Welsh Journals

in the free metres as well as cynghanedd before the Reformation? Especially since the experience of the sixteenth century strongly suggests that the free verse was much more effective in its popular appeal than the cynghanedd poetry, and in the Middle Ages, too, would almost certainly have been more easily remembered and more widely circulated by word of mouth than the classical verse. Competition for the favour of pilgrims was keen, and the loyalty of the public could be fickle and spasmodic, for the motives of men and women for going on pilgrimage were very mixed. In addition to moral or spiritual inducements, many were frequently moved by much more mundane desires to see new places and experience fresh sensations, while others were impatient with their masters, their wives or husbands, and desirous of getting away from them for a while. So it was essential that the aura of the pilgrimage centres should regularly be kept at the forefront of public attention, not only for religious or historical reasons but also because the revenue accruing from the offerings of devotees could add so crucial an input to ecclesiastical finances. The Valor Ecclesiasticus, that Domesday Book of the income of the Church in England and Wales, took note of the indebtedness of many churches to the generosity of pilgrims. In Wales, St Winifred's Well topped the list with £ 10 a year, Pen-rhys came next with £ 6, and Bardsey was some way behind with £ 2; but even a relatively much less known church like Tywyn, Merioneth, received 26s.8i.w Handsome ecclesiastical structures were erected largely on the strength of past pilgrim donations or in the hope of attracting further gifts in the future. Llanrhaeadr Dyffryn Clwyd benefited in this way from the considerable numbers of pilgrims who came to seek the help of Dyfnog,87 to whom were dedicated a vigorous pistyll (spring) and ffynnon (well) having miraculous properties, referred to by Leland in the sixteenth century and a number of later antiquaries, among them Edward Lhuyd, Browne Willis and Thomas Pennant. It was from the proceeds of medieval pilgrim offerings that the costs were met of the magnificent Jesse window, one of the finest Welsh examples of its kind and still to be admired in Llanrhaeadr church. The even more sumptuous church at Gresford, one of the loveliest of all Welsh churches, owed most of its treasures to the munificence of 88! Valor Ecclesiasticus, IV, 438, 365, 419, 427. Jones, Holy Wells, 50. An anonymous poem to Dyfnog survives in NLW Uanstephan MS 167, f. 331; cf. also Hartwell Jones, Pilgrim Movement,