Category: Religion

• Ann Griffiths (1776–1805): The Mystic Voice of Welsh Methodism

  

  Within the religious and cultural history of Wales, few figures possess the quiet yet enduring authority of Ann Griffiths, the celebrated hymn writer of Montgomeryshire. Though her life was tragically short, ending at the age of only twenty-nine, her influence on Welsh Nonconformist spirituality has been profound and lasting. In an age when women seldom…

  Antony David Davies

  Religion

  Ann Griffiths, books, Calvinistic Methodists, christianity, Daniel Rowland, Dolwar Fach, faith, history of Welsh chapels, Howell Harris, Llanfihangel-yng-Ngwynfa, Methodist revival Wales, Mid Wales history, Montgomeryshire culture, montgomeryshire-history, Rural Wales history, Seiadau, spirituality, Thomas Charles of Bala, Welsh chapel culture, Welsh cultural history, Welsh devotional literature, Welsh evangelical revival, Welsh heritage, Welsh historical biography, Welsh hymn tradition, Welsh hymn writer, Welsh hymnody, Welsh language literature, Welsh literary figures, Welsh Methodism, Welsh Methodist theology, Welsh mysticism, Welsh Nonconformity, Welsh poetry, Welsh Protestant history, Welsh religious history, Welsh religious revival, Welsh spiritual poetry, Welsh women in history, William Williams Pantycelyn, women in Welsh religion, writing

• Thomas Charles of Bala (1755–1814): Scripture, Education, and the Institutionalisation of the Welsh Revival

  

  Among the architects of modern Welsh religious culture, few figures exercised an influence comparable to Thomas Charles of Bala. A Calvinistic Methodist minister, educational reformer, and promoter of scriptural literacy, Charles played a critical role in transforming the evangelical revival of eighteenth-century Wales into the structured Nonconformist culture that would dominate Welsh society throughout the…

  Antony David Davies

  Religion

  18th century Wales, 19th-century-wales, Bala Merionethshire history, Bala Wales history, bible, British and Foreign Bible Society, Calvinistic Methodism, christianity, Daniel Rowland, faith, Griffith Jones Llanddowror, History, history of education in Wales, history of Sunday schools Wales, Howell Harris, jesus, Mary Jones Welsh Bible story, Merionethshire history, Nonconformist Wales, Presbyterian Church of Wales history, religion in Wales history, Snowdonia history, Thomas Charles, Thomas Charles of Bala, Welsh Bible history, Welsh biography, Welsh chapel culture, Welsh cultural history, Welsh evangelical revival, Welsh historical figures, Welsh language and religion, Welsh literacy history, Welsh Methodist Revival, Welsh Nonconformity, Welsh Protestant history, Welsh religious history, Welsh Social History, Welsh Sunday schools

• St David, Feast and Nation: Faith, Respectability, and the Welsh Diaspora

  

  Saint David, Dewi Sant, stands at the centre of Welsh national consciousness in a manner unmatched by most European patron saints. His importance lies not only in religion, but in the way successive generations of Welsh people have used his memory to articulate identity, morality, and belonging. Nowhere is this clearer than in the evolution…

  Antony David Davies

  Religion

  British religious history, Celtic Christianity, christianity, Christianity in Wales, Cultural history Wales, Dewi Sant, Dewi Sant history, Early British Christianity, Early medieval Wales, faith, Gŵyl Mabsant, History, history of Wales, Medieval pilgrimage, Origins of St David’s Day, Patron saints, Pembrokeshire history, Pilgrimage in Britain, Saint David, Saint David biography, saints, St David, St David’s Day, St Davids Cathedral, Victorian Wales, Wales, Welsh civic identity, Welsh communities abroad, Welsh cultural traditions, Welsh culture, Welsh diaspora, Welsh heritage, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh national day, Welsh national identity, Welsh nationalism, Welsh Nonconformity, Welsh religious history, Welsh saints, Welsh traditions

• Trevor Owen Davies (1895–1966)

  

