Did ancient writers say that Jeremiah 10:3-5 was about Christmas trees?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There is an idea that circulates in certain fringe groups in the USA that Jeremiah 10:3-5 (KJV here) condemns the use of Christmas trees. Here’s the bible passage, in the KJV (as is invariably used):

3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

As everybody knows, Christmas – or the Nativity of the Lord – is first attested in church festivals in 336 AD, in a document, the Depositio martyrum, included in the Chronography of 354 (online here).  Ancient paganism has come to an end by about 500 AD, more or less.  But no ancient or medieval text records any celebration of Christmas with a tree until the end of the 15th century when it appears in Germany in a number of places. So it would be rather a surprise if it was what Jeremiah had in mind!

All the same, I thought that it would be interesting to see what ancient writers commenting on the passage have to say. I made use of the Biblindex search engine to produce a list.  Here are all the results.  There is a grand total of four writers who comment on the passage.

Clement of Rome (ps.), Clementine Recognitions, book 4, chapter 20. (Edition: GCS 51, 1965, p.156, l.9)  Online here:

20. “And yet who can be found so senseless as to be persuaded to worship an idol, whether it be made of gold or of any other metal? To whom is it not manifest that the metal is just that which the artificer pleased? How then can the divinity be thought to be in that which would not be at all unless the artificer had pleased? Or how can they hope that future things should be declared to them by that in which there is no perception of present things? …

Cyprian, Ad Quirinum, book 3, chapter 59.  Online here:

59. Of the idols which the Gentiles think to be gods.

…. Also in the 134th Psalm: “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have a mouth, and speak not; they have eyes, and see not; they have ears, and hear not; and neither is there any breath in their mouth. Let them who make them become like unto them, and all those who trust in them.” Also in the ninety-fifth Psalm: “All the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens.” Also in Exodus: “Ye shall not make unto yourselves gods of silver nor of gold.” And again: “Thou shalt not make to thyself an idol, nor the likeness of any thing.” Also in Jeremiah: “Thus saith the Lord, Walk not according to the ways of the heathen; for they fear those things in their own persons, because the lawful things of the heathen are vain. Wood cut out from the forest is made. the work of the carpenter, and melted silver and gold are beautifully arranged: they strengthen them with hammers and nails, and they shall not be moved, for they are fixed. The silver is brought from Tharsis, the gold comes from Moab. All things are the works of the artificers; they will clothe it with blue and purple; lifting them, they will carry them, because they will not go forward. Be not afraid of them, because they do no evil, neither is there good in them. ….” 677

677 Jer. x. 2-5, 9, 11, ii. 12,13, 19, 20, 27.

Eusebius, Commentary on Isaiah, on 44:12-20. (Edition GCS, p.285 l.30).  From Armstrong translation (IVP 2013), p.233:

[44:12-20] Why, then, did you never reason among yourselves and ask what is the nature of those “godmakers” who fashion inanimate statues for you? For is it not plain for all to see that the gods are the works of “artisans”?11 They have been fabricated with axes and augurs and such tools. They are the contrivances of poor day laborers, who, because of their need for food in order to pursue their work, promote the business of idolatry for the bread of leisure. And why did you not ask what is the nature of God, and whether God needs food, and whether he will become hungry if you do not offer sacrifices, and whether [286] God will also become weak if he is not nourished, or according to Symmachus: He will become hungry and weak and exhausted, and he will not drink water. And why does he say he will not drink water, unless he had actually been in need of water? And if he will neither eat nor drink, is he not in fact worse off than an irrational animal:’ How, then, have you been deceived, O vain people, when such a state of reality proves the impotence of the statues?

11. Cf. Hos 13:2;Jer 10:3.

I have already discussed Jerome, In Hieremiam prophetam libri V, book 2, c. 85-6, here.

Biblindex also gives a reference as Theodoret, Interpretatio in Jeremiam – I have no access to the English translation –  text found in PG 81, column 565.  But a quick look will show that he only discusses Jeremiah 10:2 and then 10:7.

Those are all the ancient writers who discuss this passage.  As may easily be seen, all of them think it’s about idols.  Not one thinks that the worship of a tree is involved.

The claim that the Christmas tree is pagan  is often made by people familiar with Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons: The Papal Worship Proved to be the Worship of Nimrod and his Wife (1853), a farrago of assertion and misinformation heaped up willy-nilly.  The claim may be found on p.139 of this 1862 edition here.  This volume still exerts an unholy fascination in some parts of US Protestantism.  But the link with Jeremiah 10 only appears in the 20th century, or so it seems from a Google search, and is closely identified with Herbert W. Armstrong and those movements derived from his Worldwide Church of God such as the Hebrew Roots movement.

Unfortunately it is completely false.  As a reading in context will show, the Bible is talking about the manufacture of a wooden idol.

Correction: an earlier version of this article asserted that the link between Jeremiah 10 and the Christmas tree originates in Hislop.  I am happy to correct this mistake.

Update (15 Dec 2021):  I have since come across an extremely good article on a Seventh Day Adventist website, here, which I will quote in slightly abbreviated form, for the benefit of those who still wonder about Jeremiah 10:

I am a Seventh-day Adventist… According to Jeremiah 10:1—5, we are told to “learn not the way of the heathen” [KJV], by bringing evergreens into our homes and “deck” them with silver and gold. … God was wroth with the Israelites when, after fashioning the golden calf, they proclaimed, “We shall make a feast unto the Lord”! Since when do we as God’s children offer Him pagan feasts?

I believe we need to ask seriously whether Jeremiah was describing the Christmas tree or something like it in the passage you quoted. First, notice that though you have identified the wood brought into the home as an evergreen, the Bible text does not do so. It merely refers to a tree.

Second, what then is done with the tree? Are silver and gold hung on its branches? The New American Standard Bible (NASB)—a conservative and quite literal translation—renders verse 3 this way: “The customs of the peoples are delusion; Because it is wood cut from the forest, The work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool.” It doesn’t take a craftsman to cut down a tree. Even I can do that! So why a “craftsman”?

I believe the reason is that after felling the tree, the craftsman carved it into an idol, which the people then decked with silver and gold. This carving of an idol—not the mere cutting down of the tree—required a craftsman’s work. Verse 5 actually makes this quite explicit. Again I’ll quote from the NASB:

Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field are they,
And they cannot speak;
They must be carried,
Because they cannot walk! Do not fear them,
For they can do no harm,
Nor can they do any good.

This is describing an image, a representation of a god, and comparing it to a scarecrow, something that you shouldn’t be afraid of! Isaiah 44:9-17 presents a parallel picture, but with more of the detail.

Despite the superficial similarities, Jeremiah 10 is not describing a Christmas tree nor what people do with a Christmas tree. I have seen people in a Catholic church genuflect before the images and before the altar as an act of respect and worship. But I have never seen anyone offer any such homage to a Christmas tree, and probably you haven’t either. So having a Christmas tree in the church is not an issue of false worship.

