in the United Kingdom, which would have given a wider context for the personalities and events I have recounted. I have also been limited by the resources available to me on this side of the Atlantic, and several books I tried to obtain by internet never became available.

I prepared a letter and questionnaire, in both English and Welsh, to hear from contemporary Welsh Church- and Chapel-goers. I emailed or mailed them to a dozen clergy and lay people for distribution, but to date I have received but one response— from the Archbishop of Wales. Copies of those letters and questionnaires appear at the end of this paper. If I receive responses at a later date, I will incorporate them into this Project or subsequent manuscripts.

I want to give a special word of thanks to Mr. Dulais Rhys, a talented composer, pianist, author, teacher, and, to give him the ultimate accolade, Cymro. I met him last summer at the Cymdeithas Madog Welsh Language Course, where he was a guest lecturer on the life of the Welsh composer Joseph Parry, who wrote Aberystwyth, among other works. During my very first conversation with him, he invited me to stay with his family in Caerfyrddin this summer to work on my Welsh and to experience something of the life of a bilingual Welsh parish. He worked patiently with me as I attempted to translate my letter and questionnaire into Welsh. Diolch yn fawr iawn! (Thank you very much!)

I dedicate this Project to Ingrid. ______† pronounced kum-rīg (the ‗r‘ is trilled; the consonant ‗g‘ is always sounded like the English ‗go‘) 2

ALL IN THE FAMILY

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? . . . You are observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted.1

The Venerable Bede must have read St. Paul‘s words of exasperation many times in the course of his lifetime. As he wrote A History of the English Church and People, could he possibly have made the connection between St. Paul‘s exasperation with the Galatians in AD 50 and that of St. Augustine of Canterbury (and Bede) with the Britons in 603?

Now the Britons did not keep Easter at the correct time, but between the fourteenth and twentieth days of the moon— a calculation depending on a cycle of eighty-four years. Furthermore, certain other of their customs were at variance with the universal practice of the Church. But despite protracted discussions, neither the prayers nor the censures of Augustine and his companions could obtain the compliance of the Britons, who stubbornly preferred their own customs to those of universal use among Christian Churches.2

The Galatians of the first century and the Britons of the seventh century were descendents of a tribe that emerged during the fifth century before Christ in what is today central Europe. The Greeks called them the ―secret people‖— the — or, the Celts. Moving beyond their original homeland, by 300 BC they had conquered territory ‗from the Iberian peninsula in the west, to the Scottish highlands in the north, spanning Europe to the Black Sea in the East, and touching as far south as Central Italy‘. 3 John Davies, in A History of Wales, writes: ‗Theirs was the first culture of true splendour to develop in Europe north of the Alps. That culture had a striking unity, as museums from Lisbon to Ankara bear witness; it was essentially the same among the Galatians of Anatolia as it was in Spain or northern Italy or Bohemia‘.4 The cities of London, Paris, Vienna, and Gallipoli (the ‗city of the Galtae‘) bear Celtic names, as do the Rhone, Rhine, and Danube rivers. But by the middle of the first century BC the Celts had succumbed to Roman power, and the descendents of the earliest Celtic tribe, now separated from each other over vast expanses of Europe, began to develop separate cultures and languages. Some of those descendents had migrated to the central highlands of Anatolia, a region of Turkey that the Emperor Augustus named Provincia Galatia in 25 BC, and to which St. Paul sent an extraordinary letter seventy-five years later. Other Celtic descendents had made their way to the island of Albion, where they discovered inhabitants whom they called in their language ‗Priteni‘, and whom the Romans, in their Latin tongue, called Britanni, and their island, Britain.5

TONGUES WILL WAG

Since the mid-nineteenth century, linguists have posited an Indo-European parent language which gave birth to a family of European and Asian languages. The first generation of European languages included Greek and Armenian, which developed without producing new offspring. But other first generation languages, among them the Celtic, Germanic, and Italic, did produce second and later generations: the Italic produced Latin, which in turn generated the Romance languages; the Germanic produced North, West, and East language groups, which generated such progeny as Danish, English, and Gothic, respectively; and the Celtic, which produced Continental and Insular descendants. The (European) Continental descendents consisted of the Gaulish language spoken in France and northern Italy, a Celt Iberian language used in Spain, and the Galatian language of central Turkey. All three of these Continental Celtic 3 languages have long since disappeared. The Insular descendents, so-called because they developed in the British Isles, were more fortunate.

In July, 2003, the National Academy of Sciences (USA) published a paper describing the evolutionary development of the Insular Celtic languages from their Continental (Gaulish) and Indo-European antecedents. The authors include a representative glossary of words illustrating the relationship of the Gaulish tongue to thirteen other languages, both ancient and modern. For example:

GAULISH TARVOS AVVOT DECAMETOS MATIR

Latin taurus fecit decimus mater Greek tauros poiein, dran dekatos mētēr Old Irish tarb do-rigni dechmad máthair Modern Irish tarbh dhein sé, rinne sé deichiú máthair Modern Scots Gaelic tarbh rinn deicheamh máthair Modern Welsh tarw mae e wedi gwneud degfed mam Modern Breton tarv deus graet dekvet mamm Modern French taureau a fait dixième mère Modern Italian toro ha fatto dècimo madre Modern Spanish toro ha hecho décimo madre

According to their analysis, the Indo-European parent language emerged sometime between 10,000 and 6200 BC, and in the course of prehistoric migration the Celtic language developed. With the arrival of Celtic peoples in the British Isles between 4700 and 1700 BC, an Insular Celtic language began to evolve apart from its Continental sibling. Subsequently, Insular Celtic also divided into two language groups. The Celts who migrated further west into Ireland began to speak a version of Celtic known as Goidelic or Gaelic, while the Celts who settled in Britain spoke Brythonic or Brittonic. Tacitus, writing in AD 98 about Britain and Gaul, remarks that ‗the language differs but little‘. Later, in the sixth century AD, Irish migrating to Scotland produced the Scots Gaelic language, and British migrating to France produced the Breton language.6

The Goidelic family of languages includes Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, and Manx Gaelic; while the Brythonic family includes Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. Goidelic is sometimes referred to as Q-Celtic because its phonetic –kw– sound distinguishes it from its Brythonic or P-Celtic counterpart which uses a –p– sound. For example, the Welsh word for head is ‗pen‘, while the Irish word is ‗ceann‘ (pronounced ken).

When the Roman legions invaded Britain in AD 43, Latin loan words began to enter the Celtic vocabulary, and these can be seen today in Welsh words like pont (bridge), ffenest (window; compare the French fenêtre), eglwys (church; compare the Spanish iglesia), and finegr and ficer (vinegar and vicar).7

According to John Davies, ‗In 400, the inhabitants of Wales spoke Brittonic; in 700, they spoke Welsh‘. Moreover, he marvels that they had begun to write in their language at a time when the only written language was Imperial Rome‘s Latin. By contrast, there were few attempts to write in the Romance languages before 1000. Davies is particularly struck by the appearance about 633 of the word Kymry, used interchangeably for either the people or the country of Wales until about 1560, when the land of Cymru is distinguished from the Cymry. He writes: ‗The word 4 Cymry evolved from the Brittonic word Combrogi (fellow-countryman), and its adoption suggests a deepening self-awareness among the Britons‘.8

Andrew Liaugminas notes the appearance of Welsh names in stone inscriptions beginning in the sixth century, and full Welsh inscriptions by the seventh century. He traces the beginning of Welsh literature to the eighth century, citing the ninth century Juvencus Manuscripts containing poetry; a tenth century prose manuscript, the Computus Fragment; and a medieval collection of tales, the Mabinogi. Of this latter work, A. Huw Pryce writes that the earliest version of one of the tales, Culhwch and Olwen, was written about 1000.9

The Welsh language shares common features with its Celtic cousins and with some of its more distant European relations. Welsh, like English, is an analytic language, in which meaning is signalled primarily by word order, rather than a synthetic language, like Latin, in which meaning is signalled by the way words are inflected or changed according to their grammatical function. But unlike English and the other analytic European languages, the neutral Welsh sentence begins with a verb rather than a subject. For example, ‗Dysguais i Gymraeg‘10 would be rendered ‗Studied I Welsh‘ in a verbatim English translation. That brief sentence illustrates another Celtic feature: The Welsh word for the Welsh language is ‗Cymraeg‘, but depending on what words it follows the first consonant might undergo a soft mutation, changing from C- to G- (as in the example), or an aspirate mutation, from C- to Ch-, or a nasal mutation, from C- to Ngh-. Another feature of Welsh is that, unlike English but like the Romance languages, most adjectives follow the nouns they modify. Finally, the Welsh and English alphabets are similar, but Welsh lacks consonants k, q, v, and z; and adds ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh, and th.

FOR ALL THE SAINTS

The first Christians to visit Britain were undoubtedly sailors and traders who just happened also to be early converts to this strange Jewish sect claiming to worship a risen Messiah. Perhaps the first Christians to settle in Britain were migrating farmers who also just happened to profess this new belief. These early Christians would have encountered a variety of native and Celtic religions, chief among them that of the druids, whose beliefs included a concept of the immortality of the soul and an afterlife in an idealized world. They worshipped in forest groves or by water sites, many of which were associated with healing. Although the druids may have made use of prehistoric stone circles, their sacred calendar was neither solar nor lunar; it revolved around the requirements of animal husbandry. The druidic priesthood fulfilled judicial and educational as well as religious roles, and kept the oral traditions of their culture alive.

