Saints' Cults in the Celtic World seeks to explore "the way in which saints' cults operated across and beyond political, ethnic and linguistic boundaries in the medieval British Isles and Ireland, from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries" through a series of case studies. In particular, the collection aims to highlight the factors that allowed particular cults to prosper in, or be relevant to, various cultural contexts. The ten articles in the collection focus primarily on Scotland and northern England, though Ireland plays a significant role in several instances. Each author examines cult formation and, to varying extents, cult transmission while tangling with the particular problems associated with medieval Celtic history, especially the relative scarcity of written sources and the problematic nature of personal and location names. As a whole, Saints' Cults in the Celtic World offers a variety of views regarding how the societies of northern England and southern Scotland, in particular, were influenced by saints' cults in the central Middle Ages. This is an examination of communities--how they formed, what bound them together, and how they crossed and created boundaries, especially at times of, as denoted by one of the authors, royal and ecclesiastical "machinations." [1]
As a detailed review of each of the articles is not possible due to space constraints, this review will focus on several recurring themes while touching on how the articles relate to previous scholarship. Several scholars contribute to the growing historiography on the role of religious devotion in communal identity formation and expression. In a related fashion, the reader of Saints' Cults in the Celtic World will learn of the power of a cult in political and ecclesiastical power struggles. A third current running through the collection is an attempt to situate the northern insular world within the wider medieval world. Finally, as one might expect in a collection dealing with Celtic sources from the central Middle Ages, several of the authors struggle to use church dedications and personal names in attempts to examine cultural unity across political divides.
In the 1980s and 1990s scholars such as AndréVauchez and Pierre Sigal examined the importance of saints' cults and miracles in the lives of medieval men and women, exploring topics ranging from holiness to prayer. [2] Other scholars have continued their work. Augustine Thompson, to cite just one example, used saints' cults to investigate the medieval Italian city-states, arguing that devotion to a local saint was one means, among many, by which communal identity was formed and expressed. [3] Several articles from Saints' Cults in the Celtic World speak directly to this growing historiography and offer much to the field. In particular, Sally Crumplin, whose earlier work has shown how saints' cults can be "adjusted" to suit contemporary needs, explores how the cult of St. Cuthbert at Durham transcended the political and social boundaries imposed by elite society in twelfth-century Scotland and England. [4] In the eleventh and twelfth centuries Durham was technically part of England, yet was largely independent of English royal authority. Moreover, it had constant relations with Scotland. By using three groups of Cuthbert's miracles, Crumplin argues that Cuthbert's cult, centered in Durham, represented a powerful, semi-independent political force in the northern insular world. Cross-border devotion may have had a significant impact on twelfth-century events. For example, Crumplin suggests that the Scots may have decided not to attack Durham in their war with the English out of reverence for Cuthbert. [5]
The power of a cult in what Crumplin refers to as political and ecclesiastical "machinations" is also seen in Joanna Huntington's article on David of Scotland, who it is important to note was a king, not a saint. Using Aelred of Rievaulx's depictions of the virtuous but flawed David I of Scotland (r. 1124-53), Huntington explores how a subject who was not saintly could be just as powerful a model as a saint, in this case, even more so. Aelred focused on David's flaws and how he extirpated them (through submission to the clergy) when writing his Eulogium and Genealogia regum Anglorum; texts that Huntington argues should be read as separate compositions. These two texts contain a message for Henry II (of Anjou)--obey the clergy and only use appropriate military violence, that is, violence endorsed by the clergy. For Aelred, David's "inappropriately conducted military campaign rendered him a far more useful tool than a saint would have been," in Huntington's analysis. [6]
Several articles in Saints' cults in the Celtic World place the northern insular world in the wider medieval world. In "The Cult of St. George in Scotland," Steve Boardman examines a cult that has often been associated with the English royal house, particularly after the foundation of the Order of the Garter and the construction of St. George's chapel at Windsor. Boardman argues that, before the middle of the fourteenth century, the cult of St. George was not a particularly English cult, but rather one of crusading knights, particularly those in the Baltics led by the Teutonic knights. Even after St. George became associated with the English royal family, his status as a universal saint revered by the martial classes of Europe ensured that the cult continued to be relevant and popular throughout Europe. By promoting St. George, the English kings attempted to create a special relationship between the royal house and the saint in an effort to express English royal power and prestige in an internationally recognized manner. It is within the international setting of the cult of St. George that Scottish involvement in the cult should be considered. As Boardman points out, many of the Scottish royal and aristocratic men who used the personal name of George were involved in warfare, tournaments, and, especially, in crusades and pilgrimage. In particular, two of the greatest northern border families--the Dunbars and the Douglases--were heavily involved both in the English-Scottish conflict and in the crusades.
