Winefride

Saint Winifred
Virgin, Martyr & Abbess
Born	Flintshire
Died	c. 660 Gwytherin in Denbighshire
Honored in	Orthodox Church; Roman Catholic Church; Anglican Communion
Major shrine	Shrewsbury Abbey, now destroyed although a small part of the shrine base survives. Holywell, fully active Catholic holy well and well-house shrine.
Feast	3 November
Attributes	abbess holding a sword, sometimes with her head under her arm
Patronage	Holywell; Shrewsbury; against unwanted advances

St Winifred's Well, Woolston, Shropshire

Saint Winefride (called in her native Welsh: Gwenffrewi; in modern English Winifred and numerous variations) was a 7th-century Welsh Christian woman, around whom many historical legends have formed. A healing spring at the traditional site of her death is now a shrine and pilgrimage site called St Winefride's Well in Holywell, Flintshire, Wales known as the Lourdes of Wales. In modern times, St Winifred has been unofficially adopted as the patron saint of payrolls and payroll clerks.^{[citation needed]}

Legend

According to legend, Winifred was the daughter of a Welsh nobleman, Tyfid ap Eiludd. Her suitor, Caradog, was enraged when she decided to become a nun, and decapitated her. In one version of the tale, her head rolled downhill, and, where it stopped, a healing spring appeared. Winifred's head was subsequently rejoined to her body due to the efforts of her maternal uncle, Saint Beuno, and she was restored to life. She later became a nun and abbess at Gwytherin in Denbighshire, and Caradog, cursed by Beuno, melted into the ground. More elaborate versions of this tale relate many details of her life, including Winefride's pilgrimage to Rome.

In spite of the slim records for this period, there appears to be a historical basis for this personage. Winifred's brother Owain is known to have killed Caradog as revenge for a crime. She succeeded the Abbess, Saint Tenoi, who is believed to be her maternal grand-aunt.

Veneration

After her death (c. 660) Winifred was interred at her abbey. In 1138, relics were carried to Shrewsbury to form the basis of an elaborate shrine. The shrine and well became major pilgrimage goals in the Late Middle Ages, but the shrine was destroyed by Henry VIII in 1540.

Another well named after St Winifred is in the hamlet of Woolston near Oswestry in Shropshire. It is thought that on her way to Shrewsbury Abbey, Winifred's body was laid here overnight and a spring sprang up out of the ground. The water is supposed to have healing powers and be good at healing bruises, wounds and broken bones.^{[citation needed]} The well is covered by a 15th-century half-timbered cottage. The water flows through a series of stone troughs and into a large pond, which then flows into a stream. The cottage is in a quiet, peaceful setting in the middle of the countryside, and is maintained by the Landmark Trust.

Another spring supposedly arising from the laying down of Winifred's body is at Holywell Farm, midway between Tattenhall and Clutton, Cheshire. There is a spring in the garden of this non-working farm which supplies two houses with their drinking water.^{[citation needed]}

A Norman church dedicated to Saint Winifred can be found in the village of Branscombe, Devon. Their is some archaeological evidence to suggest an earlier Saxon church may have occupied the site.^{[citation needed]}

Roman Martyrology

In the 2004 edition of the Roman Martyrology, Winefride is listed under 2 November with the Latin name Winefrídae. She is listed as follows: 'At the spring located at Holywell in Wales, St Winefride the Virgin, who is outstanding in her witness as a nun'. Thus Winefride is officially recognised by the Vatican as a person with a historical basis, who lived an exemplary religious life, but with no discussion of miracles which she may have performed or been healed by. As a first-millennium saint, she is recognised as a saint by popular acclaim, rather than ever being formally canonized.

In the current Roman Catholic liturgical calendar for Wales, she is commemorated on November 3, since November 2 is designated as All Souls' Day.

References in literature

William Rowley's seventeenth century comedy A Shoemaker a Gentleman dramatizes Saint Winifred's story, based on the version in Thomas Deloney's story The Gentle Craft (1584).

English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins memorialized Saint Winifred in his unfinished drama, St Winefred's Well.

The moving of Winifred's bones to Shrewsbury is fictionalized in A Morbid Taste for Bones, the first of Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael novels, with the plot twist that her bones are secretly left in Wales, and someone else is put into the shrine. Saint Winifred is an important "character" in all the books in the Brother Cadfael series. The celebration of her Feast Day provides the setting for two of the novels, The Rose Rent and The Pilgrim of Hate. The casket is actually stolen from its shrine in The Holy Thief, and the campaign to find and restore it propels the action. Throughout the series, the protagonist, Brother Cadfael - a Welsh monk at the English monastery at Shrewsbury - has a kind of "special understanding" with the saint, whom he affectionately calls "The Girl".

St. Winifred's Well is mentioned in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

External links

• Rees, Rice (1836). "Legend of Gwenfrewi or St. Winefred". An Essay on the Welsh Saints. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, Rees. pp. 295–297. http://books.google.com/books?id=H8IclDShLSYC&pg=PA295 
• Rees, William Jenkins, ed. (1853). "Life of St. Winefred". Lives of the Cambro-British Saints. Llandovery: William Rees. pp. 515–529. http://books.google.com/books?id=uOsOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA515 
• Holywell website
• Holywell Church website
• BBC Wales: Holywell