There is little evidence that the Christian faith made much of an impact on the Britons before the second century. Here is the Venerable Bede‘s report of what he believed to be the turning point for Christianity in Britain:

In the year of our Lord‘s Incarnation 156, Marcus Antonius Verus, fourteenth from Augustus, became Emperor jointly with his brother Aurelius Commodus. During their reign, and while the holy Eleutherus ruled the Roman Church, Lucius, a British king, sent him a letter, asking to be made a Christian by his direction. This pious request was quickly granted, and the Britons received the Faith and held it peacefully in all its purity and fullness until the time of the Emperor Diocletian.11 Bede‘s report, if true, raises intriguing questions: why did Lucius wish to become a Christian? What Christian believer or community had impressed him? Had he experienced a personal conversion, or had some desperate prayer been answered? 5 Several chapters later, Bede recounts the story of the first native Christian martyr, St. Alban. Although he doesn‘t indicate when Alban was martyred, the chronology of Bede‘s History accords with the traditional date of June 22, 304. New scholarship indicates that Alban may have been martyred as early as 209, during the reign of the Emperor Septimius Severus. If so, this indicates an earlier and vigorous Christian community in Britain.

Bede describes Alban‘s martyrdom in the context of a wider persecution that also claimed the lives of Aaron and Julius. Gildas, a sixth century British monk and historian, records that they were from Caerleon-on-Usk, and consequently the first Welsh Christians known by name.12

By the fourth century, the Christian Church in Britain had established enough strength and importance to send three British bishops to the Council of Arles, called by the Emperor Constantine in 314 to deal with African Donatists who believed that the validity of the Holy Sacraments depended on the holiness of the ministers of the Sacraments. The Council decided that the ‗unworthiness of the Ministers . . . hinders not the effects of the Sacraments‘.13

The fifth century is known as ‗The Age of the Saints‘, a time when the Welsh Church was led by four leaders who, despite the overwhelming victory of the pagan Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in the east, expanded the Church‘s presence and strength throughout Wales. Dyfrig, or Dubricius, whose dates are variously set at 425-505 or 460-545, founded monastic schools whose pupils were then sent forth to found new monastic communities. Eventually he became the first bishop in the area which would become the Diocese of Llandaff. One of Dyfrig‘s students, Illtud, had been born in Brittany about 450, and found his way to Dyfrig by way of a military career with his cousin King Arthur in Somerset. He was appointed abbot of the monastery he founded, and it became known as a centre of scholarship to which kings and chiefs sent their children. He is even reputed to have invented a new plough which halved the time of tilling. Beuno was one of the great missionary saints of north Wales, especially in the areas of Caernarfon and Merioneth; he founded many monastic communities, and his followers built many churches. Dewi, or David, founded a monastery near Menevia, becoming its abbot, and later established eleven other monasteries. Elected bishop, he made Menevia the centre of his episcopal administration; eventually, it would become the Diocese of Tyddewi (House of David). It is said that David made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; was nicknamed ‗the Waterman‘, perhaps for allowing his monks to drink only water at meals instead of the customary mead, and that he was Dyfrig‘s choice to succeed him as the Primate of Wales. In any event, David is the Patron Saint of Wales, and his death around 544 is commemorated on March 1.

John Davies heralds ‗The Age of the Saints‘ as ‗the years when Christianity consolidated its hold upon the inhabitants of Wales‘, particularly noting an important development during that Age: ‗The first need of a community of Christians was a consecrated enclosure in which to bury their dead; the enclosure was the llan‘— the Welsh word for enclosure.14 In time, churches would be built within or near such llannau— enclosures— so that eventually llan came to mean the site of an eglwys or church. For example, Llanfair is the site of St. Mary‘s Church.15 Communities that grew up around these enclosures or churches would then take the name of the saint or church; for example, most famously, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllandysiliogogogoch.16

D. Densil Morgan provides a fitting conclusion to this survey of the early Welsh Church, and a forecast of things to come:

Although the precise nature of the impact which Christianity made upon the British 6 during the Roman occupation remains unclear, it is obvious that by the fifth century, when the Welsh nation and its language emerged, the Cymry, or inhabitants of the Isle of Britain, considered themselves to be Christian. Just as the dawn of nationhood coincided with the intense religious revival connected with Celtic saints such Dyfrig, Illtud, Beuno, and Dewi, Christianity and Welshness evolved not so much side by side but very often each as an aspect of the other. And what was true of ‗the Age of the Saints‘ characterized the Middle Ages, the Reformation period, and much of the modern age as well.17

ALL IN THE FAMILY: VOL. II.

When the Venerable Bede opined that ‗the Britons did not keep Easter at the correct time‘ and assailed their stubbornness, he evinced more of an English ecclesiast‘s sensibilities than an historian‘s. John Davies, a Welsh historian, offers another opinion: ‗[Pope Gregory the Great] gave Augustine authority over all the Christians of Britain but, when Augustine rather arrogantly sought to give substance to that authority in 603, he was rebuffed by the Welsh bishops. . . .‘ After all, he continues, ‗There was very little reason for the long-established Christianity of Wales to accept the superiority of an archbishopric which had been in existence for less than a decade‘.18

Historically, there had been several ‗correct times‘ for celebrating Easter. The Western Church had adopted one system for calculating the date of Easter in 314, and then adopted a new system in 457. The fault of the ‗stubborn‘ Celtic Church was their allegiance to the older reckoning, and the Roman Church‘s own stubbornness, writes John Davies, meant that ‗the Easter of the Celts was elevated to be a symbol of freedom from the interference of Augustine and his successors‘.

Bede did have the pleasure of recording the ultimate triumph of the Roman Church. Writing about the arrival of Theodore of Tarsus (St. Paul‘s home town) as Archbishop of Canterbury in 669, he notes that Theodore ‗taught the Christian way of life and the canonical method of keeping Easter. Theodore was the first archbishop whom the entire Church of the English obeyed. . . .‘19

1066 AND ALL THAT

Having survived the Anglo-Saxon invasions of the fifth century and the Viking invasions of the ninth century, the Welsh faced the Norman invasion in the eleventh century. Another reform- minded Pope Gregory (VII) troubled the Welsh with his desire for ‗uniformity in organization, ritual, and discipline throughout Christendom‘, and the Normans were only too happy to use the opportunity to gain power over the Welsh. In response to the Norman predations, the Welsh bishops decided to submit themselves to the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury in order to ‗keep Church property out of the hands of the rapacious Norman knights‘.20

In 1188 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin, visited his Welsh diocese with a double purpose: to reaffirm his jurisdiction over the Welsh Church and to recruit warriors for the Third Crusade. As his guide and companion he chose Master Gerald de Barry. Gerald‘s father was a Norman settler who took the name Barry from an island near Cardiff. His mother was the daughter of a Welsh princess and a Norman freebooter. Charles Kightly surmises that Gerald probably spoke Norman-French most frequently, but that his mother had taught him a working if not fluent knowledge of Welsh. As for English, ‗he scornfully compared it to the hissing of geese, lambasting the English as ―the most worthless race under Heaven . . . In their own 7 country they are the slaves of the Normans, and in Wales they serve only as cowherds . . . and cleaners of sewers‖ ‘.21

In Llandaff, the Welsh and English were ‗carefully segregated, the English standing on one side and the Welsh on the other, and presumably sermons were preached in both languages, for ―many from both nations‖ made the crusading vow‘.

In his record of their journey through Wales, Gerald provides some wonderful sketches of the Welsh character and practices:

Unlike the folk of other regions, . . . the Welsh do not sing their traditional songs in unison, but in many parts, and in many modes and modulations. So that in a choir of singers— a customary thing among these people— you will hear as many different parts and voices as you see heads: but in the end they will all join together in a smooth and sweet B-flat resonance and melodic harmony.

Gerald also explains the Welsh custom of eating meals in groups of three as being ‗in honour of the Trinity, having learnt the custom from early Christian missionaries‘.

Gerald summed up the Welsh character this way: ‗The Welsh are extreme in all they do: so that if you never meet anyone worse than a bad Welshman, you will never meet anyone better than a good one‘.

Gerald ends his Description of Wales with an imagined conversation in which Henry II asks an old Welshman how a war with Wales would end, and here is his response:

My lord king, this nation may now be oppressed, weakened, and almost destroyed by your soldiers, just as it has so often been by other invaders in the past. . . Yet it will never be utterly exterminated by the wrath of Man, unless the wrath of God should strike it at the same time. Whatever else may happen, I do not believe that any other people but the Welsh, or any other than the Welsh language, will answer to the Supreme Judge on the Last Day for this corner of the earth.22

TONGUE IN CHECK

In the thirteenth century Edward I of England conquered Wales. The ascendancy of England over Wales presaged an ascendancy of English over Welsh. By the fourteenth century, reports Ralph Griffiths, there was a deepening division in the Welsh Church ‗between those English- speaking clergy who now tended to occupy the higher and more profitable positions, including the bishoprics, and the Welsh clergy who were mostly restricted to the ranks of poor parish priests and monks‘.23

In 1431, Catherine of Valois, Henry VI‘s widow, married Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur,24 her clerk of the wardrobe and a Welsh squire. Their grandson, Henry Tudor, became Henry VII, and their great-grandson was crowned Henry VIII in 1509. Twenty years later, Henry VIII launched the English Reformation, but in the midst of the flurry of legislation creating a new English Catholic Church, he found time to pass measures which transformed Wales as well.

