The Inculturation and the Welsh Historical Consciousness in the Second Half of the 16th Century

The article aims at inculturation process of the Welsh in a way which was facilitated by the English reformation in the second half of the 16th century. The author thinks that from the one side inculturation as a phenomenon and as a process involves an adaptation of an idea of the reformation and the reformed English church in the light of the specific Welsh cultural and historic features. From the other side inculturation underlines necessity of vernacularizing of the entire corpus of the religious literature which ensure an operation of the renewed church. The analysis is based on the “Epistle to the Welsh people” by the bishop Richard Davies (1505—1581) which introduces a first Welsh translation of the New Testament by William Salesbury (1520—1584) published in 1567. It shows how the Welsh intellectual tradition while adapting for a new circumstance utilized with masterly skills an entire complex of the Welsh legendary past in a way of proving preeminence of the old British church as well as explained a specific of the reformation process.