“Witches: Magic and Power in the Middle Ages and Later”
Professor Marion Gibson
This talk will explore a Medieval English witch trial and compare it with a seventeenth-century one that took place in Ludlow to trace patterns in witch trials over time.
Hywel Cyffin, the ‘Hawk in Holy Orders’: Champion of the Welsh Church or Reprehensible Rebel?
Dr Rhun Emlyn
This talk will explore the life of the Marcher cleric Hywel Cyffin, the topic of the winning entry in the 2024 Mortimer History Society Essay Prize. Hywel Cyffin was a man of status and wealth in the Marches as well as a successful and respected cleric. He was a larger-than-life-figure: a combative character who defended the rights and traditions of his fellow Welsh higher clergy while blatantly challenging the Church’s moral expectations and being one of the instigators of the Glyndŵr Rebellion. Examining his life and placing him within his context enables us to explore the nature of Marcher society, political tensions within the Welsh Church and why clergy were instrumental in rebellions. This will allow us to question whether Hywel should be considered a ‘saint’, a ‘sinner’ or both.
Who Saved William Cragh? Lay Devotion, Aristocratic Agency, and the Making of a Saintly Miracle
Dr Harriett Webster
This paper revisits the dramatic resurrection of the condemned Welsh brigand William Cragh to ask a deceptively simple question: who really saved him? While Cragh’s own appeal to St Thomas Cantilupe appears central, this study foregrounds the decisive role of Mary de Briouze, whose prayers, ritual actions, and patronage shaped both the miracle itself and its subsequent promotion. Set within the fraught landscape of the Welsh Marches, the paper explores how sanctity was negotiated between sinner and saint and argues that aristocratic lay devotion – especially that of elite women – was crucial in transforming criminal bodies into vehicles of divine power.
The Hereford Use: How Liturgy Forged Saints from Sinners in the Marches
Jonathan Moore
This talk examines the Hereford Use (c. 1150–1549), the distinctive medieval liturgy of Herefordshire, and its power to shape the moral and spiritual life of the people in the Marches. It explores the structure, music, and prayers of the rite within the cathedral, whose architecture, altars, and adornments provided both the stage and framework for devotion. Through this carefully ordered liturgy, the congregants were guided on a journey toward God, in which even the lowliest sinner could be drawn into holiness. The Hereford Use emerges not as an outworking of medieval superstition but as a system of spiritual formation. It shaped both belief and practice across the medieval Marches, making of its people saints from sinners.
Maps of mercy or menace? The significance of the location of paintings of saints and sinners in parish churches.
Tanya Heath
Medieval images of saints are found on the walls of many parish churches, alongside the images of sin used to guide parishioners’ behaviours. Understanding the topography of the images around the walls can explain why each painting was chosen and the purpose it was intended to fulfil, telling us whether a picture was supposed to inspire thoughts of fear, penitence, devotion or the hope of mercy. This illuminates the personal and social significances of the saints and sinners depicted, marking the triumphs and disasters of each medieval life.