In a series of statutes passed by Parliament between 1534 and 1536, Henry defined the borders of England and Wales, incorporated Wales into the English system of administration by justices of the peace, made the laws of England binding in Welsh courts, and extended parliamentary 8 representation in parity with Wales‘ percentage of the total population of the unified countries. Statute 27 Henry VIII c. 26 [1536] made another noteworthy provision— only English would have official status in the Courts of Wales: 25 ‗from henceforth no person or persons that use the Welsh speech or language shall have or enjoy any manner of office or fees within this realm of England, Wales, or other of the King's Dominion upon pain of forfeiting the same offices or fees, unless he or they use and exercise the English speech or tongue‘.

The intended effect of all this legislation was to entrust the administration of Wales to its leading townspeople and landed classes, but it had the indirect effect of encouraging fluency in English and turning Welsh-speaking monoglots into second-class citizens. What the English language gained in status as the lingua franca of government, the Welsh language lost, and what English-speakers gained in opportunities and privileges, Welsh-speakers lost.

By the end of the sixteenth century, English had become the high-status upwardly-mobile language for both Church and Government in Wales. Although the survival of Welsh would never have arisen as a question in that era, there was a growing divide in Welsh society and culture between Welsh-speakers and English-speakers. Would there be a future for ‗the ancient tongue‘?

An intimation of where that future might lie appeared in the convergence of the new technology of printing and the new requirements of the emerging Anglican Church. In the last year of Henry‘s reign, John Prys of Brecon published the first book in the Welsh language, containing passages of Scripture, the Creed, the Lord‘s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. In 1549 the new monarch, Edward VI, who had been raised by Continental Reformers, advanced the Protestant cause by, among other measures, authorizing the first English Book of Common Prayer, and granting Anglican priests the right to marry. In response to these developments, William Salesbury of Llansannan, Denbighshire, published two books. In 1550, his Ban wedi ei dynnu o Gyfraith Hywel Dda argued that clergy had been permitted to marry under the tenth century Welsh king Hywel the Good. The following year, Salesbury published the more significant Kynniver Llith a Ban, a Welsh version of the Gospels and Epistles from the new Book of Common Prayer, ‗the first substantial translation of the Scriptures into Welsh‘.26

As John Davies explains, this wedding of technology and religion was crucial for the future of the ancient tongue: ‗between 1546 and 1660, 108 books were published in Welsh, an infinitesimal number compared with the numbers published in English or French, but one which compares favourably with other languages which were not languages of state; in that period, only four books were published in Scottish Gaelic and only eleven in Irish‘.27

ONE MAN‘S REFORMATION IS ANOTHER WOMAN‘S RESTORATION

Henry VIII‘s reforming passions lay more in Church polity than Church theology, though he took a keen interest in the latter. In 1521, Pope Leo acquiesced to Henry‘s request and conferred on the King the title ‗Defender of the Faith‘ for upholding the Roman Catholic Church‘s traditional numbering of seven Sacraments against Martin Luther‘s assertion of only two— Baptism and Eucharist. Because issues of succession rather than theology motivated his reformation of the Church, Henry was very much a traditional English, if not Roman, Catholic when he died in 1547.

If Henry was a theological traditionalist and centrist, Edward VI was not. In his brief reign of six years, he pulled the English Catholic Church leftward into Protestantism. In addition to 9 publishing the first Book of Common Prayer and reinstating clerical marriage, he ordered the substitution of tables for altars, the destruction of religious statues and paintings, reception of Holy Communion in both kinds (bread and wine), elimination of prayers for the dead in the burial office, and the reduction of the medieval Roman Catholic Church‘s eight orders of ministry to the three nascent New Testament ministries of bishop, priest, and deacon.

Edward‘s death at fifteen was followed by the ascent of Mary, Henry‘s first-born daughter from his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Mary desired to push the English Church back into the obedience of the Roman Catholic Church. By and large the people of Wales supported Mary. Of three hundred heretics burned at the stake in her efforts to restore Papal authority, only three were Welsh, including the bishop of Tyddewi in Caerfyrddin. And when Mary dispatched her envoy to Rome to effect the reconciliation with Rome, it was Edward Carne of Ewenni whom she sent. John Davies informs us why Mary was so popular among the Welsh: ‗to them, Protestantism was ―the English religion‖ ‘.28 Indeed, Geraint Jenkins maintains that Catholicism might have triumphed for good had Mary not died in November 1558.29

SETTLING ON WELSH

The new Queen, Elizabeth I, immediately set about achieving a settlement of the religious issues she inherited from her father and half-siblings. By April 1559 Parliament had passed Bills of Uniformity and Supremacy that together established the Church of England. Alone among Mary‘s bishops, Anthony Kitchen of Llandaff took the Oath of Supremacy. The Gwent County (Wales) History Association offers this droll obituary:

He served the diocese under four monarchs and through all the religious turmoil of the sixteenth century, from 1545 until his death. This has been variously interpreted as greed, cowardice and a remarkable triumph of the ecumenical spirit.30

John Davies asserts that ‗it was principally through [Kitchin] that the episcopate of the Church of England retained apostolic succession, a matter of central importance to High Anglicans‘.31 In any event, the Welsh Church generally accepted the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, aided by two wise decisions of statecraft, and one popular conceit.

The first wise decision was Elizabeth‘s appointment of ‗high-calibre bishops to further the work of godly reformation‘.32 One of these was Richard Davies, the son of a north Wales curate. Educated at Oxford where he imbibed reformation ideas, he was ordained a priest during Edward‘s reign, and weathered Mary‘s in Frankfort with his family. On his return to Wales, Elizabeth appointed him first as the bishop of St. Asaph‘s, and then, in 1561, of St. David‘s. In their turn, Elizabeth‘s bishops ‗succeeded in attracting some of the younger sons of gentry families into the ranks of the clergy, and . . . also recruited graduates who had experienced the Protestant atmosphere of the universities of England‘.33

Capitalizing on English concerns about Welsh support for Mary, and on the reformation ideal ‗Of Speaking in the Congregation in such a Tongue as the people understandeth‘,34 Davies and other progressive Church leaders prevailed on Elizabeth and Parliament to make a second wise decision. Accordingly, an Act of Parliament in 1563 mandated that by St. David‘s Day 1567— a fitting and astute date— there should be a Welsh translation of the Book of Common Prayer and of the Bible in every parish. Geraint Jenkins comments:

This statute drove a coach and horses through the programme of ‗unity‘ and 10 ‗uniformity‘ prescribed in the [sixteenth century] Acts of Union. Although the drive towards political unity remained firmly on the agenda, it would be achieved only at the price of empowering and energizing the ‗contemptible‘ Welsh tongue in the religious domain. The native language was given the priceless advantage of becoming the medium of religion, a common and durable linking between the parson and parishioner.35

While John Davies observes that ‗the authorities considered religious uniformity to be more important than linguistic uniformity‘, he also notes that Parliament insisted that the churches in Wales should have an English Bible alongside the Welsh Bible.36

The popular conceit that captured the Welsh imagination, challenged the opinion that Protestantism was the ‗English religion‘, and bolstered support for the Elizabethan Settlement, had its roots in an ancient tradition that Joseph of Arimathea brought the Holy Grail to England and built Britain‘s first church in Glastonbury. Drawing on that tradition, Bishop Davies prefaced the Welsh New Testament with an ‗Epistol at y Cembru‘ [‗Letter to the Welsh] in which he wrote that ‗the Britons kept their religion pure and spotless as they had received it from Joseph of Arimathea and from the Church of Rome when she was pure and kept to the rule of God‘s word‘.37 In an ecclesiastical tour de force, Davies contended that the ancient Celtic Church had always been a Protestant Church.

Y BEIBL CYMRAEG— THE WELSH BIBLE

William Salesbury, whose Kynniver Llith a Ban had been published a decade before, almost single-handedly translated the New Testament, with some help from Bishop Davies and Thomas Huet. They based their translation on Desiderius Erasmus‘ 1516 edition of the Greek New Testament. Salesbury and Davies collaborated in producing the Welsh Prayer Book. Working diligently and carefully in the Bishop‘s Palace at Abergwili, Caerfyrddin, a respected centre for Welsh scholarship, they completed their translations by St. David‘s Day, 1561.38

The work of translating the Old Testament and Apocrypha into Welsh fell to William Morgan. Born at Tŷ Mawr, Penmachno, in the majestic mountains of Snowdonia, he was the Rector of St. Dogfan, Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, when he undertook his great task.39 He yearned to give preachers ‗the words to explain in Welsh the sacred mysteries contained in the Holy Scriptures‘.40 When he had finished the Old Testament, he proceeded to ‗cleanse‘ Salesbury‘s and Davies‘ translation of the New Testament. Finally, in 1588, the first complete Welsh Bible was published.

Morgan‘s masterpiece was a contemporary success, ‗easy for congregations to listen to, read, and understand‘.41 In the words of the twentieth century poet David James Jones (Gwenallt), it had turned the Welsh language into ‗one of the dialects of God‘s Revelation‘.42And it more than fulfilled Elizabeth‘s and Parliament‘s hopes for transforming the Welsh Church into a steadfastly Protestant Church.

But it was not just a triumph for the Welsh Church, it was a cultural coup as well. John Davies writes that the Welsh Bible ensured the continuance of the Welsh language as something more than a spoken language. As parsons throughout Wales were addressing their congregations, Sunday after Sunday, in the solemn rhythms of the Welsh of the Bible (and as importantly, if not more importantly, in the Welsh of the Prayer Book), they familiarized the Welsh with 11 an exalted image of their language.