Indeed not.

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Parallelomania, Bad Scholarship, and Fake History

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There are pyramids in Egypt.  Indeed if we know anything about Egypt, we know it has pyramids.  Almost as well-known are the massive pyramids of Mexico.  This tells a certain sort of person that the two are connected!  Either the Mexicans travelled to Egypt, or the Egyptians sailed to Mexico, or … inevitably … a now vanished continent in mid-Atlantic held a civilisation notable for its pyramids.  This Atlantis would, of course, have a high technology.  Inevitably spacefaring aliens must be involved.  It is easy to find examples online.[1]

All of this is twaddle, based on nothing more than a vague perception of similarity.  If we look at the details, the two sorts of pyramids are different in almost every way beyond the general shape.  The Mexican pyramids are temples, while those of Egypt are tombs, and so on.  But our friend is not influenced by this.  “They’re both pyramids,” he will cry, and no amount of information will shake his conviction that the two “must” be connected.  The lack of any evidence will be met with reiteration, elaboration and rhetoric.

In a way he is right.  There is a connection.  But the connection is human nature plus gravity.  Human beings find it convenient to build stuff out of square blocks.  They also find it convenient to pile up building materials.  Because of gravity these piles will always tend to a pyramidal shape.  There is no need for any more complex explanation.

This type of mad argument from a “parallel” has been named “parallelomania”.  Broadly it states that if this looks like that, then this IS that, and that this, if later, is copied from that, or otherwise connected directly to it.

Obviously this is bunk.  The similarities are often trivial.  Often they are very selectively chosen!  Two things may have certain similarities, arising quite independently, because of human nature. And even if two things are indeed similar, this is no evidence of connection or derivation, unless the parallel is nearly unique.  It’s a false way to argue.

For instance, some parallelomaniacs like to claim that the Christian communion meal “must” be the same as pagan ritual meals. A few days ago one of them kindly informed me that Christmas “must” be borrowed from paganism because Christmas involves a big meal and ancient events like Saturnalia – they thought – did also.

The parallelomaniac will never reflect that human beings will naturally come together for a meal while doing something else, without any need to copy the idea from others.  I wonder if they could be convinced that the modern business breakfast is copied from communion?  Or the other way around?  But of course these “parallels” are deployed only selectively, and for convenience.

Indeed nothing is funnier than watching a parallelomaniac trying to force the facts into a parallel in which they will not fit.  He may start with “Christmas is a stolen pagan holiday.  Jesus was not born on 25 Dec.”  If you call his attention to the fact that in 336, when Christmas is first recorded, there is no record of any Roman holiday, he will merely respond with “around the time of the solstice”; for thereby he can introduce Saturnalia!  If you point out that Saturnalia was not a solstice festival, because it was originally one day, on December 17, he will engage in further slipperiness.  Christmas must be “stolen” from Saturnalia.  And from “Yule”.  If you a little cynical, and ask our friend to tell us whether Yule is stolen from Saturnalia, or the other way around, on the same grounds, then you will get no answer.  That isn’t the point, you see.

It is easy to laugh at such antics.  Most parallelomaniacs are lacking in education, and not a few are lacking in good faith either.  But many are perfectly sincere, especially on things like pyramids, and simply lacking the education that we are lucky enough to possess.  We need not always presume bad faith.

As a method, parallelomania is a subset of the general way in which fake history deals with historical data.  This is:

  1. Selection.  Only those bits of data that fit the argument will be used.
  2. Omission.  Those bits that don’t will be discarded.  Arguments will be found to ignore them.
  3. Misrepresentation.  Of course the pyramids in Mexico are like those in Egypt.

These failures will be found in very many older academic works.  Again, these are not always undertaken in bad faith.  But they are a failure of methodology.

This is one reason why arguments based on a claim that a literary text is interpolated are made less often today.  In the 19th century the claim was very often made, based on subjective grounds, as a way to dispose of evidence.  But it was always made selectively.  The same arguments were not made about text that the writer found convenient.  Thus in Walter Bauer’s Orthodoxy and Heresy, which created a fantastical picture of early Christianity in the near east, the testimony of Eusebius was against him.  So Bauer calmly claimed that the relevant passage was interpolated.  In fact it was not, as can be shown from 5th century Syriac witnesses that he knew about but conveniently neglected to consult.  We have reached the more sensible position of never asserting interpolation without compelling evidence.

It is the same with any case of parallels.  A parallel must be very limited, very striking, and clearly non-trivial.  Even then, I find, today we usually comment that it is “interesting”, rather than a basis for argument.  Otherwise we introduce parallelomania.

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  1. [1]Jon Rogers, “SHOCK CLAIM: Ancient Egyptians did NOT build the pyramids,” Daily Express, Oct 2 2017. Online here: “HISTORIANS has thrown doubt on the Ancient Egyptians ever having built the Great Pyramids of Giza instead claiming the monuments could have been built by a lost civilisation.”↩

Cyril of Alexandria’s lost “Commentary on Hebrews” now available in English!

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Last year we heard that the lost Commentary on Hebrews by Cyril of Alexandria had been rediscovered in three Armenian manuscripts in the Matenadaran library in Yerevan, the Armenian capital.  The publisher has now produced an edition in Armenian with facing English translation!

The price is about $60, which is not expensive.  It is available from booksfromarmenia.com here.  Details:

Item number: 100702
Title: Commentary on the Letter to Hebrews (Classical Armenian with English translation) / Մեկնութիւն Եբրայեցւոց թղթոյն (գրաբար բնագիր և անգլերեն թարգմանություն)
Author: Cyril of Alexandria
Language: Classical Armenian, English
Publication date: 2021
Publisher: Ankyunacar Publishing

This is the first English translation of the newly found Armenian manuscript of Cyril of Alexandria, which is his most comprehensive text of the Commentary on the apostle Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews. It contains the full commentary by Cyril of the first three chapters of the Letter to the Hebrews.

Only fragments from the Greek original and Armenian and Syriac translations of the Commentary of the Letter to Hebrews by St. Cyril of Alexandria (†444) were known until now.

The present Armenian critical text and the English translation are placed on facing pages.
The book has an index for both Armenian and English texts.

ISBN 978-9939-850-51-1
395 pages
size 13.5×21 cm
Hardcover

Cover of Cyril of Alexandria, “Commentary on Hebrews”

This is excellent news!  It means that anybody who buys this will be among the first to read the work since ancient times, and certainly among the first ever English-speakers to read it.

Maybe I shall get myself a copy for Christmas!

