Article contents
A Lost Reliquary Casket from Gwytherin, North Wales
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2011
Summary
A reliquary casket known from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century records as that of St Winifrid had been lost by the mid-nineteenth century from the church at Gwytherin in Clwyd. A drawing attributed to Edward Lluyd, published here for the first time, suggests that it was most probably of eighth- or early ninth-century date and was influenced by Anglo-Saxon (JG-C) or Irish (LB) models, if not an actual import into North Wales.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1990
References
1 Thomas, D. R., A History of the Diocese of St Asaph (London, 1870), 543–6Google Scholar ; The History..., 2nd edn. (London, 1911), 11, 312–14Google Scholar . See also: RCAM(W), Denbighshire (1914), 64–5, nos. 202 and 206Google Scholar ; and Evans, J. Wyn, ‘The early church in Denbighshire’, Denbighshire Hist. Soc. Trans., 35 (1986), 65–9Google Scholar.
2 ‘Vita sancte Wenefrede uirginis el martyris’,- in Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae et Genealogiae, ed. Wade-Evans, A. W. (Cardiff, 1944), 288–309.Google Scholar
3 Nash-Williams, V. E., The Early Christian Monuments of Wales (Cardiff, 1950), 121.Google Scholar
4 Pennant, T., A Tour of Wales, 2 vols. (London, 1784Google Scholar ; incorporating The Journey to Snowdon: London, 1781), 11, 55Google Scholar.
5 Unchanged in Lewis, S., A Topographical Dictionary of Wales, 3rd edn., 2 vols. (London, 1845), 1, 389.Google Scholar
6 Westwood, J. O., ‘Further notices of the early inscribed stones of Wales’, Archaeol. Cambrensis, 3rd ser., 4 (1858), 405.Google Scholar
7 Archaeol. Cambrensis, 4th ser., 13 (1882), 330.Google Scholar
8 Thomas, , op. cit. (note 1), 314.Google Scholar
9 RCAM(W), op. cit. (note 1), 64.Google Scholar
10 Archaeol. Cambrensis, op. cit. (note 7), 329.
11 Lluyd, E., Parochialia, 3 parts (Cambrian Arch. Assoc, 1909), 1, 29.Google Scholar
12 Bodleian Library, RawlinsonB 464, fol.29r. A copy of Lluyd's notes in the National Library of Wales contains a very similar, but slightly simplified, version of this drawing (NLW 1506C, fol. 40V), and there is a poor sketch in NLW 4863B, fol. 45V; the title, but no drawing, occurs in NLW 1646B, p. 154b, and there is a space for a drawing of the casket in NLW 6617B, p. 40.
13 These numbers are those on the spines of the volumes as originally bound, but in the Library's own classification, the drawing that is reproduced here as pl. VII b is that in Vol. 11, pt. 1, on p. 47; the other drawing is in Vol. in, pt. 11, on p. 55.
14 Pennant, , op. cit. (note 4), 55Google Scholar . Griffith had to rely on Lluyd's drawing of the military tomb slab because it was not visible, but he made new drawings of the Early Christian stones (one of which was published). Pennant's reference to Sebright is presumably to the collection made by Sir Thomas Saunders Sebright (died 1736). Some part of this passed to Richard Rawlinson and so (in 1756) to the Bodleian; notebooks of Lluyd's (B467-9, C821 and perhaps C920) passed down in this way, but there is no evidence that B 464 did likewise. Other material passed to Sir John Sebright (died 1794) and was bought by Sir William Watkin Wynn, but destroyed in a fire in 1808. Further material was given to Thomas Johnes of Hafod in 1796-7, but it was destroyed in a fire in 1807. Some notebooks may have been given to Pennant, Thomas in 1778 (Welsh History Review 7 (1974), 162–3)Google Scholar.
15 Kendrick, T. D. and Senior, E., ‘St Manchan's Shrine’, Archaeologia 86 (1937)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; see also Graham-Campbell, J., Viking Artefacts: A Select Catalogue (London, 1980), 150, no. 507, with refsGoogle Scholar.
16 Blindheim, M., ‘A house-shaped Irish-Scots reliquary in Bologna, and its place among the other reliquaries’, Acta Archaeologica, 55 (1984), 1–53Google Scholar ; Harbison, P., ‘Early Irish reliquary-shrines in bronze and stone’, Würzburger Diözesangeschichtsblätter 51 (1989), 37–50Google Scholar ; Youngs, S. (ed.), ‘The Work of Angels’: Masterpieces of Celtic Metalwork, 6th-9th Centuries AD (London, 1989), 134–40, nos. 128–32Google Scholar.