Moreover,

The language of the Bible was the language which had been nurtured by the bardic system, for Salesbury, Morgan, and Davies had been immersed in the rich idiom of the poets of the ―Great Century‖ [1440-1540] of Welsh literature. That richness was safeguarded— only just in time, probably— in the translation of the Bible. 43

PURITY COMES IN TWO FLAVOURS

The seventeenth century brought a new challenge from within the Anglican Church. For some committed Protestants the Church needed further purifying of its Roman Catholic past. These Puritans, abetted by the revolution in widely-available editions of vernacular Bibles, required scriptural warrants for liturgical and ecclesiastical practices. Some of the Puritans advocated and formed churches independent of the Church of England. The Puritan position strengthened through the 1640s and they achieved political primacy during the years of the Civil War, the Commonwealth, and the Protectorate. Parliament passed an ‗Act for the Better Propagation for the Gospel in Wales (1650), which empowered the Puritans to purify the Church of unfit clergy— nearly three hundred of them.

The Protectorate failed to retain its popular support, and after Oliver Cromwell died, so did the Protectorate. Parliament invited Charles II to restore the monarchy, and, by the Act of Uniformity of 1662, empowered the Anglicans to purify the Church of Puritans; over one hundred clergy lost their livings. Members of the emerging Presbyterian, Baptist, and Independent churches suffered periodic persecutions, and many of those whose stations in life were comfortable decided to return to the Anglican Church. As a result, ‗Nonconformity in Wales came to depend upon the middle ranks of society— the craftsmen and the yeomen. As they, in the main, had little knowledge of English, Nonconformity in most parts of Wales become thoroughly Welsh in language‘.44

READING AND REVIVAL

Welsh Dissenters, following the lead of the sixteenth century reformers, used the printing press to enjoy a disproportionate influence in the religious life of Wales. Thomas Gouge, a London clergyman, had founded a ‗Welsh Trust‘ in 1674 to evangelize Wales. A Carmarthenshire Independent, Stephen Hughes, asked Gouge to underwrite a Welsh religious press. Together they published, among other works, a posthumous collection of poems by Rhys Prichard, titled The Welshmen’s Candle (Cannwyll y Cymry, 1681). Prichard, ‗Yr Hen Ficer‘— the Old Vicar— was ‗one of the most effective communicators of the Christian message in the history of Wales. His teachings were contained in easily remembered verses in colloquial Carmarthenshire Welsh‘. Gouge and Hughes also produced a Welsh version of Pilgrim’s Progress (Taith y Pererin, 1688). Most significantly, they printed 8,000 Bibles in 1678 and 10,000 more in 1690.45

In 1698 Thomas Bray, an English priest, founded the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) ‗to promote and encourage the creation of charity schools in all parts of England and Wales; to disperse both at home and abroad, Bibles and tracts of religion. . . .‘46 By 1740, the SPCK had nearly a hundred such schools, almost half of them in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire. Because religious publishing was firmly established in Wales, the SPCK used Welsh in many of its schools. In 1719 Sir Humphrey Mackworth, a Welsh industrialist and 12 founding member of the SPCK, suggested a system of itinerant schoolmasters. A decade later Mackworth‘s scheme began to flourish under the leadership of Griffith Jones.

Born in Carmarthenshire of Nonconformist parents, Griffith Jones had a profound religious experience while working as a shepherd and sought ordination in the Anglican Church. Appointed rector of a parish church in Llanddowror in 1716, he soon gained a reputation as a powerful preacher. His concern for literacy made him a natural ally of the SPCK, but he also wanted Welsh to be the sole medium of instruction, so he launched his own circulating schools in 1730, using Welsh Books of Common Prayer, Bibles, and catechisms as textbooks. To allay the concerns of English financial patrons who disdained the Welsh tongue, he seems to have suggested that English was ‗a language of bawdy novels and dubious literature and worldly commerce‘, and contained ‗dangerous ideas and loose morals‘ best kept from the children, tenant farmers, labourers, and servants who attended his schools. 47

The children were usually taught by day, the adults by night. A schoolteacher might stay for about three months before moving on to a new community. By 1760 Jones‘ circulating schools had reached some 160,000 students in 3500 schools in 1600 Welsh communities. Of Griffith Jones‘ legacy John Davies writes: ‗His efforts led to a fundamental transformation of the life of Wales. By the second half of the eighteenth century, Wales was one of the few countries with a literate majority‘. And Geraint Jenkins notes that ‗The upsurge in literacy rates and the injection of new life into dormant or inactive churches greatly strengthened the Evangelical revival and church life in general‘.48

Griffith Jones might lay claim to one more legacy: Welsh Methodism. John Davies points out that the Methodist revival broke out where Jones‘ schools were most numerous, and that Jones personally influenced its leading lights, Howel Harris, David Rowland, and William Williams. Nevertheless, like Griffith Jones, they all remained staunch members of the Anglican Church.49

On Whit Sunday 1735— now the ‗Day of Pentecost: Whitsunday‘, commemorating the gift of the Holy Spirit— Howel Harris worshipped in his home parish in Talgarth, Breconshire. After receiving Holy Communion he experienced a deep stirring of the Spirit. Moved by this encounter, he became an exhorter, urging people to prepare for and receive Holy Communion. Turned down for ordination, he channelled his devotion into preaching. In 1737 Harris met Daniel Rowland, and they began their collaboration to develop a Welsh Methodist movement. Rowland was his brother‘s curate in the parish of Llangeitho in Cardiganshire. When the Methodist revival swept through Llangeitho, he began preaching. He also began celebrating Holy Communion at the far reaches of his parish in its chapels of ease. In 1743 Howel Harris visited him, and was astonished by what he saw and heard in response to Rowland‘s preaching: ‗such Crying out and Heart Breaking Groans, Silent Weeping and Holy Joy, and shouts of rejoicing I never saw‘.50

William Williams, the son of Independents, was converted while listening to Howel Harris in the Talgarth churchyard. He became an Anglican, but because of his Methodist enthusiasm the bishop would not ordain him. Perhaps that was all to the good, because he had a special gift for hymn-writing and poetry. Taking the name Pantycelyn from his mother‘s old home, he was also known as ‗the Sweet Singer‘. Patrick Thomas writes that Pantycelyn‘s hymns ‗provided a communal expression of intensely personal spiritual experience‘.51

Geraint Jenkins explains the movement‘s draw:

13 Methodism‘s attractive combination of open-air sermons, individual introspection, and fervent hymn-singing appealed principally to yeoman farmers, tradesmen, craftsmen, artisans and women. Young married women were often in the majority in rural-based society meetings and they thrived on the opportunity to socialize with like-minded males and to deepen their spiritual experiences.

These society meetings, or seiadau— fellowship meetings—created by Howel Harris ‗to keep the believers from backsliding‘, helped its members sort out everyday problems. A trained counsellor led these meetings, and by 1750 there were over 400 of them in Wales. In turn, the societies were linked together in sessions— sasiwn— and these often set up their own printing presses to publish sermons, hymns, and books of advice.

The Methodists hoped to renew the Anglican Church through their movement of revival, and eighteenth century Wales remained loyal to the Church. But the Church‘s loyalty to the Welsh was not so firm. For example, after 1715 (and until 1870), only Englishmen were appointed to Welsh sees, there was a general decline in the quality of Welsh clergy, and church buildings fell into disrepair.

John Davies makes this scathing indictment of the English bishops appointed for Wales:

Their great disfavour to the Welsh Church was undoubtedly to associate it with anglicization. The Church of England had made a distinguished contribution to the life of Wales, but under the Hanoverians its higher ranks became totally English . . . As most of the lower clergy were Welsh speakers, inadequately educated and rustic in manner, they were considered not to be gentlemen; in consequence, Welsh clergy rarely advanced beyond the most modest offices, a cause of great bitterness among Welsh intellectuals. 52

Welsh Methodism had an English-born rival in Wesleyan Methodism. By 1770 there were some six Wesleyan societies in the anglicized parts of the country. Some attempts were made to convey their message in Welsh, aided by Thomas Coke, a native of Brecon. From about 1800 to 1814, Wesleyan Methodism grew faster than Welsh Methodism, with more than 100 congregations. In response, Welsh Methodists added ‗Calvinist‘ to their name, incorporating as a denomination in 1811, to differentiate themselves from their more ‗liberal‘ cousins.53

Following the example of Griffith Jones, the Welsh Calvinist Methodists embraced the idea of Sunday Schools to promote Scriptural literacy. To provide inexpensive Bibles, the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded in 1802; its first project was 20,000 Welsh Bibles. To assist teachers and students, Thomas Clark, a leader in Welsh Methodism, published a Geiriadur Ysgrythyrawl (Biblical Dictionary, 1805-11).54

The Anglican Church was not completely moribund. Thomas Price (whose bardic name was Carnhuanawc) served in the growing industrial districts of Breconshire from 1813 until his death in 1848. He worked hard to encourage Welsh-speaking among the Anglican clergy and advocated for Welsh-medium schools. Another Anglican, Morris Williams (Nicander), revised the Welsh Book of Common Prayer and edited Llyfr yr Homiliau (Book of Homilies, 1847.) He was a pioneer in the early Tractarian or Oxford Movement in the Diocese of Bangor. Some of the poems in his collection Y Flwyddyn Eglwysig (The Church Year, 1843), were adapted as hymns.55

14

LANGUAGE, LITURGY, AND LEARNING

By 1851 Anglicans had become so alienated from the Welsh language and culture that less than ten per cent of Welsh worshippers went to Anglican churches, and almost ninety per cent frequented Nonconformist chapels. In response, the Church made some tentative steps toward improving the situation. Church wealth was redistributed to support and improve the quality of clergy, the Incorporated Church Building Society helped parishes repair and rebuild their churches, and new parishes were founded. Some English-speaking priests began learning Welsh, and beginning with Prime Minister William Gladstone‘s appointment of Joshua Hughes as bishop of St. Asaph‘s in 1870, all new bishops of Wales were Welsh-speaking (until 1920).56

Even so, with Methodism strong in rural Welsh-speaking areas, and Independents and Baptists strong in Welsh-speaking industrial districts, Nonconformity and the Welsh language had formed a mutually reinforcing alliance in the nineteenth century. But two new developments challenged that relationship. First, middle-class English Nonconformists began to adopt a Darwinian view of Welsh as a doomed language in its competition with English, and some of their Welsh colleagues agreed. Second, increasing immigration from England put pressure on Nonconformist chapels to offer English-speaking alternatives. In stark contrast with the first half of the nineteenth century, Nonconformist Welsh-language publishing all but ceased in the second half.