  A Farm Boy at Christ Church, Oxford, A Welsh Scholar in Public Life In 1920s Oxford, the halls of Christ Church were filled with the sons of the English landed elite. Among them sat an unlikely figure: a farm labourer from the Dyfi Valley who had traded his plough for Augustine. Trevor Owen Davies was…

  Antony David Davies

  Religion

  20th-century-wales, Augustine theology, BBC Religious Advisory Council, Brecknockshire history, Caeadda, Calvinistic Methodism, Christ Church Oxford, christianity, History, Justice of the Peace Wales, Llanwrin, llyfnant-valley, Machynlleth County School, Mid Wales history, Montgomeryshire, Oxford theology, Powys history, Presbyterian Church of Wales, Reformed theology, Rural Wales, Social history, Trefeca College, Trevecka College, Trevor O Davies, Trevor Owen Davies, University College Aberystwyth, Wales, Welsh biography, Welsh broadcasting history, Welsh chapel culture, Welsh clergy, Welsh education history, Welsh history, Welsh intellectual history, Welsh ministers, Welsh Nonconformity, Welsh Public Life, Welsh rural society

• The Land of Saints

  

  A journey through the sacred canon of Wales To understand Welsh identity you must first accept a simple truth: Wales is a country whose ground is saturated with sacred memory. Not sacred in the abstract, not merely in the language of church and doctrine, but sacred in the way wells are named, in the way…

  Antony David Davies

  Religion

  Age of Saints, Borderlands history, Celtic Christianity, Christian heritage, christianity, Dewi Sant, Early medieval Wales, faith, Gwenffrewi, History, Holywell, jesus, Llan, Llanbadarn Fawr, Medieval pilgrimage, Medieval Wales, Monasticism, Pennant Melangell, Post-Roman Britain, Powys, Relics, Religion, Sacred geography, Saint Beuno, Saint Cadoc, Saint David, Saint Melangell, Saint Padarn, Saint Teilo, Saint Winefride, Saints and wells, Shrewsbury Abbey, St Winefride’s Well, Wales, Welsh churches, Welsh cultural history, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh landscape, Welsh place-names, Welsh saints, Welsh spirituality

• William Williams Pantycelyn (1717–1791), The Voice of the Welsh Revival and the Making of a Singing Nation

  

  In my earlier essays on Daniel Rowland, the great evangelist of the Welsh Methodist Revival, and Howell Harris, the organiser and engine who turned revival into a disciplined movement, I explored two forms of power that shaped modern Wales. The first was the power of the pulpit, preaching as national event, the sermon as moral…

  Antony David Davies

  Religion

  18th century Wales, bible, Calvinistic Methodists, Carmarthenshire, Chapel culture, christianity, congregational singing, Daniel Rowland, evangelical revival, faith, History, Howell Harris, jesus, Llandovery, Llangeitho, Methodist Revival, Nonconformist Wales, Pantycelyn, revival hymns, Sunday schools, Trefeca, Welsh Calvinistic Methodism, Welsh chapel history, Welsh culture and identity, Welsh devotional literature, Welsh evangelicalism, Welsh hymnody, Welsh hymns, Welsh language, Welsh literature, Welsh Methodist Revival, Welsh national identity, Welsh Nonconformity, Welsh poets, Welsh preaching, Welsh religious history, Welsh singing tradition, Welsh Social History, Welsh spirituality, William Williams, William Williams Pantycelyn

• Howell Harris (1714–1773), The Engine of the Welsh Revival and the Birth of an Evangelical Wales

  

  This article follows my recent study of Daniel Rowland (1713–1790), the great evangelist of the Welsh Methodist Revival and one of the defining architects of modern Welsh Nonconformity. If Rowland represents the revival at its most visible, the pulpit phenomenon, the national preacher, the man whose sermons drew thousands, then Howell Harris must be understood…