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Five stray canons of the Council of Hippo (393) – canon 1

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The canons of the council of Hippo in 393 are lost.  Indeed at the third council of Carthage in 397, delegates complained that many had never seen the canons.  This point was grimly noted by the presiding bishop, Aurelius of Carthage, who thereafter ensured that everything was written down.  Since he held annual councils for twenty years, this created quite a body of church law!  But the most that he could do for Hippo was to issue a summary, the Breviarium, which we were working on earlier this year.

However in 1968 Charles Munier published five canons of Hippo, which had somehow been preserved in a manuscript, Vercellensi 165, on folio 199v.  My copy of his publication has not yet arrived, but I have translated the canons anyway from the CCSL 149 pp.20-21 text.  Here’s the first one.

     *     *     *     *

(1) Aurelius episcopus dixit: Sancti fratris Elesii nobis suggestio plenam sollicitudinem ac diligentiam oportet incutiat, ut omnis omnino cavillatio amputetur, cunctisque excusationibus aditus omnino claudatur.

Bishop Aurelius said: It is right that the suggestion of the holy brother of Elesium should instill solicitude and diligence in us, so that every cavil may be entirely lopped off, and the pathway to any excuses entirely removed.

Quare censendum est, si placet vestrae caritati, ut semper filii sint in potestate parentum, adque disciplinae regulam ab ipsis vel maxime episcopis seu clericis redigantur, nullum in minoribus annis filium debere ab episcopo vel clerico emancipatione a potestate patria liberari, nisi tantummodo illum cuius vitam moresque probaverit, ut iam legibus cum fuerit et voluntatis suae arbiter, peccato ipse proprio possit astringi, ne eius malae conversationis macula quisquam episcopus vel clericus pergatur.

Wherefore it must be decreed should be established, if it pleases your Charity Charities, that young men shall always be under the authority of their parents, and that they shall draw up be instructed in the rule of discipline by themselves, or better with by the bishops or clergy; [that] no young man who is a minor ought to be released from his father’s authority by a bishop or clergyman, unless he himself only has proved his life and morals, so that, when he is in law also the arbiter of his own wishes, he can be made responsible for made an accessory his own sins in his own mistakes, lest any bishop or clergyman shall be drawn into the dishonour stain of his evil way of life.

I’m not sure about “astringi” as “made an accessory”, the Oxford Latin Dictionary meaning 10, but none of the others seem to fit.  [UPDATE:  from the comments: In the passive “astringere” should be “made responsible”, lit.”be bound”.]

Si quidem praeceptum, ut manentibus in errore ‘cibum cum his minime capiatur’, nec filiis debent de facultatibus suis aliquid derelinquere, quia melius est unus timens Deum quam mille filii.

For the commandment is, that, for those remaining in error, “with these do not even eat”, (1 Cor. 5:11), nor ought they to leave anything to the young men from their property, because “better is one fearing God than a thousand [ungodly] children.” (Ecclus. 16:3)

I have understood “si quidem” as “siquidem”, and “est” as the main verb.

We lack the context of this canon, but perhaps the sense of the sentence is for the bishops and clergy not to end up acting as replacement parents, in loco parentis, to junior clergy who then go bad, and bailing them out from church funds?

Comments and corrections are welcome.  I had quite a bit of difficulty with this one, I might add, which is why it did not appear in the summer!

More in my next post.

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A modern myth: St Boniface and the Christmas Tree

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Christmas first appears in the historical record in 336, in Rome.  But there is no trace of anybody having a “Christmas tree” until 1521, when a record of trees being cut for this purpose appears in a town register in Séléstat in Alsace.  The tree was decorated with red apples and unconsecrated communion wafers.  When a frost killed off the apples, these were replaced with glass imitations, the origin of our baubles.  Previously Catholics had had a nativity scene, but these were considered superstitious by the Reformers.  However this objection did not apply to the Christmas tree, which therefore spread throughout Germany.  The custom was brought to England in the 1840s by Prince Albert, adopted by the aristocracy, and from there spread to America and the world.  All this is fairly well-known to anyone who has investigated at all.

But there is a curious legend in circulation which is as follows:

One of the earliest stories relating to the Christmas tree, the eighth-century Catholic missionary, Saint Boniface, is said to have cut down an oak tree sacred to the pagan god Thor. An evergreen fir tree grew in its place, which he said symbolised the everlasting nature of Jesus.  (See on Twitter here)

This story is to be found all over the web, mainly in Catholic websites such as this or this, composed by Fr. William P. Saunders.  Indeed the exact words of Boniface, usually slightly abbreviated, are quoted again and again:

This little tree, a young child of the forest, shall be your holy tree tonight. It is the wood of peace… It is the sign of an endless life, for its leaves are ever green. See how it points upward to heaven.

What do we make of this?

Well, it is certainly the case that St Boniface destroyed a mighty oak that was dedicated to horrible old Thor.  This is recorded in the Life of St Boniface by Willibrand.  Unusually there is a useful Wikipedia page on the destruction of the oak here.  A complete translation of this text was made in 1916 by George W. Robinson, and this may be found at Hathi here.  The Latin was published in the MGH series as “Vitae Sancti Bonifatii archiepiscopi Moguntini” and is here.

Here’s what it says (Robinson, 63-4):

…others indeed, not yet strengthened in soul, refused to accept in their entirety the lessons of the inviolate faith. Moreover some were wont secretly, some openly to sacrifice to trees and springs; some in secret, others openly practised inspections of victims and divinations, legerdemain and incantations; some turned their attention to auguries and auspices and various sacrificial rites; while others, with sounder minds, abandoned all the profanations of heathenism, and committed none of these things. With the advice and counsel of these last, the saint attempted, in the place called Gaesmere, while the servants of God stood by his side, to fell a certain oak of extraordinary’ size, which is called, by an old name of the pagans, the Oak of Jupiter. And when in the strength of his steadfast heart he had cut the lower notch, there was present a great multitude of pagans, who in their souls were most earnestly cursing the enemy of their gods. But when the fore side of the tree was notched only a little, suddenly the oak’s vast bulk, driven by a divine blast from above, crashed to the ground, shivering its crown of branches as it fell; and, as if by the gracious dispensation of the Most High, it was also burst into four parts, and four trunks of huge size, equal in length, were seen, unwrought by the brethren who stood by. At this sight the pagans who before had cursed now, on the contrary, believed, and blessed the Lord, and put away their former reviling. Then moreover the most holy bishop, after taking counsel with the brethren, built from the timber of the tree a wooden oratory, and dedicated it in honor of Saint Peter the apostle.

When by the favor of God’s will all that we have told was fulfilled and accomplished, the saint went on to Thuringia. And he addressed the elders of the…

There is no mention of the Christmas tree.

A brief search of Google books leads back to 1905 through a trail of quotations, where the name varies slightly: Wilfrid, Winfrid, Winfried are all attested.  But curiously it does not give the original, which I found indirectly.