If some of the Nonconformists were softening their allegiance to Welsh, other citizens were hardening their antipathy to Welsh. Wales had been experiencing industrial unrest, exemplified by the Newport Rising of 1839, and farmer discontent, exemplified by the Rebecca Riots in the early 1840‘s. The Welsh language was blamed for contributing to the social strife. In 1846 William Williams, a Welsh MP representing Coventry, called for a Royal Commission to address the question of education in Wales. The Royal Commission made its report a year later, containing this contemptuous denunciation of Welsh:

The Welsh language is a vast drawback to Wales and a manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people. Because of their language the mass of the Welsh people are inferior to the English in every branch of practical knowledge and skill. . . . Equally in his new or old home his language keeps him under the hatches, being one in which he can neither acquire nor communicate the necessary information. It is the language of old fashioned agriculture, of theology and of simple rustic life, while all the world about him is English. . . . He is left to live in an underworld of his own and the march of society goes completely over his head!57

The Report, primarily the work of Anglicans, attacked the Welsh chapels and Nonconformity as well. In response, the Nonconformist denominations entered the fray of local and national politics to fight for their rights. They persuaded Gladstone that Nonconformists were the true representatives of the Welsh people. They introduced a bill to disestablish the Welsh Church, claiming that only the chapels reflected Welsh values. This mutual hostility between Church and Chapel prevented their collaboration on public education, and the Education Bill passed by Parliament in 1870 legislated English as the only medium for teaching.58

The statutory supremacy of English for Welsh government achieved in the sixteenth century now extended to Welsh education, further diminishing the status of the Welsh language. One notorious by-product of the new English-only policy was the ‗Welsh Not‘, a wooden stick or slate plaque bearing the initials ‗W N‘ and hung around the necks of children who spoke Welsh 15 during school. Sometimes the last child possessing the Welsh Not at the end of the day was punished; sometimes a child could escape punishment by naming another Welsh-speaking child. The Welsh Not was never official government policy, and may have been more prevalent in Cardigan, Caerfyrddin, and Merioneth than elsewhere, but for the children who suffered the humiliation of wearing it, the Welsh Not was a cruel reinforcement of their imputed cultural inferiority.59

THE ANGLICAN WELSH KNOT

The Anglican Church was inherently less immune than were the Nonconformist denominations to the intensifying siren call of the English language in Wales, yet it still contained many who found the ancient tongue enchanting. Two brothers, A. G. and Henry T. Edwards, exemplified this ecclesiastical schizophrenia. To A. G. Edwards, elected Bishop of St. Asaph in 1889, Welsh was ‗the last refuge of the uneducated‘— though he himself was Welsh-speaking.60 Fighting against the campaign to disestablish the Anglican Church in Wales, Bishop Edwards hoped to maintain its privileges and status. His brother Henry thought otherwise. As early as 1870 his advocacy of Welsh bishops for the Welsh Church succeeded in moving the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, to appoint Joshua Hughes as Bishop of St. Asaph, the first such episcopal appointment since 1715. When Henry became the Dean of Bangor in 1876, he worked hard to provide the diocese with educated Welsh-speaking clergy.61

In the decades on either side of the turn of the twentieth century, the Anglican Welsh Knot alternately tightened and loosened. In the meantime, the Welsh Disestablishment Bill made its way through Parliament. Passed in 1914 but postponed owing to the Great War, it finally took effect in 1920. The Knot tightened with the appointment of A. G. Edwards as the first Archbishop of the new Church in Wales, which had been severed from Canterbury as well as from Whitehall. 62 In keeping with his anti-Welsh bias, the administration of the four Welsh dioceses was conducted in English.

The Knot loosened when Dr Maurice Jones became the Principal of Saint David‘s College, Lampeter. This institution produced most of the Welsh clergy, and under Dr Jones‘ leadership its syllabus and activities reflected his commitment to the Welsh language. The Knot further loosened with the appointment of Timothy Rees in 1931 as the bishop of Llandaff. He signalled his intentions from the very beginning of his episcopal ministry. Although the Welsh-language version of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer included a service for consecrating bishops, it had never been used. Timothy Rees used it for his consecration. The new bishop‘s dedication to Welsh was matched by his dedication to the people of the diocese, and his advocacy for those who worked in the coalfields during the Depression sapped his heath. Bishop Rees died in 1939.63

CHRISTIANITY AND CYMRAEG IN CRISIS

In his book Fydd ac Argyfwng Cenedl (Faith and the Crisis of the Nation, 1981, 1982), R. Tudur Jones summarized the ‗close marriage between Christianity and Welsh culture‘ at the turn of the twentieth century. If more than sixty per cent of a community spoke Welsh, then over half of them were likely to be church members; but if a similar proportion of the community spoke English, only a third of them were likely to be church members. This positive correlation between Welsh-speaking and church-going would have been reassuring had not the proportion of Welsh speakers in Wales dropped from just over fifty per cent of the population in 1901 to less than forty-four per cent in 1911.64 As the century wore on, the numbers of Welsh speakers 16 and churchgoers would continue to contract. In addition to sharing this common challenge with the new Church in Wales, the Roman Catholic and Nonconformist communities had their own peculiar Welsh Knots to worry over.

Nonconformist church membership reached its peak in 1926. Densil Morgan believes that the attraction of socialism for working-class Nonconformists contributed to its subsequent decline. Just as nineteenth-century Darwinism cast doubts on the likelihood and even desirability of the survival of the Welsh language, so twentieth-century Socialism ‗signified fashionableness, modernity, and progress, while the Welsh language was synonymous with puritanism and the Liberalism of the past‘. This socialist trajectory was personified in the 1930s by Aneurin Bevan, the non-religious, non-Welsh-speaking MP for Ebbw Vale. In the secular Wales of the industrial valleys, the younger generation abandoned both religion and the Welsh language.65

One of the topics that engaged European intellectuals in the nineteenth century was nationality and nationhood. This included an awareness that certain ethnic groups— Slavs, Teutons, and Celts among them— transcended national boundaries; and that some previously independent smaller nations had been absorbed by larger ones. The Roman Catholic Church participated in this awareness, and in 1895 created a separate apostolic vicariate for Wales, the Diocese of Menevia. In 1916 Pope Benedict XV published an apostolic letter titled Cambria Celtica, creating a second diocese, the Archdiocese of Cardiff. The letter declared in part:

Wales, a nation of Celtic origin, differs so much from the rest of England in language, traditions, and ancient customs that it would seem in the ecclesiastical order also to call for separation from the other churches and for the possession of its own hierarchy.66

A year later, Benedict wrote in Maximum Illud that a priest should be at one with his people in background, culture, and language. The pontiff‘s commitment had an evangelistic purpose as well, and twenty years later that purpose was still appreciated by some Welsh Roman Catholics in Wales, among them R. O. F. Wynne. In 1934, in an article for The Tablet, a Roman Catholic periodical, he wrote: ‗The language question is, without a doubt, the distinctive problem to be faced in any attempt to re-Catholicize Wales, for the Welsh people are very deaf to all attempts made to ―reach‖ them in English‘.67

Although there were Roman Catholics in Wales who, like Wynne, recognized the opportunity to ‗reach‘ their fellow citizens, most had descended from English-speaking immigrants and had little use for the Welsh language. In any event, the peculiar Roman Catholic Welsh Knot is illustrated by H. W. J. Edwards‘ letter to the Western Mail in 1952: ‗As a Catholic I am glad that there are more Catholics. As a Cymro [Welshman] I am afraid that the rise of Roman Catholicism in Wales will mean the destruction of Welsh speech and ways‘.68 A decade later, Vatican II reinforced Edwards‘ fears. In Sacrosanctum Concilium, its document on liturgy, the Latin Mass in Wales gave way to an English Mass rather than a Welsh Mass.69

By the 1960s Christianity and Cymraeg seemed to be in free-fall. The Great War, the Depression, the Second World War, the threat of nuclear arms, and rising affluence had extracted a heavy toll. Welsh speakers represented only a quarter of the population, and most of them lived in rural areas. Welsh monoglots were dying out. Losses in language were matched by losses in religion, especially among the Nonconformists. Calvinist Methodist, Baptist, and Congregational chapel attendance had fallen. Perhaps most alarmingly, all denominations had experienced a dramatic decline in their Sunday Schools; in just twenty years, from 1935 to 1955, attendance dropped forty per cent.70 17 Graham Jones summarized the situation:

The traditional Welsh ‗Sabbath‘ was ever more undermined as people worked, shopped, relaxed and holidayed during the weekend. The large chapels of south Wales emptied, combined, closed; [although] those in rural, Welsh-speaking areas still served to some extent as the focal point of their local communities.71

The continuing strength of Nonconformity in Welsh-speaking areas was demonstrated in 1961. In accordance with a provision in that year‘s Licensing Act, a poll was conducted to determine whether pubs could open on Sundays. The chapels organized successfully to defeat Sunday openings in Anglesey, Caernarfon, Cardigan, Caerfyrddin, Denbigh, Merioneth, Montgomery, and Pembroke. But when all the votes were tallied, the urban, English-speaking population centres prevailed. Commenting on the results, the Revd R. Ifor Parry, a Congregational minister from Aberdere, wrote that ‗On the whole, wherever people retain their Welsh, they also remain loyal to the chapel. . . . the fate of Nonconformity is bound up, therefore, with the fate of the language in many areas‘. 72

The crisis of decline in Christianity and Cymraeg entailed a new possibility. From the dawn of Celtic Christianity, Welsh had been the language of both Religion and Regime. When English supplanted Welsh under King Henry VIII, the ‗Ancient Tongue‘ had been imperilled. But ever since Elizabeth I had restored Welsh as the language of Religion, Christianity had sheltered and sustained it. By the eighteenth century, their relationship had evolved into a more mature, creative, and reciprocal relationship. But now, as Welsh and Christianity experienced declining numbers, it seemed as though Welsh would have to seek a new, secular, alliance to survive.

