Welsh Journals

mouthshire and Herefordshire have a Caldicot a piece, offering shelter to travellers. All these place names reflect good Anglo-Saxon relations in their vicinities. The wording of a tenth century treaty between the English and the Welsh Dunsaete, who then apparently inhabited Erging, suggests an attempt to define a relationship which was already of long standing, and may well be as ancient as Offa.64 Glasbury represents a marriage of Welsh and Saxon elements. The Welsh version of the name is Clas yr Wy, the clas on the Wye. The parish church is dedicated to St. Cynidr, one of the alleged sons of Brychan Brycheiniog. Despite Anglo-Saxon penetra- tion, the monastery retained its status, which was recognised in the hybrid name by which it became known. Its Celtic background caused no offence to the Anglo-Saxons. In 786 two papal legates conducted a visitation of the Church in England for Pope Hadrian. George, bishop of Ostia, an "old man of long experience in papal business,"65 was assisted by Theophylact, bishop of Todi. Significantly it was Theophylact who examined the Church in Mercia and then went on to Wales. He was the less experienced of the two legates, which suggests that the Roman authorities were not unduly disturbed by the condition of the Church in Wales. At this time Offa was trying to set up a Mercian archbishopric, centred on Lichfield, to free him from the influence and authority of an archbishopric centred on Canterbury in hostile Kent. Theophylact's Welsh visitation suggests Offa may have entertained a dream of incorporating Powys into his Mercian arch- bishopric. If so, there is no record of any protest from the men of Powys. The Flintshire place-name Bistre is of Anglo-Saxon origin, a contraction of Bishop's tree. It is in the region of Englefield or Tegeingl, taken over by the English in the Offan expansion. The name suggests the tree was either an episcopal boundary mark or the place where the bishop regularly stopped on his visitations. The episcopal centre at St. Asaph seems to have been in abeyance at this time, so that the question is raised whether the Mercian bishop of Lichfield claimed these newly acquired Mercian areas as being within his jurisdiction. Prestatyn was not far away, and on the northern extremity of Offa's Dyke. Here again the Anglo-Saxon origin of the name suggests this priest's tun was within the sphere of influence of the Church in Mercia. A similar extension of its influence is suggested in southern Powys by the Radnorshire place-name Presteigne. If Mercian priests were prepared to have their tuns on the threshold of Powys, not only must they have expected to live in peace and safety, but also to have had satisfactory relations with their Welsh counterparts. Despite the anti-Welsh spirit of his Ecclesiastical History, the Annates Cambriae record the death of Bede in 735, as well as that of Cuthbert, abbot of Jarrow and Wearmouth, in 777. The Welsh Triads speak of "Three men who received the wisdom of Adam, Cato the old, and Bede, and Sibli the wise the Book of Taliesin assured its readers that "the books of Bede tell no Hes. The well known similarity between the decoration on the twin crosses at Sandbach, a few miles north-east of Crewe, and the Pembrokeshire Pennaly cross is further evidence of the Anglo-Welsh cultural relationship. All of these crosses are influenced by Northumbrian art. The Viking raids began in 786, displacing Northumbrian artists, who made their way by land as well as by sea westward. Like the ninth century Pillar of Eliseg