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Historical person

Robert Pennant

died 1168

Robert Pennant, better known as Robert of Shrewsbury, was a Benedictine monk of Shrewsbury Abbey who became one of the principal promoters of the cult of Saint Winifred in the twelfth century. As prior, he led the mission that transferred Winifred’s reputed relics from Gwytherin in Wales to Shrewsbury in 1137 or 1138.

Robert wrote an influential life of Saint Winifred and an account of the translation of her relics, texts that helped establish Shrewsbury as an important centre of her cult. He later became abbot of Shrewsbury in 1148 and continued to defend the abbey’s institutional and property interests.

Ellis Peters draws on Robert Pennant—the historical Prior Robert associated with the translation of Saint Winifred’s relics—for the ambitious and punctilious Prior Robert of the Cadfael novels. A Morbid Taste for Bones gives him his most direct historical function as the leading advocate of the expedition to Gwytherin to obtain Winifred’s remains. In An Excellent Mystery, Dead Man’s Ransom and The Heretic’s Apprentice, he is part of the senior monastic authority against which Cadfael’s independent judgement repeatedly operates. Brother Cadfael’s Penance returns to the same Shrewsbury community late in the Anarchy, with Robert’s institutional conservatism forming part of the disciplined abbey life Cadfael temporarily defies in order to search for his son.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Robert Pennant (1 series)

Chronicles of Brother Cadfael in Order

by Ellis Peters 19 books 4.5(42,288)

The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael follow a former soldier and crusader who has become the herbalist of Shrewsbury Abbey. Between 1137 and 1145, Cadfael investigates deaths, disappearances and disputed identities while working within the rhythms of Benedictine life and the law of medieval England. The twenty novels unfold…

All books in this series