The medieval Welsh Pwyll y Pader (‘The Meaning of the Lord’s Prayer’) is a short tract of basic religious instruction and edification. It discusses the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer in relation to the seven vices or deadly sins, the seven virtues, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the seven beatitudes. It claims the authority of Hugh of Saint-Victor, an Augustinian canon regular of the Abbey Saint-Victor in Paris and a prolific writer and influential theologian.
This book provides a detailed and focused study of Pwyll y Pader, its language, manuscripts, and the issue of its sources and analogues. The authors advance the hypothesis that the source of the Welsh translation was a self-contained Latin tract on the Lord’s Prayer derived from the Speculum ecclesiae. The second part of the volume constitutes a detailed analysis of the Welsh text from a philological perspective.