The words of Boniface above in fact originate in a short story: Henry van Dyke, “The Oak of Geismar”, published in Scribner’s Magazine, vol. 10, July-December (1891), p.681-7, with an illustration by Howard Pyle.  The volumes of Scribner’s Magazine can be found here, and the right volume is here.

Here is the relevant section (p.686).  A child is about to be killed with an axe as a sacrifice to Thor at the oak.  Boniface intervenes.

“Hearken, ye sons of the forest! No blood shall flow this night save that which pity has drawn from a mother’s breast. For this is the birth-night of the white Christ, the son of the All-Father, the Saviour of mankind. Fairer is he than Baldur the Beautiful, greater than Odin the Wine, kinder than Freya the Good. Since he has come sacrifice is ended. The dark Thor, on whom ye have vainly called, is dead. Deep in the shades of Niffelheim he is lost forever. And now on this Christ-night ye shall begin to live. This Blood-tree shall darken your land no more. In the name of the Lord I will destroy it.”

He grasped the broad axe from the hand of Gregor, and striding to the oak began to hew against it. Then the sole wonder in Winfrid’s life came to pass. For, as the bright blade circled above his head, and the flakes of wood flew from the deepening gash in the body of the tree, a whirling wind passed over the forest. It gripped the oak from its foundations. Backward it fell like a tower, groaning as it split asunder in four pieces. But just behind it, and unharmed by the ruin, stood a young fir-tree. pointing a green spire toward the stars.

Winfrid let the axe drop, and turned to speak to the people.

“This little tree a young child of the forest, shall be your holy tree to-night. It is the wood of peace, for your houses are built of the fir. It is the sign of an endless life, for its leaves are ever green. See how it points upward to heaven. Let this be called the tree of the Christ-child ; gather about it, not in the wild wood, but in your own homes; there it will shelter no deeds of blood, but loving gifts and rites of kindness.”

So they took the fir-tree from its place, and carried it in joyful procession to the edge of the glade, and laid it on one of the sledges. The horse tossed his head and drew bravely at his load, as if the new burden had lightened it When they came to the village, Alvold bade them open the doors of his great hall and set the tree in the midst of it. They kindled lights among its branches, till it seemed to be tangled full of stars. The children encircled it wondering, and the sweet smell of the balsam filled the house.

Then Winfrid stood up on the dais at the end of the hall, with the old priest sitting at his feet near by, and told the story of Bethlehem, of the babe in the manger, of the shepherds on the hillside, of the host of angels and their strange music…

The story was a success and the publisher reissued it in book-form in an enlarged version as The First Christmas Tree: A Story of the Forest (1897), with additional illustrations. It is available at Gutenberg here.  But interestingly this form of the story does not seem to have influenced the transmission of the modern legend, for the words of Boniface are always given in the form taken from the magazine.  Here is the expanded text:

“And here,” said he, as his eyes fell on a young fir-tree, standing straight and green, with its top pointing towards the stars, amid the divided ruins of the fallen oak, “here is the living tree, with no stain of blood upon it, that shall be the sign of your new worship. See how it points to the sky. Let us call it the tree of the Christ-child. Take it up and carry it to the chieftain’s hall. You shall go no more into the shadows of the forest to keep your feasts with secret rites of shame.  You shall keep them at home, with laughter and song and rites of love. The thunder-oak has fallen, and I think the day is coming when there shall not be a home in all Germany where the children are not gathered around the green fir-tree to rejoice in the birth-night of Christ.”

An abbreviated version of the magazine story appears in a school book, William F. Webster and Alice Woodworth Cooley, Language, Grammar and Composition, (1905), p.52.  No doubt this spread the legend further.

Modern novelisations seem to be a fertile source of false quotations, as is perhaps inevitable.  This is, then, another example.

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Looking for the vanished North Gate of Ipswich

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Suffolk town of Ipswich has almost no historical monuments, or historical feel, despite being one of the oldest towns in England.  Indeed it was founded in the early Anglosaxon period.  Three gates are preserved in street names – west, north and east – and there is certainly evidence for two of the medieval gates, the West Gate and the North Gate, both destroyed around 1800.  It seems to have had at least some stone walls, various town ditches, and there is still a street known as “Tower Ramparts”.

The West Gate is relatively well-known from pictures and an 1960s excavation.  But the North Gate is very much more obscure.

The actual position of the North Gate is very obvious on Google Maps, at the head of Northgate Street, where the Halberd Inn projects on the street facing another building.  Note the position of the chimney stacks, in line.

Aerial view of the site of Ipswich North Gate (St Margaret’s Gate / Old Bar Gate)

A correspondent sent me a view, looking out of the town into Crown St, towards the later Baptist Church.  The Halberd Inn is on the left.  The “Alexandra Hair Artists” sign is on the other building.  This is mainly timber-framed but it has a very solid wall facing Northgate Street, seemingly of large stones.

Here is the view looking in:

Ignore the chimney low-down on the right – the Halberd Inn chimney is higher up, and behind the roof.

There is only one drawing known to me of the North Gate.  I have not seen the original, but a reproduction appeared in a slim rectangular self-promoting booklet issued by an antique shop named Green and Hatfield.[1]  The shop seems to have ceased trading in 1970.  Part of the text reads:

FROM early times the town of Ipswich was bordered by a rampart and ditch—demolished by the Danes and later repaired and fortified in the- reign of King John. The town was divided into LETES or Wards, four in number, each named after the four gates of the town. These gates in the ramparts were named after the four principal points of the compass – the NORTH GATE being the northern boundary of Northgate Lete and the exit to St. Margarets Plain, Christchurch, and the hills and country beyond.

Little evidence now remains of the old North Gate but the drawing on this page is a reproduction of a contemporary pencil sketch— “The demolition of the North Gate, in the latter part of the eighteenth century.” This rare and unique record was found in an old portfolio by Mr. W. E. Hatfield and is carefully preserved in the premises of Green & Hatfield.

It is of particular interest to them as their large ANTIQUE SHOP occupies the corner and site to the East of the old North Gate — part of the premises being built over the actual ramparts and ditch of the old town’s northern boundary. Until fairly recently fragments of the Tower Ditches, St. Margaret’s Ditches and the Rampart remained with the line of the fosse clearly marked, the sites now being located by Crown Street Car Park, an Omnibus Garage, and other buildings.

To many people all over the globe the ANTIQUE SHOP of GREEN & HATFIELD is well known and their homes contain Constant reminders of their visits to these interesting premises with their multitude of showrooms packed with ANTIQUES and decorative objects gleaned principally from old East Anglian homes;…

The illustration is signed L.R.S. – which is Leonard R. Squirrell (the double-l spelling is correct).  The Ipswich Society web site here has another illustration of Ipswich from the same source, which it attributes also to the same artist.