WELSH RESURRECTION?

In 1962 the literary figure and sometime Nationalist candidate Saunders Lewis gave a radio lecture titled Tynged yr Iaith (Fate of the Language). He urged his listeners to ‗make it impossible to conduct local or central government without the Welsh language‘ and to launch ‗a movement rooted in those areas where Welsh is an everyday spoken language‘.73 Lewis not only galvanized nationalist feeling; Welsh-speaking Nonconformists also rallied, generating hope for a renewed relationship between Christianity and Cymraeg. An article in Seren Cymru (Star of Wales) on 16 February 1973 announced:

In the midst of the national awakening and the contemporary ferment, we find the Welsh language— Welsh and road signs and the television and the courts and rural cottages and hunger strikes and protest campaigns. And it is certain that emphasis will soon be placed on the relationship between Welsh and Christianity since the Welsh language has been bound up with the Faith from the time of Wales‘s birth as a nation in the age of the decline of the Roman Empire and the Age of the Saints— Dewi, Illtyd, Dyfrig, Teilo, Padarn, the leaders of one of the greatest revivals Wales ever saw.74

The Nonconformist traditions weren‘t alone in this renewal; a similar transformation was under way in the Church in Wales.

In 1969 the newly-elected Archbishop of Wales, Glyn Simon, visited Dafydd Iwan, the chairman of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society), who had been imprisoned for protesting in favour of bilingual road signs. It was the new Archbishop‘s contention that ‗There is nothing unscriptural or un-Christian in nationalism as such‘, and he was fully in 18 sympathy with the campaign to make Wales a truly bilingual society.75 Gradually, over the next generation, the Church in Wales deliberately if haltingly sorted out its approach to the challenge facing all Welsh denominations: preaching and ministering in a bilingual church and in a bilingual society.

One fruit of that effort was the Church‘s publication in 1981 of Y Llyfr Gweddi Gyffredin i’w arfer yn Yr Eglwys yng Nghymru — The Book of Common Prayer for use in the Church in Wales, which provided the Welsh text on the left and the English text opposite. As Densil Morgan commented, it replaced ‗at long last, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Thus, sixty years after disestablishment, Welsh Anglicanism declared its liturgical independence from Canterbury‘.76

In their book on the Church in Wales, authors Christopher Harris and Richard Startup explore the meaning of ‗Bilingualism‘. It could mean ‗dual provision‘, with a given parish offering one of its worship services in Welsh and the other in English. Alternatively, it could mean a parish whose services contain both Welsh and English. On the whole, they report, the Church in Wales prefers the second option for two reasons.

First, from a practical point of view, only thirty-four per cent of its priests can preach in Welsh, although this is a higher percentage than Welsh speakers in the general population. Recognizing this reality, the Church encourages its ordination candidates to learn Welsh, and many of them are able to conduct services in Welsh even though they may not be able to preach fluently in Welsh. Second, from a theological point of view, ‗dual provision‘ runs counter to the inclusive nature of a Church that strives to transcend ethnic differences and find its unity in Jesus Christ. As of 1989, twenty-two per cent of parishes adopted the ‗blended‘ approach, fifteen per cent opted for ‗dual provision‘, only three in a thousand parishes worshipped exclusively in Welsh, and the rest worshipped exclusively in English.

The Church‘s policy to promote the Welsh language extends beyond worship. The meetings of its Governing Body ‗are conducted in both languages (with simultaneous translation for English monoglots)‘. Moreover, most of its bishops are Welsh-speaking, and with the election of Barry Morgan as the Archbishop of Wales in 2003, Welsh has been the first language of four of the last five archbishops.77 Archbishop Morgan succeeded Rowan Williams, who was confirmed as the first Welsh Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002.

Harris and Startup commend the ‗predominantly ―Welsh‖ character‘ of the Church in Wales because forty per cent of its members claim the ability to speak Welsh either fluently or partly, compared to only twenty per cent of the general population.78

―Welsh Resurrection?‖ remains an open question in these first years of the third millennium. Welsh-medium commerce, Welsh-medium television, and Welsh-medium government following devolution, together with statistics suggesting an increase in the proportion of Welsh- speakers, are all hopeful signs. Resurrection for Welsh-medium Churches and Chapels seems less hopeful.

In his essay on ‗The Welsh Language and Religion‘, Densil Morgan offers a poignant and passionate commentary on the correlating careers of Christianity and Cymraeg since Queen Elizabeth I authorized the first Welsh Prayer Books and Bibles:

Until the mid-twentieth century and thereafter in areas where Welsh was still the principal language, religion was the only domain in which Welsh had a strong foothold. 19 In all other spheres— government, commerce, education (apart from the primary schools), the mass media such as radio, television, the cinema, and the main newspapers, and modern Anglo-American culture— English was the medium. This divide proved detrimental to religion and the Welsh language alike. Any dichotomy between the sacred and the secular undermines religion since it sets limits on God’s sovereignty and denies the Lordship of Christ over his whole creation. In Welsh- speaking areas the tendency was to limit ‗religion‘ to specific religious activities such as chapel attendance, worship, prayer, Sunday school activities and aspects of personal morality. Just as religion was prevented from claiming its lordship over secular matters, whether politics, economics, aesthetics or social morality, so bounds were set on the ability of the Welsh language to encompass all aspects of life since English was the language of ‗the world‘.79

Like its Lord, Christianity is always incarnate in particular cultures, geographies, times— and languages. Yet each of those particularities contributes to the richness of the Christian Faith. In 1988, that richness was enhanced when the Word was made Welsh once again with the publication of Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd (The New Welsh Bible), coinciding with the 400th anniversary of William Morgan‘s Welsh Bible.

The Nonconformist theologian J. E. Daniels, who flourished in the 1940s, provides a fitting conclusion to this examination of the correlating careers of Christianity and Cymraeg:

And we believe that in the eternal Pentecost Bernard will be there singing his Jesu, dulcis memoria, and Luther his Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, and Watts his ‗When I survey the wondrous cross‘, and Pantycelyn his Iesu, Iesu, rwyt Ti’n ddigon, without Bernard forgetting his Latin nor Luther his German, nor Watts his English nor Pantycelyn his Welsh, and without that hindering in any way the perfect concord of their understanding and their harmony.80

