|
|
|||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Pilgrimage to Penrhys.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
One of the earliest recorded pilgrimage sites in Britain was the shrine of the martyr Alban in the Roman city of Verulamium. Pilgrims were going to Verulamium at the time the Roman troops were leaving Britain, before the Anglo Saxons settled here. Many centuries later, Canterbury became the great centre for pilgrimages in England. In Wales it was the monastery of Saint David which became famous as an early pilgrimage site. The journey to Saint David's was said to be almost as important as going to Rome. In the late Middle Ages a new Welsh pilgrimage site became immensly popular. This was a place called Llanfair -- the litttle Church of Mary at Penrhys, in the area that we now call the Rhonda.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Pilgrims began to travel to Penrhys after a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary was found in a tree there. The statue was described as very tender, with Mary holding the infant in her arms. Stories of miracles and healings began to circulate. The land and the church at Penrhys belonged to the monastery of Llantarnam (outside modern Cwmbran) so pilgrims gathered at the monastery and made a three day journey to Penrhys.
This was a time of warfare and raiding between the Welsh people and the Anglo Norman rulers who had conquered them. The Cistercian monks of Llantarnam Abbey were known to favour the Welsh cause, and their abbot had died on the field of battle. We should think of this as a thoroughly Welsh pilgrimage.
Welsh poets have left a record of hundreds of pilgrims on foot and on horseback heading towards Penrhys. They came from Cardiff in the south, from Margam Abbey to the west, from Brecon in the north, and from Llantarnam Abbey in the east. The statue of the Virgin became a major focus for religious piety and fervour.
At the time of the Reformation in the 16th Century, the English government ordered officers to seize the statue of Mary by night. One contemporary account records that it was taken to London to be burned in case it became a focus for a Catholic revolt against the new Protestant faith. Throughout Britain, the monasteries were closed, their churches and buildings were generally pillaged or pulled down, and pilgrims were treated as vagabonds or petty criminals. The whole network of pilgrimage routes fell into disuse. At Penrhys only part of one wall of the pilgrimage church still stands.
Re-establishing the Penrhys Pilgrimage.
After the Reformation, the pilgrimage to Penrhys was forgotten for 450 years. Then a group of enthusiasts began to reconstruct the ancient route again. With some highly skilled research, the main features of the journey were identified. Here the pilgrims followed the boundary of a monastic estate. There they halted for prayers at an ancient chapel. At another place they had come down from the high ground to cross a river by the only available bridge. Sometimes the route passed across open hills, sometimes it disappeared under modern housing estates. Gradually the pilgrim route was reconstructed. (Link here for historical details.)
It was not enough to reconstruct the route. A small band of us began to walk parts of the journey. The weather in Wales is often unpredictable, and as we walked we learned a great respect for our predecessors in the Middle Ages.
Each weekend as we walked, the weather seemed to be even colder and wetter and more exhausting than on the previous one. We walked with modern waterproofs and stout boots and light back-packs. Our ancestors had poor clothing, they were often barefoot, and they made the journey carrying sick people.
In 1995 the pilgrimage from Llantarnam Abbey to Penrhys reopened as an annual event. Walking over 3 days, we cover about 32 miles. Some members of the party retreat to the comfort of a warm bath in Cardiff each night. A few of us sleep on the floor in church halls, staying on the route and in the spirit of the earlier pilgrims. Sometimes we carry banners or religious pictures, sometimes we sing as we walk, and often we halt at a church or chapel for a short service and cups of hot tea.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Penrhys Pilgrimage 2007.
Sat 26th May -
Monday 28th May.
More details soon.
See page for
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| page created with Easy Designer |