  Antony David Davies

  Religion

  18th century Wales, bible, Brecknockshire, Breconshire, Calvinistic Methodists, chapel societies, christianity, church, Church of England in Wales, Daniel Rowland, evangelical revival, History, Howell Harris, jesus, lay preaching, Llangeitho, Methodist Revival, Nonconformist Wales, religious societies, revival preaching, Sunday School Movement, Talgarth, Trefeca, Welsh Calvinistic Methodism, Welsh chapel history, Welsh culture and identity, Welsh evangelicalism, Welsh hymnody, Welsh language and religion, Welsh Methodist Revival, Welsh moral culture, Welsh Nonconformity, Welsh preaching, Welsh Protestantism, Welsh religious history, Welsh Social History, Welsh spirituality, William Williams Pantycelyn

• Daniel Rowland (1713–1790), The Great Evangelist of Wales, and the Making of Modern Welsh Nonconformity

  

  There are certain names in Welsh religious history which do not merely belong to their century, they reshape the centuries that follow. Daniel Rowland of Llangeitho is one of those figures. Born in 1713, ordained deacon in 1734 and priest in 1735, and later serving as curate in the Llangeitho and Nantcwnlle parishes, Rowland became…

  Antony David Davies

  Religion

  18th century Wales, bible, Calvinism in Wales, Cardiganshire history, Ceredigion history, christianity, Daniel Rowland, evangelical revival, faith, History, history of Christianity in Wales, Howell Harris, jesus, Llangeitho, Methodist History, religion and society, Rural Wales, social history of Wales, the Welsh pulpit, Trevecca, Wales in the eighteenth century, Welsh Calvinistic Methodism, Welsh Chapels, Welsh Communities, Welsh culture, Welsh history, Welsh hymnody, Welsh identity, Welsh language, Welsh Methodist Revival, Welsh ministers, Welsh Nonconformity, Welsh preaching, Welsh religious history, Welsh spirituality, William Williams Pantycelyn

• The Scholar Priest: The Life and Legacy of John Cartwright Jones (1831–1875)

  

  In the long arc of the Jones Glandwr family story, few figures embody the union of intellect, faith, and social ambition as completely as John Cartwright Jones. Born into London privilege yet anchored in Welsh heritage, he lived at the crossroads of Victorian transformation – a clergyman shaped by Oxford scholarship, a family patriarch whose…

  Antony David Davies

  Religion

  19th-century-wales, Arthur Owen Jones, Bishopsgate London, Breaston Derbyshire, Christ Church Oxford, family history, Francis Jones OBE, Glandwr Estate, History, John Cartwright Jones, Jonah Jones cricketer, Jones family history, Jones Glandwr family, literature, Llanaber burial ground, llyfnant-valley, Local history, Merchant Taylors School, Nottinghamshire history, Oxford Movement era, poetry, Royal Navy chaplaincy, Shelton Nottinghamshire, Texas pioneers, Thrumpton, Tynycoed, Victorian biography, Victorian Church of England, Victorian clergy, Welsh emigrants to Texas, Welsh genealogy, Welsh history, Welsh landed families

• The Uncrowned Kings: How the Preacher Ruled Victorian Wales

  

  Imagine a Sunday evening in November 1880. Outside, the valley is pitch black, hammered by rain sweeping down from the mountains. But inside the gas-lit chapel, the air is thick with damp wool, peppermint, and anticipation. Five hundred people sit shoulder to shoulder in a silence so taut it hums. They are not waiting for…

  Antony David Davies

  Religion

  19th-century-wales, Blue Books, Chapel Revival, Christmas Evans, Coalfield History Wales, Cymraeg, Hwyl, Liberal Wales, Methodist History, Nonconformist Wales, Rural Wales, Slate Quarrying Wales, victorian-wales, Wales Social Change, Welsh Chapels, Welsh Communities, Welsh culture, Welsh heritage, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh Language History, Welsh Literacy, Welsh Nonconformity, Welsh politics, Welsh Preachers, Welsh Pulpit Tradition, Welsh Radicalism, Welsh Religion, Welsh Revivalism, Welsh Social History, Welsh Theology