20

ENDNOTES

1 Galatians 3:1; 4:10f 2 Bede, A History of the English Church and People, Penguin Books, 1968, p. 101. 3 Liaugminas, Andrew V., Welsh: History, www.mezzofanti.org/welsh.html. 4 Davies, John, A History of Wales, The Penguin Group, 1993, page 23. 5 Fisher, Andrew, A Traveller‘s History of Scotland, Interlink Books, 2000, p. 18 6 Foster, Peter, and Alfred Toth, ―Toward a phylogenetic chronology of ancient Gaulish, Celtic, and Indo-European,‖ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America [PNAS], Vol. 100, July 22, 2003, p. 9079-9084, passim. 7 In Welsh, the single- f consonant is pronounced like the English v, the double-f consonant like the English f; the wy combination is usually pronounced oo-ee; and the consonant c is always pronounced as an English k. 8 Davis, p. 69-71. Davies suggests that the common idea that Cymry denoted ‗foreigners,‘ is mistaken. Rather, he thinks it refers to people who have been Romanized. He cites cognate proper nouns including the Walloons of Belgium and the Welsch of the Italy, and even ‗the Welschnuss, the walnut, . . . the nut of Roman lands‘. 9 Pryce, A. Huw, ‗Frontier Wales c. 1063-1282‘, in The Tempus History of Wales 25,000 B.C. – A. D, 2000, ed. Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing, 2001, p. 103. 10 pronounced: duh-skee-ice ee gum-rīg (the consonant g is always sounded like the English ‗go‘) 11 Bede, p. 42. 12 Thomas, Patrick and Philip Morris, comps., A Supplement to Exciting Holiness, Church in Wales Publications, 1998, p. 28. 13 Article XXVI of the Articles of Religion. 14 Davies, p. 75. 15 The Welsh word for Mary is Mair, and because llan is feminine, the M soft mutates to an F: Llanfair. 16 ‗St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave‘. 17 Morgan, D. Densil, The Span of the Cross: Christian Religion and Society in Wales 1914- 2000, Dinefwr Press, 1999, p. 1. 18 Davies, p. 77-78. 19 Bede, p. 206. 20 Davies, p. 117-119. 21 Kightly, Charles and others, A Mirror of Medieval Wales: Gerald of Wales and His Journey of 1188, Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments, 1988, p.8. 22 Kightly, p. 91-92, 95. 23 Griffiths, Ralph, ‗Wales from Conquest to Union‘, in The Tempus History of Wales 25,000 B.C. – A. D, 2000, ed. Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing, 2001, p. 122. 24 ‗ap‘ means ‗son of‘; it mutates to ‗ab‘ before vowels. O-wine ap Ma-RED-ith (the accent is usually placed on the penultimate syllable). 25 Davies, p. 231-233, passim. 27 Henry VIII c. 26 refers to the statute passed in the twenty- seventh year of the reign of Henry VIII, clause 26. Its preamble declared that ‗Wales . . . is and ever hath bene incorporated, annexed, united, and subiecte to and under the imperialle Crown of this Realme.‘ quotation from Statute at icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/ 26 Thomas, p. 28. Also, Davies, p. 239-240. 27 Davies, p. 239. 28 Davies, p. 241. Caerfyrddin means ‗Merlin‘s Castle‘; its English name is Carmarthen. 21 29 Jenkins, Geraint H., ‗From Reformation to Methodism‘, in The Tempus History of Wales 25,000 B.C. – A. D, 2000, ed. Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing, 2001, p. 161. 30 http://gwent-county-history-association.newport.ac.uk/newsletter/kitchin.html 31 Davies, p. 241. 32 Jenkins, p. 161. 33 Davies, p. 245. 34 Article XXIV of the Articles of Religion: ‗It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the Primitive Church, to have public Prayer in the Church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understanded of the people‘. 35 Jenkins, p. 161. 36 Davies, p. 242. The apparent intent was to encourage the Welsh to learn English. 37 quoted by the Rev. Canon Patrick Thomas, http://www.cambriamagazine.com/dewi.htm. 38 Davies, p. 243; and Thomas, p. 36-37, 47. 39 The church, mentioned in the tax rolls of 1254, is dedicated to a fifth century Welsh martyr, descended from chieftain Brychan of Brecknock. He was slain by pagan invaders at Dyfed, Wales. A church there honours his memory. 40 Davies, p. 245. 41 Jenkins, p. 161. 42 Thomas, p. 37. 43 Davies, 243-245, passim. New editions of the Bible were published by Richard Parry, Bishop of St. Asaph, in 1620, 1629, and 1630. This last edition, in smaller form and known as the ‗Little Bible‘, or ‗Parry‘s Bible‘, was the first Bible published for the home. 44 Jenkins, p. 162-165, passim.; also, Davies, p. 287-288. 45 Thomas, p. 8; Davies, p. 289; and Jenkins, p. 164. 46 ‗SPCK‘, Cross, F. L., and E. A. Livingston, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 1527. 47 Morgan, Prys, ‗Engine of Empire c. 1750-1898‘, in The Tempus History of Wales 25,000 B.C. – A. D, 2000, ed. Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing, 2001, p. 207; and Davies, p. 307. 48 Thomas, p. 19; Griffiths, p. 169; Morgan, p. 205; and Davies, p. 307, passim (for all three Jones paragraphs). 49 Davies, p. 308. Griffiths, p. 166, notes that the ‗Methodist revival formed part of a much wider international programme of religious renewal within countries stretching from eastern Europe to the American colonies‘. 50 Jenkins, p. 168. ‗Chapels of ease‘ date to the 12th century as convenient places for parishioners who lived far from their parish church to receive the Sacraments and bury their dead. 51 Biographical materials from Thomas, p. 8-9, 30-31, 40-41, Griffiths, p. 166, Davies, p. 308- 309. Fittingly, Howel Harris was buried near the altar rails of the Talgarth Church. 52 Jenkins, p. 166; Morgan, p. 200-201; Davies, 298-299, 310. 53 Morgan, 201-203. As Methodism prospered, the Nonconformist churches conformed, evangelizing in Welsh, promoting spiritual experience, and emphasizing preaching and hymn- singing. 54 Davies, p. 341. 55 Thomas, p.7. 56 Morgan, p. 203-204; Davies, p. 419, 435. 57 www.webexcel.ndirect.co.uk/gwarnant/hanes/texts/textsbluebooks.htm. 58 Davies, p. 423, 419-420; Morgan, p. 209. 59 www.bbc.co.uk/wales/storyofwelsh/; see also www.gtj.org.uk/subjects.php?lang=en&s=1910. 22 60 D. Densil Morgan, ‗The Welsh Language and Religion‘, in ‗Let‘s Do Our Best for the Ancient Tongue‘: The Welsh Language in the Twentieth Century, ed. Geraint H. Jenkins and Mari A. Williams, University of Wales Press, 2000, p. 374. 61 Ibid., p. 373-374; www.1911encyclopedia.org/E/ED/EDWARDS_HENRY_THOMAS.htm. 62 Despite disestablishment, the new Church had a decidedly Establishment cast, as Densil Morgan observes: ‗by 1935 the governing body of the church included six barons, ten baronets, five knights, eleven titled ladies, three sons of peers, two generals, one vice-admiral, one brigadier-general, and sixteen colonels, as well as a motley array of ex-army officers and other gentry‘. D. Densil Morgan, ‗Welsh Language‘, p. 385 63 Ibid., p. 374, 385-386, passim. 64 Davies, p. 499-500; see also Densil Morgan, ‗Welsh Language‘, p. 372. 65 Densil Morgan, ‗Welsh Language‘, p. 380. 66 citation from Densil Morgan, ‗Welsh Language‘, p. 382; see also Davies, p. 387. The Archbishop of Westminster is the Roman Catholic primate of England and Wales. His seat is in Westminster Cathedral [England]. The office was created in 1850, when the Catholic Hierarchy was restored in England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archbishop_of_Westminster. 67 Densil Morgan, ‗Welsh Language‘, p. 383. 68 Ibid., p. 395. 69 Ibid., p. 394. 70 Ibid., p. 387. 71 J. Graham Jones, ‗Wales Since 1900‘, in The Tempus History of Wales 25,000 B.C. – A. D, 2000, ed. Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing, 2001, p. 241. 72 Densil Morgan, ‗Welsh Language‘, p. 390. 73 Davies, p. 649; see also Densil Morgan, ‗Welsh Language‘, p. 390. 74 Densil Morgan, ‗Welsh Language‘, p. 391-392. 75 Densil Morgan, ‗Welsh Language‘, p. 393. 76 Densil Morgan, Span of the Cross, p. 266. 77 Harris, Christopher, and Richard Startup, The Church in Wales: The Sociology of a Traditional Institution, University of Wales Press, 1999, p. 192. 78 Ibid., p. 143. 79 Densil Morgan, ‗Welsh Language‘, p. 394 [emphasis added]. 80 Daniel, J. E., ‗Gwaed y Teulu‘, cited in Densil Morgan, ‗Welsh Language‘, p. 385.

23

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bede, A History of the English Church and People, Penguin Books, 1968.

Cross, F. L., and E. A. Livingston, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, 1997.

Davies, John, A History of Wales, The Penguin Group, 1993.

Fisher, Andrew, A Traveller‘s History of Scotland, Interlink Books, 2000.

Foster, Peter, and Alfred Toth, ―Toward a phylogenetic chronology of ancient Gaulish, Celtic, and Indo-European,‖ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America [PNAS], Vol. 100, July 22, 2003.

Griffiths, Ralph, ‗Wales from Conquest to Union‘, in The Tempus History of Wales 25,000 B.C. – A. D, 2000, ed. Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing, 2001.

Harris, Christopher, and Richard Startup, The Church in Wales: The Sociology of a Traditional Institution, University of Wales Press, 1999.

J. Graham Jones, ‗Wales Since 1900‘, in The Tempus History of Wales 25,000 B.C. – A. D, 2000, ed. Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing, 2001.

Jenkins, Geraint H., ‗From Reformation to Methodism‘, in The Tempus History of Wales 25,000 B.C. – A. D, 2000, ed. Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing, 2001.

Kightly, Charles and others, A Mirror of Medieval Wales: Gerald of Wales and His Journey of 1188, Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments, 1988.

Liaugminas, Andrew V., Welsh: History, www.mezzofanti.org/welsh.html.

Morgan, D. Densil, ‗The Welsh Language and Religion‘, in ‗Let‘s Do Our Best for the Ancient Tongue‘: The Welsh Language in the Twentieth Century, ed. Geraint H. Jenkins and Mari A. Williams, University of Wales Press, 2000.

Morgan, D. Densil, The Span of the Cross: Christian Religion and Society in Wales 1914-2000, Dinefwr Press, 1999.

Morgan, Prys, ‗Engine of Empire c. 1750-1898‘, in The Tempus History of Wales 25,000 B.C. – A. D, 2000, ed. Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing, 2001.

Pryce, A. Huw, ‗Frontier Wales c. 1063-1282‘, in The Tempus History of Wales 25,000 B.C. – A. D, 2000, ed. Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing, 2001.

Thomas, Patrick and Philip Morris, comp., A Supplement to Exciting Holiness, Church in Wales Publications, 1998.

24

847-945-1678 Fax: 847-945-9511

The Very Rev. William D. Roberts, Rector St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church Dean of the Waukegan Deanery DEERFIELD AND WILMOT ROADS. DEERFIELD, ILLINOIS 60015 www.stgregoryschurch.org 15 April 2004 Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I am writing to ask your help. During my Sabbatical this summer I will be presenting a paper to a Clergy Course at St. George‟s House, Windsor Castle, England. The title of the paper is: “And the Word became Welsh”: The Correlating Careers of Christianity and Cymraeg in Wales.” In addition to tracing the history of the Welsh language and its role in both Church and Chapel, I would like to include the voices of contemporary Welsh-speaking Christians like you.