The view in this illustration is, I think, from without, looking toward the town. The street visible behind the gate is Old Foundry Road.  The gate was, as usual, a stone rectangle, with an arch, and a chamber above the arch.  It is clear that two walls extended forward from the stone rectangle.  The figures are in scale, and the buildings look correct.  The building at front left is now vanished.

But notice the two chimneys, again.  These indicate precisely the position of the gate.  (It looks from the aerial photo as if the Halberd Inn was extended after this date, adding an extra roof without a chimney in front of the existing one.)

We can see that the render was peeling off the wall of the other building where it faced the Halberd Inn.  Underneath are what look like large stone blocks, rather than bricks.  The edges of the “blocks” are, in fact, just about visible on Google Streetview through the render.  Could this be part of the North Gate?

East internal wall of the Ipswich North Gate?

Possibly this is over-optimistic, but it is clear from the drawing that the building on that side of the gate suffered damage, and it is conceivable that the owner made use of a nice firm standing wall, exactly as high as it was left in the sketch above.  The upper storey of the building, and most of the rest of it, is timber, I should add.

However research by members of the Ipswich Society (whom I emailed) suggests otherwise:

There is no building stone in Suffolk therefore, when the Northgate was demolished I’m pretty sure the stones would have been used elsewhere. (The West Gate was sold for the value of the stones).

However it is equally likely that the foundation stones were not dug out of the ground, the foundations of the West Gate caused a great deal of interest amongst Museum staff when they dug a nearby sewer. I also have heard the Halberd cellar story but I’ve never been down.

Leonard Squirrel was born 1893, died 1997 so didn’t ever see the Northgate, therefore his sketch is from other source material.

The stones for the North Gate would have been hewn, not saw cut, ie with a rough surface rather than an ashlar finish.

There is another interesting drawing available, which appeared with an article by Felix Walton, “16th Century Ipswich: Northgate Street Continued”, East Anglian Daily Times 16th March 1923:

For many years controversy has raged round the Old North Gate, or St Margaret’s Bar Gate as it was originally named, and I am afraid many people possess water-colour sketches of a tall building, red-tiled, over an elliptical arch showing a church spire in the distance, which is supposed to be the Tower Church, but by no ingenuity could a view of that edifice be obtained from the position of the artist.  These however were reproduced in numbers – I have three or four – by the late Hamlet Watling, and labelled “The Old North Gate.”  Some time ago, looking through a book of views of towns in France, I came across this very picture, described as “The Gateway to a French Town.”  It is perfect in detail, and what induced Watling to adapt it to Ipswich is a mystery.  John Clyde mentions it in his “Illustrations of Old Ipswich,” but doubts its authenticity.  A pencil sketch, however, exists, done by a lady in 1794, when the workmen were actually engaged in demolition of the Gate. Fred Pocock made a water-colour sketch from this in the early days of his career, and this I was fortunate enough to purchase some years ago. The colours, however, were so faded that it was impossible to obtain a photograph from it so I employed Mr. Leonard Squirrell to copy it in pen-and-ink, and the picture reproduced here is the result . The view of the French gate by Hamlet Watling being disposed of, I think we may safely assume this gives a correct representation of the Gate in the last stages of its existence. Its exact position we know, because its foundations were found still in the ground some years back during excavations; it crossed the street (then called Brook Street, remember), forming the junction between the Tower Ditches, and St. Margaret’s Ditches. These facts form another instance of the difficulty the historian meets with when trying to unravel the truth about past times.

East Anglian Daily Times 16th March 1923.  Supposedly the Ipswich North Gate, 1794, and redrawn in 1923 from a watercolour of a contemporary pencil sketch.  Probably not, tho.

This drawing shows a wide gateway and low surrounding buildings.  But the height of the Halberd Inn is actually about the same as the width of the site, so this looks wrong.  The buildings around the gate do not seem to be those visible today, nor as visible in the other illustration.  The human figures are small compared to the gate.  So I think that we may question whether this is what it is supposed to be.  Indeed it has more in common with the 1776 drawing of the West Gate.

I have no idea where the originals of these drawings might be found.  An enquiry at the Ipswich Museum was unrevealing.

The North Gate was also known as St Margaret’s Bar Gate, as an advertisment from December 1763 (online here in a curiously titled volume of “Suffolk notes from the year 1729”, p.63) makes clear:

In John Glyde, “Illustrations of Old Ipswich” (1889), p.8, in the middle of discussions of the West Gate, we find this interesting paragraph:

It is somewhat singular that whilst the form of the “ West Gate “ is preserved in several engravings and drawings, no authenticated engraving or drawing of the “North Gate* is known—although George Frost, to whom we are indebted for so many sketches of our picturesque antiquities, resided in the Town long before its demolition. On this subject Mr. H. C. Casley has favoured us with some details. The “ North Gate,” or, as it was frequently called St Margaret’s Barr Gate, stood across the upper part of Northgate Street, the contracted point between “The Halberd” and the opposite house plainly indicating its position. It is believed that no trustworthy representation of this gate, either in its pristine condition or in its venerable decay, exists, although sketches purporting to depict it are to be found in the hands of some collectors. The basis for them all is believed to have been an oil painting offered for sale by the late Mr. William Mason, a broker of this town. It gave the prospect from N. to S. of a lofty structure in rough stone with high pitch tile roof, having a central archway for road traffic with foot gates on either side. Through this middle arch could be seen the street, in those days called “ Brook Street,” with a Church spire in the distance. Making every allowance for an artist’s licence, Ipswich readers scarcely need to be reminded that the only spire in early days in this vicinity was that of the Municipal Church of St. Mary at the Tower, and it would have been perfectly impracticable to have viewed the present spire—a much more imposing structure than its predecessor—looking through the gateway in any position, but the old spire stood several feet further to the north-west, and was destroyed by lightning in 1661, whilst the picture was certainly not 150 years old. It is somewhat strange, too, that the painting did not show either of the premises against which the Bar abutted, although the maps of the day evidence that those on both sides of the street were in great part in existence, whilst the picturesque gateway of Archdeacon Pykenham’s former palace (1471) is likewise ignored—and no provision is seen for the brook which until comparatively recent years ran down the centre of the street.

Probably if the truth could only be known, St. Margaret’s Barr Gate, like the “Lose” and the “Bull” Gates, had little about it that found favour in the artistic eye, which would account for no perfect delineation of the edifice having been handed down to us. It was a great obstruction to the highway, and its demolition was one of the first acts of the old Paving and Lighting Commission, after they obtained their Act in 1793. A dated pencil sketch by a lady, in the possession of the contributor, represents it in July, 1794, when the workmen were engaged upon the demolition of the wing walls, the Gate-house chamber being already gone. There is certainly little that is attractive in the fragment thus depicted. Specimens of the rough stone of which it was constructed may still be seen in the lower part of the “Halberd Inn.”