In a different approach in Saints' Cults in the Celtic World, Eila Williamson examines how medieval and early modern Scots commemorated and expressed devotion to the Three Kings at Cologne and then compares those expressions with other European locales, looking for connections. As with much of Celtic history, compared to other countries there is little visual material from medieval and early modern Scotland. What survives, however, Williamson suggests points to the influence of royal wives on their husbands' devotional practices; Margaret Tudor's devotion to the cult may explain why James IV of Scotland became involved. The influence of Danish royal wives on the Scottish royals may also help account for the arrival of the cult in Scotland. In the latter case, the Scottish-Denmark connections were not straightforward. For example, while in Denmark the monarchs were often depicted as one of the Magi, in Scotland they never were. Overall, Williamson argues that the increased devotion to the Magi, including the rise in dedications along the eastern coast of Scotland, was connected to the growth of Marian and Christocentric devotion in late medieval Scotland, and in the continent as well.
Finally, a number of authors examine cultural unity across political divides through church dedications and personal names. These articles are among the more difficult for the non-specialist, including the non-insular scholar. Much of the evidence is drawn from place names and dedications, sources which, as Karen Jankulak rightly points out in her article, are problematic. Using twelfth-century foundation legends, James Fraser, for example, explores dedications of churches to either the Apostle Peter or Andrew in northern Britain in his contribution to Saints' Cults in the Celtic World. Though political boundaries often separated churches dedicated to one of these saints from the other, Fraser argues that the naming patterns help to reveal a cultural overlap. Moreover, the pattern of dedication--where the dominant ecclesiastical center was dedicated to Peter and its most eminent suffragen to Andrew--reveals connections not only across the political boundaries of northern Britain, but also across the English Channel.
Fraser's argument about the influence northern Anglo-Saxon England probably had on commemorative patterns in southern Scotland ties in nicely with the articles focusing on Strathclyde and Northumbria--Thomas Owen Clancy's on the establishment of St. Patrick's cult, Fiona Edmonds' on the cult of St. Patrick, and John Reuben Davies' on the cult of bishop Kentigern. Clancy explores the cult's establishment in Strathclyde and its connections to Ireland, particularly through Irish churchmen, in his article. Edmonds looks at the moment when the Bamburgh dynasty in Northumbria started using the name Gospatric/Gwas-Patric; the earliest bearer of the name, the third son of Earl Uhtred, died in 1064. It was precisely at this time that the Bamburghs were extending their power into Strathclyde, an area where, significantly, Patrick's cult was already well established. Edmonds suggests that Earl Uhtred named his son Gospatric in the hope that he would establish himself in Strathclyde. Alternatively, the son may have acquired the name as an epithet, which was subsequently interpreted as a personal name, during his sojourn in Strathclyde in the mid-eleventh century. In either case, the diverse appeal of Patrick's cult made the personal name Gospatric a useful tool for appealing to a community across a political divide and, thus, extending the family's influence. According to Davies, the diffusion of the cult of the bishop and patron of Glasgow, Kentigern (a.k.a. Mungo), should be understood as closely bound up with the rise of Glasgow as a powerful episcopal see in the twelfth century. Moreover, as Davies points out, Kentigern's cult, embodying Glasgow's dreams of episcopal dominance, spread as David restored Scottish royal power. The implications of this are manifold; Davies does not have the space in this article to address them all, but it would be interesting to hear more about whether the spread of Glaswegian power was tied to or in competition with the growing Scottish royal power. As Davies points out, the fact that the heir to the Scottish throne, later David I, created the reformed diocese of Glasgow after 1107 implies that the spread of the ecclesiastical and royal influences were tied together, but in future work it would be interesting to explore this further.
This collection of essays offers something for everyone, from the specialist in Irish naming practices to the student interested in connections between the continent and the Celtic world. Though there was not space to discuss them here, the collection also addresses issues related to textual and oral transmission, something Jonathan M. Wooding, Davies, and Clancy each explore from a different angle. Of particular interest to the non-Celtic historian, as this reviewer is, are the works examining boundary crossing and creating. Crumplin's article offers further depth to a growing field in medieval history--the role of religious houses and cult involvement in identity formation and expression. Boardman's research illustrates that the insular and continental worlds were not, in fact, separate worlds, but rather a part of a general medieval culture, particularly among the martial and aristocratic classes, an argument Williamson's article further strengthens. Overall, though several of the works are inaccessible to the non-specialist, Saints' Cults in the Celtic World offers many interesting insights into the Celtic world in the central Middle Ages.
Notes:
1. Sally Crumplin, "Cuthbert the Cross-Border Saint in the Twelfth Century," in Saints' Cults in the Celtic World, ed. Steve Boardman et al. (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2009).
2. Pierre-AndréSigal, L'homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale (XIe-XIIe siècle) (Paris: 1985). AndréVauchez, La saintetéen occident aux derniers siècles du moyen âge: d'aprés ses process de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques (Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1981). AndréVauchez, The Laity in the Middle Ages: Religious Beliefs and Devotional Practices, trans. Margery J. Schneider (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993).
3. Augustine Thompson, Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125-1325 (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005).
4. Sally Crumplin, "Modernizing St Cuthbert: Reginald of Durham's Miracle Collection," in Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church, ed. Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2005).
5. Crumplin, "Cuthbert the Cross-Border Saint in the Twelfth Century," p. 122.
6. Joanna Huntington, "David of Scotland: 'Vir tam necessarius mundo'," in Saints' Cults in the Celtic World, ed. Steve Boardman et al. (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2009), p. 145.