Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- 1 The figure of David
- 2 Transition and survival: St David and St Davids Cathedral
- ST DAVIDS: FROM EARLY COMMUNITY TO DIOCESE
- THE LIFE OF ST DAVID
- THE CULT OF ST DAVID
- THE RELICS OF ST DAVID
- THE DIOCESE OF ST DAVIDS
- 17 The archbishopric St Davids and the bishops of Clas Cynidr
- 18 The dynasty of Deheubarth and the church of St Davids
- 19 The statutes of St Davids Cathedral 1224–1259
- 20 The crisis of the sixteenth century
- 21 The diocese of St David's in the early nineteenth century: a reappraisal
- Bibliography
- Index
21 - The diocese of St David's in the early nineteenth century: a reappraisal
from THE DIOCESE OF ST DAVIDS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- 1 The figure of David
- 2 Transition and survival: St David and St Davids Cathedral
- ST DAVIDS: FROM EARLY COMMUNITY TO DIOCESE
- THE LIFE OF ST DAVID
- THE CULT OF ST DAVID
- THE RELICS OF ST DAVID
- THE DIOCESE OF ST DAVIDS
- 17 The archbishopric St Davids and the bishops of Clas Cynidr
- 18 The dynasty of Deheubarth and the church of St Davids
- 19 The statutes of St Davids Cathedral 1224–1259
- 20 The crisis of the sixteenth century
- 21 The diocese of St David's in the early nineteenth century: a reappraisal
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In a sermon preached in 1879, and subsequently published under the title ‘Why are the Welsh people alienated from the Church?’ Dean Edwards of Bangor put the blame firmly on the actions of the British government during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the appointment by them of non-Welsh bishops:
In 1715, with the exception of thirty-five separatists' congregations, the entire people of Wales adhered to the Church. But after that date, for more than a hundred and fifty years, the rulers of the state, in pursuit of a worldly policy, sent into Wales chief pastors ignorant of its language and traditions, and aliens in sympathy, to the people. During that long period, the followers of the apostles came into Wales, not to accomplish the spiritual work of saving souls, but as Government agents, to destroy the language and quench the national spirit. The fruits of this policy are known to you. The thirty-five meeting houses of 1715 have become, in 1879, nearly three thousand.
It was an appealing but simplistic analysis of Welsh religious history which by the last quarter of the nineteenth century had been adopted, not just by Welsh nonconformists but by the leaders of its established church, and it is an analysis which has dominated, albeit with some modifications in recent years, Welsh religious historiography for the century and a quarter which has elapsed since Dean Edwards preached his sermon.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- St David of WalesCult, Church and Nation, pp. 339 - 350Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007