There seems to be no doubt that the Church, as a visible society of baptized persons, was fully established and functioning in Wales by 200 a.d. Her influence is to be discerned in our earliest vocabulary, e.g. the word for ‘universe’ in Welsh is ‘bedyssawd’, the Latin ‘baptizati’, an assembly of baptized persons. By the sixth century Welsh epic poetry was being written in die context of a Christian culture. Taliesin, the poet, describing the court of Urien Prince of Rheged in Southern Scotland, which formed part of Roman Britain, describes a Catholic family life as lived in the court of his exalted patron. By 314, when the Council of Arles met, Bishops from the whole of Christendom attended and ‘lesser clergy’ from Spain, Italy, Gaul, and Britain. The three orders of Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons were present. We have every reason to deduce that the Catholic Church in Wales was well established, vigorous and in full cognizance of its sister assemblies on the Continent. We hear of British representatives at all the subsequent councils except that of Nicaea. When in 383 Magnus Maximus was proclaimed Emperor by the British Legions before he left for the Continent to defend the fortunes of Rome, he was baptized as an orthodox believer and won the approval of St Martin of Tours, St Ambrose of Milan, and Pope Siricius for his faithfulness in belief.

There is no need to stress this aspect of Welsh history to a Catholic audience. It was part of the general picture of the Europe of that day. What is perhaps not so generally realized amongst Catholics is that Wales in those days was part and parcel of the Roman Empire, under the direct rule of Roman Emperors, for all of three centuries. After an initial period of resistance to Roman arms our forbears seem to have attained a modus vivendi and to have co-operated with their rulers and actually to have enjoyed a long period of tranquillity.