Claims in modern books often need to be taken with a pinch of salt, but this paragraph in Susan Gardiner, “Secret Ipswich” (2015), chapter 11: Gates and Walls, is interesting, although unreferenced:

Northgate Street takes its name from the gate – also known as St Margaret’s Gate – in the town’s ramparts that stood at the top of the road, where P. J. McGinty’s pub, is. Until quite recently, McGinty’s was called the Halberd Inn. A halberd was a type of weapon, a combination of a spear or pikestaff and an axe – the kind of thing that is only used for ceremonial military displays by the yeoman of the guard at the Tower of London now. The original building is much older than it appears, and dates from the seventeenth century, although the exterior was rebuilt in the nineteenth. The Halberd Inn itself is aligned with the old tower ramparts and their remains can be seen in the walls of the south side of the building. More old stonework can be found inside the bar and the cellar of the pub, and are said to be what is left of the old St Margaret’s Gate itself.

The reason for the demolition of the North Gate is not known to me.  Possibly the town records might say.  But probably the reason is the same as with the gates of Norwich, demolished around the same time: that the gates were actually very small and had become a constant nuisance to those passing in or out of the town.  Even without the gate house, the entrance to Northgate Street is very narrow.

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  1. [1](No author), Green and Hatfield, Ipswich: Ancient House Press (not dated).  A copy is held by Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service, filed in a box at Suffolk Record Office / The Hold, reference T4721 box 23, location L3/V/54, in the envelope “Ipswich West Gate”.↩

From My Diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

It has been interesting to wander off for a bit into the field of early Welsh studies.  But I very much want to return to more familiar territory now.

Sitting on my desktop are a number of Word documents, containing partially complete translations of documents from the Council of Hippo (393) and the 3rd Council of Carthage (397).  I see these were last touched in June this year.  In fact I was relieved that it is not even longer!

This afternoon I picked up one of these, and started to look at it.  It contained a canon of the council of Hippo.  Back in the 1960s Charles Munier discovered five lost canons in a manuscript somewhere – not sure where – and published them in an article to which I have no access, Charles Munier, “Cinq canons inédits du concile d’Hippone du 8 octobre 393”, in: Revue de droit canonique 18 (1968) p. 16-29.  Presumably this says more about his discovery.

The text is pretty rough!  I had a go at the first canon back in the summer, but the sentences rather defeated me.

I had another go this afternoon, and this time the sentences made more sense.  I expect those fluent in reading Latin would have no difficulty.  But those of us who are dabblers must look at each sentence as if it was a crossword puzzle, to be decyphered word by word and clause by clause.  When you do that, you can get lead by one set of words in into a state of mind in which even obvious Latin is opaque.  You have to go away, and come back.  So it was this afternoon.  I was quite glad to find that it was working.

I shall do more of this.  I’d like to finish up all the material from these two councils and create a document with text and translation, containing the whole thing.  That would be one project done.

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More on Llan Awst

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Now that we have located the missing Welsh hamlet of Llan Awst using the tithe map of 1844 – about which more in a moment -, it’s time to give some more information about the area.

On the Royal Commission for Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) website, the tithe maps are also linked to Welsh newspaper articles.  These also record the existence of Llanawst.  I have found a couple of articles, but there might very well be more.

The first of these is from the Monmouthshire Merlin, 12th October 1850, where an advertisement on page two reads:

THE MONMOUTHSHIRE HOUNDS WILL MEET ON Monday, October 14th, at Lanawst. Machen; Wednesday 16th, at Machen Village; Friday 18th, at Tredegar Park; Each day at ten o’clock.

The second article is from a Welsh-language newspaper, Ystorfa weinidogaethol, (Cyf. IV Rhif. 35 Ionawr 1841) (Permalink here) and on p.24 out of 32 records the activities of a charitable organisation, the “True Ivors”, establishing “lodges” (i.e. branches, like masonic lodges) in various places, including Risca, Llanawst and Machen.

In my last post, I mentioned that we owe a great debt of thanks to Mr Wayne Barnett, the Rector’s Churchwarden at Lower Machen.  He asked his Welsh-speaking neighbour, Mr Iwan Brooks-Jones, to read this article for us, who replied:

It appears to be a report of the Gwent and Glamorgan branch of the Gwir Iforiaid (True Ivors) philanthropic society meeting held in Blackwood in 1840.

It was attended by officials from 19 lodges. A fund had been formed for widows and orphans in the region and they hoped to reach 100 by the end of the year (but not clear 100 what!).

There’s a list of the 19 lodges and Machen is one of them…

He also found a source on just who the “True Ivorites” were, which is here.

    *    *    *    *

But what are these “tithe maps”?  They are the product of a very long historical process in England and Wales, which only ended in 1977, and the maps emerge from an Act of Parliament in 1836.

In England and Wales during the medieval period and after, one-tenth (10%) of the agricultural produce of the land in a parish was due as “tithe” to support the parish church and the parish clergyman.  (I ignore the question of “Great Tithes” and “Lesser Tithes”).  This system was inevitably unpopular with the farmers, although we may wonder what they would make of the efficient manner in which the modern state takes 50%.  We learn from Paupers and Pig Killers: the Diary of William Holland, A Somerset Parson (1799-1818), that the parson had to be sharp in order to get his tithe in full, and that, even so, he might hesitate to press too much a powerful landowner for it.

But by 1800 change was under way.  It was an utter nuisance to everyone to pass around bushels of corn and so forth, and so agreements were made to pay cash instead.  While the Rev. William Holland was still receiving payment in kind, in Norfolk his contemporary James Woodforde records cash payments in his The Diary of a Country Parson (1758-1802), at his annual “Tithe Audit Dinner”, taking place shortly before Christmas.  The farmers would assemble, with their money, and the parson would give them a dinner with plenty of strong beer.  The poet William Cowper records how these could be sour affairs.  The farmers hated paying over their money, as Cowper records.  By contrast the tithe audit dinners of Parson Woodforde became increasingly genial and pleasant affairs as the parson grew older, and as prices rose and rose.  The Napoleonic Wars led to huge inflation, which was beyond the understanding of the old parson, who simply marveled at the colossal prices of everything.  When he died, in his will, he left only a very modest sum.  His successor as rector was more alert, and he immediately doubled the tithe.  Parson Woodforde did know that the farmers cared only about money, and their geniality in paying it over should have warned him that they were swindling him.  To our eyes, that cheeriness tells us that they knew full well what they were doing: that they were robbing the poor old man of his due, and that they had done so for a decade.

In 1836 parliament passed an Act to change all of the tithes to a money payment.  This meant that surveys had to be commissioned of areas where payment in kind still applied, with maps of where the fields were, and who owned them, and what the tithe payment should be.  But this was in the interests of the farmers, and so it proceeded rapidly.  The tithe maps for Wales are the output of this process.