17 Ryan, M., ‘A gilt-bronze object in the M.R.A.H.’, Musea 56 (1986), 57–60.Google Scholar
18 Stevenson, R. B. K., ‘Further notes on the Hunterston and “Tara” brooches, Monymusk reliquary and Blackness bracelet’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. 113(1983), 473–4.Google Scholar
19 Ryan, M. (ed.), Treasures of Ireland: Irish Art 3000 BC-1500 AD (Dublin, 1983), 124-5, 126–7, no. 51a.Google Scholar
20 Youngs, , op. cit. (note 16), 143–4, no. 137.Google Scholar
21 Wilson, D. M., Anglo-Saxon Art from the Seventh Century to the Norman Conquest (London, 1984), 65, pl. 60.Google Scholar
22 Backhouse, J., Turner, D. H. and Webster, L. (eds.), The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art (London, 1984), 125–6, no. 129Google Scholar ; Wilson, , op. cit. (note 21), 193–4, pls. 243-6Google Scholar.
23 Okasha, E., A Hand-List of Anglo-Saxon Non-Runic Inscriptions (Cambridge, 1971), 102, no. 93Google Scholar ; Page, R. I., An Introduction to English Runes (London, 1973), 166Google Scholar.
24 Wilson, D. M., ‘Two plate s from a Late Saxon casket’, Antiq. J. 36 (1956), 31–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Wilson, D.M., Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork, 700-1100, in the British Museum (London, 1964), 214–16, nos. 154 and 155, pl. xlivGoogle Scholar ; Wilson, , op. cit. (note 21), 145, pl. 179Google Scholar.
25 Bakka, E., ‘Some English decorated metal objects found in Norwegian Viking graves’, Årbok for Universitetet i Bergen, Humanistisk Serie, 1963, 19–20, fig. 13Google Scholar ; Warners, E., Insularer Metallschmuck in wikingerzeitlichen Gräbern Nordeuropas, Offa-Bücher, Band 56 (Neumünster, 1985), 92, no. 25, Taf. 10.1Google Scholar.
26 Wilson, , op. cit. (note 24) (Ornamental Metalwork), 15, pl.i.b.Google Scholar
27 Ibid., 192-3, nos. 105–7.
28 Cramp, R. J. and Daniels, R., ‘New finds from the Anglo-Saxon monastery a t Hartlepool, Cleveland’, Antiquity 233 (1987), 429, fig. 7.a.Google Scholar
29 Bakka, , op. cit. (not e 25), 55Google Scholar ; Warners, , op. cit. (note 25), 109Google Scholar , no. 164, Taf. 3.1.
30 Wilson, , op. cit. (note 24) (Ornamental Metalwork), 193–4, no. 110, pl. xxxix.Google Scholar
31 Ibid., 57, pl. iii.a.
32 Wilson, D. M., ‘The silver brooch’, in Mason, D. J. P., Excavations at Chester, 26-42 Lower Bridge Street 1974-6: the Dark Age and Saxon Periods (Chester, 1985), 61Google Scholar , fig. 26, pl. 9,1-2.
33 Wilson, , op. cit. (note 24) (Ornamental Metalwork), 119–20, no. 2, pl.xiGoogle Scholar ; Bakka, , op. cit. (note 25), 20, fig. 15Google Scholar.
34 Bakka, , op. cit. (note 25), 40–4, figs. 40-5Google Scholar ; Warners, , op. cit. (note 25), 104Google Scholar , no. 129, Taf. 12.1 and no. 127, Taf. 13.3, respectively.
35 Leahy, K. and Coutts, C. M., The Lost Kingdom: the Search for Anglo-Saxon Lindsey (Scunthorpe, 1987), 10.Google Scholar
35 Warners, , op. cit. (note 25), 109Google Scholar , no. 165, Taf. 3.2.
37 O'Meadhra, U., Early Christian, Viking and Romanesque Art. Motif-Pieces from Ireland 1: an Illustrated and Descriptive Catalogue (Stockholm, 1979).Google Scholar
38 cf. also that from Vangsnes, Sogn og Fjordane, in Warners, , op. cit. (note25), 96Google Scholar , no. 61, Taf. 13.1.
39 Henry, F., Irish Art in the Romanesque Period 1020-1170 AD (London, 1970), 117–19, pl. 34.Google Scholar
40 Wilson, , op. cit. (note 21), 84, pl. 93Google Scholar ; Cramp, R., ‘Schools of Mercian sculpture’, in Dornier, A. (ed.), Mercian Studies (Leicester, 1977), 210, fig. 57.cGoogle Scholar ; Lang, J., Anglo-Saxon Sculpture (Aylesbury, 1988), 12, 36–7, fig. 17Google Scholar.
41 Thomas, A. C., The Early Christian Archaeology of North Britain (London, 1971), 141–4, fig.63, pl. viiGoogle Scholar ; Harbison, , op. cit. (note 16), 38–9, figs. 2-4Google Scholar.
42 Ibid., 39.
43 Including three from North Wales (Llanrhyd-dlad, Anglesey: RCAM(W), Anglesey (1937), 109, pl. 57Google Scholar ; Llangwstenin, Caerns.: RCAM(W), Caernarvonshire (1956), 1, 133Google Scholar ; Llangwnnadl, Caerns.: Ibid. (1964), III, xli, 88). See also Fox, A., ‘Early Christian Period’, in Nash-Williams, V. E., A Hundred Years of Welsh Archaeology (1949), 105–22, esp. 121-2Google Scholar.
- 2
- Cited by