Saint Winifred

Saint Winifred (or Winefride; Welsh: Gwenffrewi; Latin: Wenefreda, Winifreda) was a Welsh virgin martyr of the 7th century. Her story was celebrated as early as the 8th century, but became popular in England in the 12th, when her hagiography was first written down.

A healing spring at the traditional site of her decapitation and restoration is now a shrine and pilgrimage site called St Winefride's Well in Holywell, Flintshire, in Wales and known as "the Lourdes of Wales", which was granted the status of National Shrine for England and Wales in November 2023.

The oldest accounts of Winifred's life date to the 12th century. According to legend, Winifred was the daughter of a chieftain of Tegeingl, Welsh nobleman Tyfid ap Eiludd. Her mother was Wenlo, a niece of Saint Beuno, and a member of a family closely connected with the kings of south Wales.

According to legend, her suitor, Caradog, was enraged when she decided to become a nun and when she refused his advances, he decapitated her. A healing spring appeared where her head fell. Winifred's head was subsequently rejoined to her body due to the efforts of Beuno, and she was restored to life. Seeing the murderer leaning on his sword with an insolent and defiant air, Beuno invoked the chastisement of heaven, and Caradog fell dead on the spot, the popular belief being that the ground opened and swallowed him. Beuno left Holywell, and returned to Caernarfon; before he left, the tradition is that he seated himself upon a stone, which now stands in the outer well pool, and there promised in the name of God "that whosoever on that spot should thrice ask for a benefit from God in the name of St. Winefride would obtain the grace he asked if it was for the good of his soul."

After eight years spent at Holywell, Winifred received an inspiration to leave the convent and retire inland. Accordingly, Winifred went upon her pilgrimage to seek a place of rest. Ultimately she arrived at Gwytherin near the source of the River Elwy. She later became a nun and abbess at Gwytherin in Denbighshire. More elaborate versions of this tale relate many details of her life, including Winefride's pilgrimage to Rome.

Given the late date of the earliest surviving written accounts of Winifred's life, her existence has been doubted since the 19th century. She is not recorded in any Welsh pedigree of saints nor in the 13th-century calendar of Welsh saints. There is, however, evidence of her cult from centuries before the appearance of her first hagiography. Two small pieces of an oak reliquary from the 8th century were discovered in 1991 and identified based on earlier drawings as belonging to the Arch Gwenfrewi, the reliquary of Winifred. The reliquary probably contained an article of clothing or another object associated with the saint, but not her bones. According to historian Lynne Heidi Stumpe, the reliquary provides "good evidence for her having been recognized as a saint very soon after her death", and thus of her historicity. The reliquary may even be "the earliest surviving testimony to the formal cultus of any Welsh saint".

Veneration of Winifred as a martyr saint is attested from the 12th century. She is mostly venerated in England, not in Wales, which led Caesar Baronius to list her as an "English saint" in his Roman Martyrology of 1584.

In 1138, relics of Winifred were carried to Shrewsbury to form the basis of an elaborate shrine. The Church of St. Winifred, Stainton is a 12th century church located in the village of Stainton, South Yorkshire, England.