It should be added that tithes continued to exist in England and Wales until 1936, when a cash payment was made to the church by the government to commute all the tithes once and for all.  By this time they were deeply unpopular, and the use of bailiffs to collect the tithe created deep hatred in areas like East Anglia.  In 1933 the British Union of Fascists succeeded in gaining public support by sending groups of blackshirts to farms in order to defend the farmers against the bailiffs!  This probably hastened the end of the system.  Even so there were administrative matters concerning the tithe fund, which continued as late as 1977.

But the existence of the tithe maps is the one pleasant outcome, that has outlasted all the centuries of financial exactions.

    *    *    *    *

Churchwarden Wayne Barnett also drew my attention to a couple of other important points.

The first is something very  likely to confuse readers looking at a modern map.  On a modern map, there is the town of Machen; and the village of Lower Machen.  But in Borrow’s time, in 1854, the name “Machen” referred to what is today called Lower Machen.  By 1900 a town of “Upper Machen” had come into existence through industry, and today it dwarfs the original village.  He writes:

There has been a place of worship at Lower Machen since the 6th century but we only have knowledge of records from 1102. As an aside, you may like to look at https://lowermachen.church/heritage/ … However, Lower Machen Church does have a small group of volunteers working on the historic significance of the village – you may have noticed on our website there are a couple of books that may interest you. Sorry for the commercial plug but they are hot off the press last Friday with all proceeds going to our charity work, the Parish Trust.  https://lowermachen.church/books/

He kindly sent me a PDF of one of the books, on the Morgan family chapel, which is excellent. I am happy to promote the books!

Living locally he was also able to comment on Borrow’s route:

He seems to be following the river Rhymney past Bedwas (colliery) and hitting Llanawst before Machen (written in that order). In 1854 UPPER Machen would have developed through industry and there was certainly at least one mine (behind my house) and very close to the river.

If only we knew which Machen he refers to – I assume it is Lower Machen as the Traeth (on the Draethen road) must be the large flat fertile area referred to and he seems to have crossed to that side of the river after Bedwas.

    *    *    *    *

The other point is whether there is anything ancient and monastic to be seen.  The “Llan” in Llanawst ought to indicate a monastic site.  But nothing is known now. William Graham mentioned that there is a demolished church at Llanvedw next to Ruperra – too far away –  and that some maps note the supposed site of a priory in Park Wood.  But this has no known history.

Here’s the ordinance survey map of the area.  I have highlighted Llan Awst, the priory site, and the scale.

Llan Awst and the supposed “priory” ruins in Park Wood.

Wayne Barnett sent me two pages from Antony Pickford, Between Mountain and Marsh (1947) ch. 5, pp.56-7.  The author is discussing the Benedictine priory of Bassaleg, and mentions ruins in Park Wood:

Now the most interesting question is that of the location of the monastic buildings and unfortunately it is just the one we cannot answer. Let Coxe speak again. “ No remains of the ancient Priory exist at Bassaleg; there is however a ruined building at a distance of about a mile in the midst of a deep sequestered Forest not far from the Rumney, not far from the con­fines of Machen Parish, which is supposed by some to have been part of the Monastery. The name of this Forest, still called Coed y Monachty, seems to confirm the opinion.”

I presume it is on the strength of this that the six inch Ordnance Map confidently marks “Site of Priory” at a spot half way down the Machen side of the brook in the middle of Park Wood.

There is undoubtedly a ruin there; within living memory some of the foundations were knee high. Now one will probably walk over the site a dozen times and not notice the cut stone wall bases scarcely showing above the earth. Short of thorough excavation we shall never know any more about this building.

Was it the Priory? It seems very doubtful. The building could have been a single cell of earlier or later date; the wood could have been called Coed y Monachty, simply because it belonged to the monks; the whole thing may have been invented at a much later date by some person who found the old ruins hidden in the wood and decided that they had once been the Priory. Even as a form of mortification of the flesh it is very difficult to see how worship could have been carried on satisfactorily in church on the banks of the Ebbw by monks who dwelt two and a half miles away on the banks of the Rhymni! In fact it is an impossible supposition. The Priory must have been close beside whatever building then served as a church. Owing to the early dissolution of the House there has been ample time for all trace of foundations to disappear.

We may say that the Priory was somewhere near the present church site and that short of complete excavation it is impossible to reach any conclusion about the building in Park Wood.

Of the doings of the Benedictine monks of Bassaleg we are fortunate enough to possess a little evidence….

Whether the ruin in Park Wood has any connection with Llanawst, except geographical closeness, we do not know.

    *    *    *    *

It’s time to wrap up this series of posts, and return to where we started: the statement of Canon G. H. Doble, in his Saint Mewan and Saint Austell, that a place named Llanawystl existed in Wales, which might be connected to St Austell in Cornwall.

I think we can happily conclude that the lost and now found hamlet of Llan Awst in Monmouthshire has no connection at all to St Austell in Cornwall.  The Welsh literary sources atttribute it to a female saint named Hawystl, the daughter of a sub-Roman / early Welsh kinglet named Byrchan.  Since both names derive from Latin, Augustus -> Awst, and Augustulus -> Awstl, we really do not need to suppose any direction connection.

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The location of Llan Awst

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Since I read in G. H. Doble’s Saint Mewan and Saint Austell that there was a related place in Wales named Llanawystl, I have tried to find out where this might be, as I mentioned here. In particular I was working from a reference in George Borrow’s Wild Wales, where he says that in 1854 he “passed by Llanawst and Machen” as he travelled East along the Rhymney valley towards Newport.  But no such place as Llanawst is known today.

I have now located Llanawst, or Llan Awst as my source spells it.  This was only through the aid of others – of whom more anon – and through the marvellous online resources of the National Library of Wales and the Royal Commission of the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW).

The location of Llan Awst is shown on a Welsh Tithe Map, produced in 1844, together with lists of fields and owners, and accessible online, together with three fields in a triangle around it.  The map has the title “Plan of the parish of Bassalleg in the County of Monmouth”, produced by a professional surveyor and valuer, William Jones.  A useless low-resolution copy of the map can be found here.  But the high-resolution version is incorporated into the Welsh Tithe Maps website of the National Library of Wales.  Field number 927, named “llanawst field” is online here.  If you zoom the map out a little, you will be able to check the box marked “Tithe Map Overlay”.  The hamlet of Llan Awst instantly becomes visible.

Llan Awst, on the Bassaleg Tithe Map (1838-1850

If you uncheck the tithe map overlay, and choose the satellite view, you can at once see the modern landscape.

The location of Llan Awst today, on the A468 between Lower Machen and Rhiwderin.

