Saints' cults flourished in the medieval world, and the phenomenon is examined here in a series of studies. The way in which saints' cults operated across and beyond political, ethnic and linguistic boundaries in the medieval British Isles and Ireland, from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries, is the subject of this book. In a series of case studies, the contributions highlight the factors that allowed particular cults to prosper in, or that made them relevant to, a variety of cultural contexts. The collection has a particular emphasis on northern Britain, andthe role of devotional interests in connecting or shaping a number of polities and cultural identities (Pictish, Scottish, Northumbrian, Irish, Welsh and English) in a world of fluid political and territorial boundaries. Althoughthe bulk of the studies are concerned with the significance of cults in the insular context, many of the articles also touch on the development of pan-European devotions (such as the cults of St Brendan, The Three Kings or St George). Contributors: James E. Fraser, Thomas Owen Clancy, Fiona Edmonds, John Reuben Davies, Karen Jankulak, Sally Crumplin, Joanna Huntington, Steve Boardman, Eila Williamson, Jonathan Wooding

New essays shed light on the mysterious St Samson of Dol and his Vita. The First Life of St Samson of Dol (Vita Prima Samsonis) is a key text for the study of early Welsh, Cornish, Breton and indeed west Frankish history. In the twentieth century it was the subject of unresolved scholarly controversy that tended to limit its usefulness. However, more recent research has firmly re-established its significance as a historical source. This volume presents the results of new, multi-disciplinary, assessment of the textand its context. What emerges from the studies collected here is a context of greater plausibility for the First Life of St Samson of Dol as an early and essentially historical text, potentially at the centre of early British Christianity and its influence on the Continent. The landscape of that Christianity is gradually emerging from the shadows and it is a landscape in which the career of St Samson, the first Insular peregrinus, is shown to be of considerable importance. LYNETTE OLSON is an Honorary Associate of the Department of History, University of Sydney. Contributors: Caroline Brett, Karen Jankulak, Constant J. Mews, Lynette Olson, Joseph-Claude Poulin, Richard Sowerby, Ian N. Wood, Jonathan M. Wooding.

Saints' cults flourished in the medieval world, and the phenomenon is examined here in a series of studies. The way in which saints' cults operated across and beyond political, ethnic and linguistic boundaries in the medieval British Isles and Ireland, from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries, is the subject of this book. In a series of case studies, the contributions highlight the factors that allowed particular cults to prosper in, or that made them relevant to, a variety of cultural contexts. The collection has a particular emphasis on northern Britain, andthe role of devotional interests in connecting or shaping a number of polities and cultural identities (Pictish, Scottish, Northumbrian, Irish, Welsh and English) in a world of fluid political and territorial boundaries. Althoughthe bulk of the studies are concerned with the significance of cults in the insular context, many of the articles also touch on the development of pan-European devotions (such as the cults of St Brendan, The Three Kings or St George). Contributors: James E. Fraser, Thomas Owen Clancy, Fiona Edmonds, John Reuben Davies, Karen Jankulak, Sally Crumplin, Joanna Huntington, Steve Boardman, Eila Williamson, Jonathan Wooding

The saint's cult casts light on relations between Cornwall and Brittany - and Henry II's empire - in the 12th century. The historical, political, ecclesiastical, and religious relationships between medieval Cornwall, Brittany, Wales, Ireland and England are explored here through a study of the cult of St Petroc. Evidence for the cult in each areais thoroughly surveyed, but Cornwall and Brittany, the most important loci of the cult and most closely linked by language and culture, are the book's primary focus. The implications of the cult of a Celtic saint [generallyan intensely local phenomenon] shared between Cornwall and Brittany are discussed, and attention is given to the highly politically-directed twelfth-century account of the furtive translation of the saint's relics to Brittany, which offers invaluable evidence for relations between Cornwall and Brittany, and also for Brittany's position in the Angevin empire of Henry II. Dr KAREN JANKULAK lectures in the Department of Welsh, University of Wales,Lampeter. She gained her Ph.D. from the Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, a twelfth-century cleric, was the first person to compose a detailed and continuous history of Britain from its origins to the domination of the Anglo-Saxons. His writings were enormously popular throughout the western European world, and he is justly credited with bringing 'The Matter of Britain' (including, most notably, the figure of Arthur) to a much wider audience. The vast popularity of this material has persisted to the present day, mainly but not solely in the interest shown in 'King Arthur'. This book illustrates the close ties between Geoffrey's notion of British and Arthurian society and other materials from medieval Wales and Ireland.