I have been a priest for 25 years, and four years ago my parish sent me on my first Sabbatical. Before going I bought a cassette tape to learn how to pronounce Welsh consonants and vowels. During the few days I spent in Wales, I received enough compliments to encourage me to study Welsh. I found a CD-ROM Welsh language program, and for the last two summers I have attended a week-long Welsh Language Course sponsored by Cymdeithas Madog, the Welsh Studies Institute in North America, Inc. After the Clergy Course in July, I will be spending a fortnight at St. David‟s Church, Carmarthen, a bilingual parish where I can immerse myself both in the Welsh language and in the life of the parish.

I would be happy to provide a copy of my paper to any Chapel or Church or to anyone who answers the Questionnaire which accompanies this letter. I would also hope to see at least some of you when I visit Wales, to thank you personally for your help and participation.

Please answer each question at any length you wish. Perhaps your Church or Chapel will collect your Questionnaires and return them together to me; or you may send yours to me at 875 Wilmot Road, Deerfield, IL 60015 U.S.A., or by email at [email protected]. I need to receive your Questionnaire by 15 May, 2004.

I would like to hear from the widest range of people possible, young and old, from those for whom Welsh is their first language to those who, like me, are just beginners; and from those who are members of a Church or Chapel to those who consider themselves to be Christians but are currently unaffiliated. Please give this letter and questionnaire to anyone you think might like to participate. In short, I would like to hear from anyone who cares about both the future of the Welsh language and the future of Christianity.

Faithfully yours, 25 “And the Word became Welsh” Questionnaire

1. Is Welsh your first language? Yes  No  If No, at what age did you begin to learn Welsh and why?

2. How often do attend worship services in Welsh? At least once a week  At least once a month  Occasionally  Never 

3. How often do you attend worship services in English? At least once a week  At least once a month  Occasionally  Never 

4. Do you own a Welsh language Bible? Yes  No  Do you own Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd? Yes  No 

5. How often do you read the Bible in Welsh? Daily  At least once a week  At least once a month  Occasionally  Never 

6. Do you own an English language Bible? Yes  No 

7. How often do you read the Bible in English? Daily  At least once a week  At least once a month  Occasionally  Never 

8. What do you like about worshipping or reading the Bible in Welsh as compared to English?

9. Are there any phrases or words you enjoy in Welsh translations as compared to English? For example, “Y Cymun Bendigaid” and “Yr Ysbryd Glân” convey a richer range of meaning than the English “Holy Communion” and “Holy Spirit.” Similarly, the Welsh ending to the Church in Wales‟ liturgy, “Anfon Allan y Bobl,” expresses the dynamic of mission much better than its English equivalent, “The Dismissal of the People.”

10. Do you think that the resurgence of Welsh is contributing to the vitality of Christianity in Wales?

11. In what ways, if any, is the Welsh and Welsh-speaking Archbishop of Canterbury influencing Welsh-speaking Christianity?

12. Is there anything else you would like to say about the relationship between Welsh and Christianity in Wales today?

26

847-945-1678 Fax: 847-945-9511

Y Tra Pharchedig William D. Roberts, Rheithor St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church Deon, Deoniaeth Waukegan DEERFIELD AND WILMOT ROADS. DEERFIELD, ILLINOIS 60015 www.stgregoryschurch.org 15 Ebrill, 2004 Annwyl Frodyr a Chwiorydd yng Nghrist,

Dw i‟n ysgrifennu i ofyn am eich cymorth. Yn ystod fy nghyfnod Sabothol yr haf yma bydda i‟n cyflwyno traethawd ar Gwrs Clerigol yn Dŷ Siôr, Castell Windsor, Lloegr. Teitl y traethawd fydd: “„A daeth y Gair yn Gymraeg‟: Gyrfaoedd Cydberthnasol Cristnogaeth a Chymraeg yng Nghymru.” Bydda i‟n olrhain hanes y Gymraeg a‟i rôl yn yr Eglwys a‟r Capel, ond hefyd baswn i‟n hoffi cynnwys lleisiau Cristnogion Cymraeg cyfoes fel chi.

Dw i wedi bod yn offeiriad ers dauddeg pum mlynedd, a phedair blynedd yn ôl anfonodd fy mhlwyf fi ar fy nghyfnod Sabothol cyntaf. Cyn i fi fynd, prynais gasetiau i ddysgu sut i ynganu cytseiniaid a llafariaid Cymraeg. Yn ystod yr ychydig ddyddiau a dreuliais yng Nghymru, ges i ddigon o ganmol i galonogi fi i astudio‟r Gymraeg. Des i o hyd i raglen Gymraeg CD-ROM, ac ers dau haf mynychais Gwrs Cymraeg wythnos a noddwyd gan Gymdeithas Madog, y Sefydliad Astudiaethau Cymreig yng Ngogledd America. Ar ôl y Cwrs Clerigol yng Ngorffennaf, bydda i‟n treulio pythefnos gydag Eglwys Dewi Sant, Caerfyrddin, plwyf dwyieithog lle galla i drochi fy hunan yn y Gymraeg a bywyd y plwyf.

Baswn i‟n hapus i ddarparu copi o fy nhraethawd i unrhyw Gapel neu Eglwys neu unrhywun sy‟n ateb yr holiadur sy‟n mynd gyda‟r llythyr yma. Dw i‟n gobeithio hefyd i weld rhai ohonoch o leia pan fydda i‟n ymweld â Chymru, er mwyn diolch chi yn bersonol am eich cymorth a‟ch cyfranogiad chi.

Os gwelwch chi‟n dda, a wnewch chi ateb pob cwestiwn— hyd at unrhyw hyd y dymunwch. Efallai y bydd eich Eglwys neu Gapel yn fodlon casglu eich holiadur a‟u danfon nhw yn ôl gyda‟i gilydd ata i; neu gallwch chi anfon eich un chi ata i: 875 Wilmot Road, Deerfield, IL 60015 U.S.A., neu postE: [email protected]. Dw i angen derbyn eich holiadur cyn 15 Mai, 2004.

Baswn i‟n hoffi clywed gan yr ystod mwyaf helaeth o bobol ag sy‟n bosib, yn ifanc ac hen, gan y rheiny sy‟n Gymraeg iaith gyntaf yn ogystal â‟r rheiny, fel fi, sy ond yn ddechreuwyr; y rheiny sy‟n ystyried eu hunain yn Gristnogion ond sy ddim yn perthyn i unrhyw sefydliad ar hyn a bryd. Os gwelwch chi‟n dda, a wnewch chi roi‟r llythyr a‟r holiadur yma i unrhywun dych chi‟n meddwl a fyddai‟n hoffi cyfrannu. Yn fyr, baswn i‟n hoffi clywed gan unrhywun sy‟n gofidio am ddyfodol y Gymraeg a Christnogaeth.

Yr eiddoch yn ffyddlon,

27 Holiadur „A Daeth Y Gair yn Gymraeg‟

1. Ai Cymraeg yw eich iaith gyntaf? Ie  Na  Os „Na‟, beth oedd eich oedran pryd y dechreuoch ddysgu Cymraeg, a pham?

2. Pa mor aml ydych chi‟n mynychu gwasanaeth addoli yn Gymraeg? O leiaf unwaith yr wythnos  O leiaf unwaith y mis  Weithiau  Byth 

3. Pa mor aml ydych chi‟n mynychu gwasanaeth addoli yn Saesneg? O leiaf unwaith yr wythnos  O leiaf unwaith y mis  Weithiau  Byth 

4. Ydych chi‟n berchen ar Feibl Gymraeg? Ydw  Nac ydw  Ydych chi‟n berchen Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd? Ydw  Nac ydw 

5. Pa mor aml ydych chi‟n darllen y Beibl yn Gymraeg? Bob dydd  O leiaf unwaith yr wythnos  O leiaf unwaith y mis  Weithiau  Byth 

6. Ydych chi‟n berchen ar Feibl yn Saesneg? Ydw  Nac ydw 

7. Pa mor aml ydych chi‟n darllen y Beibl yn Saesneg? Bob dydd  O leiaf unwaith yr wythnos  O leiaf unwaith y mis  Weithiau  Byth 

8. Beth ydych chi‟n hoffi am addoli neu ddarllen y Beibl yn Gymraeg o‟i gymharu â Saesneg?

9. Oes unrhyw gymalau neu eiriau yr ydych yn eu mwynhau yn y cyfieithiadau Cymraeg o‟i gymharu â Saesneg? Er enghraifft, mae „Y Cymun Bendigaid‟ ac „Yr Ysbryd Glân‟ yn cyfleu dewis mwy cyfoethog na „Holy Communion‟ a „Holy Spirit‟. Hefyd, mae‟r diwedd Cymraeg litwrgi‟r Eglwys yng Nghymru, „Anfon Allan y Bobl‟, yn mynegi dynameg cenhadaeth yn well o lawer na‟i gyfwerth Saesneg, „The Dismissal of the People‟.

10. Ydych chi‟n meddwl bod atgyfodiad y Gymraeg yn cyfrannu at fywiogrwydd Cristnogaeth yng Nghymru?

11. Ym mha ffyrdd, os o gwbl, mae Archesgob Caergaint sy‟n Cymro Cymraeg yn dylanwadu Cristnogaeth Gymraeg?

12. Oes unrhyw beth arall yr hoffech ei ddweud am y berthynas rhwng y Gymraeg a Christnogaeth yng Nghymru heddiw?