It is also possible to show the Ordinance Survey map, ca. 1900, for the same area, where we discover that it is labelled “Maypole Inn”.

Llan Awst / Llanawst, as the Maypole Inn, ca. 1900.

It is quite clear that little has changed in the last 170 years, except that the name has been lost.

This I owe to Dr James January-McCann, Place Names Officer at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, who in response to an email to the RCAHMW kindly did a search.  I had discovered one field, but he located three fields in the tithe map which, under various spellings, bear the name of Llan Awst.  It was while scrolling over the map on the website that I spotted the hamlet of Llan Awst itself.  The fields are numbered, and are all visible on the map above.  Here they are:

  • Field 838, “Cae Lanawst”.  Tithe map here, RCAHMW info here.  This field is to the west of the hamlet, and is let to the Rev. Augustus Morgan, and owned by Borrow’s great landowner Sir Charles Morgan.
  • Field 927, “Llanawst field”.  Tithe map here, RCAHMW info here.  This field is to the south of the hamlet, and was part of the Park House farm at the time.  Again it was owned by Sir Charles.
  • Field 954, “Cae Llanwst”.  Tithe map here, RCAHMW info here.  This field is across the road to the north-east of Llanawst.  Like 838 it was occupied by Rev. Augustus Morgan and owned by Sir Charles.

(“cae” is Welsh for “field”).  The three fields form a triangle around the building that was the Maypole Inn in 1900, according to the OS map.  This tithe map was completed in 1844, and George Borrow’s visit was in 1854.

Llan Awst, or Maypole, appears to be much the same size as it was 170 years ago.  By 1900 it was known as The Maypole Inn.  I corresponded with Mr William Graham, former Member of the Welsh Assembly, whose family go back a long way in the area as surveyors.  He tells me that the Maypole Inn was a “rhubarb inn”: an establishment where unlicensed  and untaxed moonshine, distilled from rhubarb, might be purchased.

If the inn existed in Borrow’s time, and he stopped there for refreshment, then this would explain his mention of this otherwise unimportant place.

Today the hamlet can be viewed on Google Streetview.  It is not imposing, at least from the road side.  Indeed I would not have thought the buildings were much older than a century.  I cannot tell whether there are today one or two distinct dwellings. For the convenience of other researchers, the modern address of this, or of one of them, seems to be Maypole House, Rhiwderin, Newport NP10 8RP (I have requested that this text be added to Google Maps; it would have saved a lot of scrolling and clicking).  Note that this is NOT the town of Maypole, elsewhere in Monmouthshire.  Nor is Llanawst the town today spelled Llanrwst in North Wales.  Both are liable to confuse the enquirer!

Mr Graham kindly sent me a couple of photographs.  Here is the North side, facing the A468:

Maypole House, North elevation, 2021.

And the south side:

Maypole House, South elevation, 2021

    *    *    *    *

All this information I owe to the help of Dr Wayne Barnett, the Rector’s Churchwarden at Lower Machen, who replied to my email to the Rector of Machen.  He worked hard on this, and also put me in contact with almost everyone else.

So I’ve ended up with more information than will fit conveniently into one post!  So for more information on Llan Awst, and just what these “tithe maps” are, please go on to the fourth post in this series, here. (Once I have written it!)

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Llanawstl: Trying to read the entry for Hawystl in the Welsh Peniarth manuscript 127

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m still trying to establish whether there was a locality in Wales, Llanawstl, which might relate to the Cornish St Austell. My first post on this is here.

The Welsh National Library has online here a very useful resource: Peter Bartrum, A Welsh Classical Dictionary: People in History and Legend up to about A.D. 1000 (1993).  This contains an entry for the female saint Hawystl, daughter of the kinglet Brychan, mentioned in some of the sources.  Bartrum writes:

HAWYSTL (ferch Brychan).
She first appears as a saint ‘in Caer Hawystl’ and a daughter of Brychan in Peniarth MS.127 p.52, and this is copied in a number of later manuscripts. The name seems to have taken the place of Tudwystl which is omitted from the list in Peniarth MS.127. See Plant Brychan §3x in EWGT p.83. It has been suggested that she is the saint of Llanawstl (destroyed) in Machen, Gwent (W. J. Rees, Lives of the Cambro-British Saints, p.607; LBS III.252), But see s.n. Austell.

“EWGT” = Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts, ed. P. C. Bartrum, Cardiff, 1966.
“LBS” = The Lives of the British Saints, by S.Baring Gould and John Fisher, 4 vols., London, 1907-13.

Rees’ statement we have already examined.  But what about this Peniarth manuscript?  Well, it’s a manuscript written in Welsh.  I don’t know anything about Welsh manuscripts.

So I was really rather impressed to discover that a lot of the Peniarth manuscripts are online at the National Library of Wales, together with a link to the necessary catalogue, Evans, J. G., Report on manuscripts in the Welsh language (1898–1910), volume 1.2, p.775. This allows rank laymen like myself to work with the primary sources, at least to some degree.

As far as I can tell, the material on page 52, as one might expect, is a list of the daughters of Brychan.  The manuscript itself was written around 1510, with some additions in 1523.

The actual manuscript is online here.  What seems to be the sixth item is the one we want:

I wonder what we can make of this, knowing no Welsh?

First, if this is about “Hawystl” then the “s” must be a long-s.

Next, the name of Brychan is obvious in each of the three lines, so the word that precedes it must be “ferch” or “verch” (as Bartrum tells us), meaning “daughter [of]”.  Apparently it can be abbreviated “vch”, and it looks as if that has happened here.  So that means the last word in our sentence is “Hawstl”.

At this point I recall that Rees gave a list of the daughters of Brychan, in Latin and English, in a somewhat different version where Hawystl was replaced by Tudhistel.  So we can use the names as a key to the paleography.  P.604 has the English in his version here.

The next name in his list, and ours is Tybie.  That gives us the “e”, but also shows that the first letter is in the margin!  “T … ybie”.  So our line starts with “H” and then “Awystl”.

Some of the words are clearly a formula – “y sy?? yn sante?”  I’m going to guess that sy?? is sydd – thank you Google predictive text!  So we get:

Hawystl vch. Brychan y sydd yn santer yn ghaer hawystl.

What does this mean?

Well, with the aid of Google I believe that “y” means “the”, “sydd” means “which”, “yn” means “in”.  “Ghaer Hawystl” is plainly Bartrum’s “Caer Hawystl”.  I would guess that “santer” – I’m not sure of the last letter – is oratory, or shrine, or whatever.  So… without knowing any Welsh, it would seem to say that Hawystl has her saint-thingie in a place called Caer Hawystl?  No doubt a Welsh-speaking reader can correct me!

This tells us no more than we started with, but it’s still fun to try!

Does anybody else want to have a go?

Update: Looks like it might be “santes”, i.e. saint.

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