New Publication: ‘Welsh Saints from Welsh Churches’ by Martin Crampin

The imagery of saints was once commonplace in churches in Wales, and by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries painted and carved images of local and international saints would have been found on altars, screens, on the walls and in glazed windows of churches. Larger standing figures would have also been a feature of medieval churches, and these were probably the first images to have been removed and destroyed at the time of the Reformation.

Although images of saints in Wales survive from the later medieval period, very few can certainly be identified as Welsh saints, and the imagery of Welsh saints that can be seen in churches today mostly dates from the end of the nineteenth century and the twentieth century. These images are mainly in the form of stained glass and sculpture, charting the changing tastes of the Gothic Revival, the Arts and Crafts Movement and the changes in the way that medieval saints were understood in the popular imagination. Standing figures of saints sometimes make references to hagiographic texts, and additional scenes sometimes portray episodes from these stories.

Hardly any of this imagery has been studied or published before, and around 580 colour illustrations are provided by the author.

Dr. Martin Crampin is a Research Fellow at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth, with a particular expertise in the study of ecclesiastical art. He is also an acclaimed artist and photographer, and the author of Stained Glass from Welsh Churches (Y Lolfa, 2014) as well as a series of studies on individual churches.