Two Mediaeval Lives of Saint Winefride

Book excerpt: St. Winefride, beheaded by a lustful suitor, was brought back to life by the power of prayer. On the site where her blood was spilled, a spring of healing water erupted and became the focus of a miracle-working cult which gained influence throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Two Medi¾val Lives of Saint Winefride brings together two twelfth-century accounts of her life, miracles and relics, with a study of British well-cults and her significance in medi¾val and early modern Britain.