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The ways 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, are examined here in a series of case studies. The papers highlight the factors that allowed particular cults to prosper in, or made them relevant to, a variety of cultural contexts. The collection has a particular emphasis on northern Britain, and the 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.
Although the majority of the studies are concerned with the significance of cults in the insular context, many of them also touch on the development of pan-European devotions, such as the cults of St Brendan, the Three Kings, or St George.
List of contents
Editors' Preface
Rochester, Hexham and Cennrígmonaid: the movements of St Andrew in Britain, 604-707 - James E. Fraser
The cults of Saints Patrick and Palladius in early medieval Scotland - Thomas O Clancy
Names and the cult of Patrick in eleventh-century Strathclyde and Northumbria - Fiona Edmonds
Bishop Kentigern among the Britons - John Reuben Davies
Adjacent saints' dedications and early Celtic History - Karen Jankulak
Cuthbert the cross-border saint in the twelfth century - Sally Crumplin
David of Scotland:
Virum tam necessarium mundo - Joanna Huntington
The cult of St George in Scotland - Steven Boardman
The cult of the Three Kings of Cologne in Scotland - Eila Williamson
The medieval and early modern cult of St Brendan - Jonathan M Wooding
About the author
Steve Boardman, John Reuben Davies, Eila Williamson
