The Rector Writes – May 2009
Dear Friends
One of the most important elements of Welsh place-names is ‘Llan’. Neither this nor its first two letters have direct English equivalents. Shakespeare spelt the name Llewelyn beginning Fl. He would have done better with Hl. Like-wise the meaning of llan is sometimes given as ‘church’, ‘parish’, ‘village’ or ‘saint’ but these are all inaccurate. To determine the essence of the word we need to consider compound words which include it, such as perllan – orchard, gwinllan – vineyard, and corlan – sheepfold. From these we see that the basic meaning is ‘enclosure’, to protect fruit-trees, vines and animals respectively.
The names of many places in Wales begin with the element ‘llan’ followed by a modified form of a saint’s name, which involves an adjustment to the first letter according to simple rules. For instance, the parish church of Llangollen is dedicated to St Collen – the c has changed to a g. In these instances the llan is named after the saint who originally established it in the 5th or 6th century. The enclosure wasn’t so much to keep fruit or animals safe as to be a mission-base for the saints’ work of spreading the Gospel in the surrounding area. Names including Biblical saints tend to date from later.
The most direct equivalent of a llan is often the churchyard which surrounds a medieval church, which was built on the site of a wooden one, dating back to the days of the founding saints. Most of these churchyards are round, although they may have been reduced and lost their shape through road-works, as in the case of Hope. Holyhead is an exception. It is a llan in all but name – Caergybi in Welsh – and it seems that Saint Cybi adopted the abandoned, rectangular foundations of the old Roman fort as a readymade base for his mission on Anglesey.
The strategy of these early saints in Wales contrasts strongly with that of the Apostles in the New Testament. St Paul, for instance, would try to have maximum impact for his message by concentrating on centres of trade where lots of people would hear him and tell others about him and about what he said. The word from which ‘pagan’ is derived was originally a neutral one, meaning ‘country-dweller’, but it came to mean one whose beliefs and practices were out of date, and then those who hadn’t embraced Christianity.
There has always been a strong tradition of Christians being prepared to take their faith across cultural boundaries, and this applied to the Age of the Saints as well as to Biblical or more modern times. A rural churche which I visited last summer was St Gwyddelan’s, Dolwyddelan, to the south of Betws-y-coed. Gwyddelan who founded it was Irish.
One of the best ways to trace the influence of Welsh saints is through the dedication of ancient churches. Some years ago our Church Council had an away-day to consider strategy, at St Beuno’s retreat centre near St Asaph. Churches dedicated to him are as far flung as Clynnog Fawr on the Lleyn peninsula, Llanvaynoe in Herefordshire and Culbone in Somerset. Communications were often easier in those days by sea than by land.
You will know that our parish church is dedicated to two Welsh saints – Cynfarch (Kun-varch – ch as in Bach and loch) and Cyngar (Kung-ar). We know next to nothing about them. Both have churches dedicated to them elsewhere, so far as I am aware, one each. There is a St Cyngar’s church on the outskirts of Porthmadog, and the parish Church in Llanfair DC (Dyffryn Clwyd – Clwyd Valley) is dedicated to St Mary, as you would expect, since the Welsh for Mary is Mair, and to St Cynfarch. In times past this parish of Hope was called Llangyngar.
Llans (llannau, to use the correct plural in Welsh) were intended to be microcosms of the Kingdom of Heaven. Modern equivalents are small groups of Christians which set up a community for the same purpose, on a housing estate or in an area with social problems, to demonstrate the relevance of faith in Christ in that place, by making it their home.
Llans were often established on ancient pagan sites, possibly to displace former beliefs and practices promoted from there. They were not limited to Wales but found throughout the other southern Celtic territories of Cornwall and Britany. It would be interesting to trace where earlier ones were in England, which were destroyed by invasions from the east. Not all place-names beginning with llan include the name of a saint. A few include the name of a river. This applies to two of our four ancient cathedrals. Llandaff stands on the Taff and our own St Asaph, Llanelwy, stands on the river Elwy.
Yours sincerely
Martin Snellgrove