CHAPTER XIV.

WELSH MONASTERIES-LLANTWIT MAJOR, ETC.

Of all the old monasteries of Wales none is more interesting to a dweller in Glamorganshire than the college of St. Illtyd at Llanilltyd Fawr, now called Llantwit Major. The village is but a short distance from Llancarfan, and may be easily reached from the railway-station of Cowbridge. A walk of a few miles southward from that dull old town, still a Parliamentary borough (for it is one of the Cardiff group), through a somewhat tame but picturesque country, by narrow cart-tracks that are quagmires in bad weather, across fields with doubtful paths, and along sheltered lanes where spring foliage and flowers wake early, through the villages of Llanblethian and Llanvihangel, -names uncouth to English ears, but reminding the instructed wayfarer of Lupus, the fellow-soldier of German in the war against heresy, and of the time when it became a custom to call churches after

I.e., St. Illtyd's Church the Greater. The monastery was also called Caerworgorn and Côr Tewdws; sometimes also, Bangor Illtyd (Illtyd's college), which name has led Montalembert ("Monks of the West," bk. viii. c. ii.), followed by Kingsley ("Hermits,” p. 249), to confound it with Bangor Iscoed on the Dee.

Michael the Archangel instead of the native founders,1will bring the pedestrian to the little scattered village nigh to the shore of the Bristol Channel which now marks the place whither, in the sixth century, Illtyd and his companions retired. On approaching the village the visitor sees, first of all, a large ruined building, which, although comparatively modern, impresses his mind, by its size and importance, with ideas of past greatness, and prepares him for what is to succeed. Descending the hill through the quaint village of many streets, past whitewashed cottages, often of antique appearance, he comes eventually in front of a plain ancient building with a belfry. This is now the town-hall, and the bell still bears the inscription, "Sancte Iltute, ora pro nobis,” “Saint Illtyd, pray for us." Near this is the old church, a small simple structure with little external ornament, showing by its architecture no signs of greater antiquity than the thirteenth century, yet standing, it can scarcely be doubted, on the same site as Illtyd's own church. On entering, it is seen to be divided into two separate parts by a wall; the eastern part is alone used, and contains curious traces of frescoes on the walls and a finely-carved niche. Descending by steps into the western part, which is supposed to have been the

1 Llanblethian is the Church of St. Lupus; Llanvihangel is equivalent to St. Michael's Church. There are ninety-four churches and chapels in the Welsh dioceses, dedicated to St. Michael; thirty-nine villages named Llanfihangel (Llanvihangel), besides villages named Michaelston, Michaelchurch, and St. Michael's.-Rees, "Welsh Saints," p. 36.

Lady Chapel, the visitor finds it to be a damp, gruesome place, a receptacle for stones and broken monuments of all ages. The curiosity of the chapel is a broken cross of the ninth century, finely carved, whose Latin inscription is of this purport, "In the name of God the Father and the Holy Spirit, Howell raised this cross for the soul of his father Rhys." This Howell was a king of Glamorgan, who died in 885. Very interesting, too, is the churchyard, where the dust of the modern villagers mingles with that of the monks and saints who first consecrated this place to God's service, and made the primitive "wilderness a fruitful place," and "watersprings" of life where before was the "dry ground" of violence and brutality. Here are seen three ancient relics,—a curious cylindrical pillar, which appears to have belonged to the base of some large cross, and two inscribed stones, the broken remains of fine ninth-century crosses. One was raised by Abbot Samson, "for his soul and the souls of King Juthael and Arthmael the dean"; the other is inscribed on one side with the words, "Samson placed this cross for his soul," and on the opposite side seems to have the names of Illtyd, Samson, and Samuel, its engraver. On a hill to the west of the church stands the gatehouse of the Medieval monastery of about the thirteenth century, and not far from it is the monks' pigeon-house. All that can be traced of earlier buildings are some ruined walls in a garden to the north of the church and some mounds across the brook to the west behind the vicarage.

Illtyd's church and monastery have disappeared, as is natural with buildings that must have been mainly wooden, but the earth we tread is sacred, and the natural features of the landscape we look upon, -the sea, the brook, the fields, are the same as gladdened the heart of Illtyd himself when, after he had rested from his journey hither, he looked forth upon the country, and "the delightsome place pleased. him well." The writer of his legend, probably a Llantwit monk, describes the scene that he gazed upon. "Around was no unevenness of mountains or hills, but a most fertile plain of meadows; a wood very thick with different kinds of trees grew therein, and was the resort of many wild animals; a most pleasant river flowed between banks on either hand, and springs intermingled with a rivulet in pleasant courses." The name of the place was Hodnant, "the fruitful valley " 1 ; it was "the most beautiful of places." Clearly the monk was a lover of nature, though his admiration was rather for the tameness of a level plain and lush meadows where cattle pasture, than for the wild and rugged sublimity of mountain scenery.

In this pleasant retreat, soon after Illtyd's coming, there rose a populous village of wooden huts, grouped around the "oratory" which Illtyd had built, and surrounded with a ditch and a stone wall. All traditions agree in making the number of Illtyd's students very large indeed. The Triads reckon Llantwit

So the monk interprets the Welsh name, but the interpretation has been questioned.

in the first rank of British monasteries, and ascribe to it two thousand four hundred students. "Illtyd," says one tradition, which agrees exactly with this authority, "founded seven churches, and appointed seven companies for each church, and seven halls or colleges in each company, and seven saints in each hall or college, and prayer and praise were kept up without ceasing day and night, by twelve saints, men of learning, of each company." 1 "Illtyd," says another, "made on the banks of the Hodnant eight score and eight colleges, where two thousand saints resided, leading a life according to the faith of Jesus, practising every godliness, fasting, abstinence, prayer, penance, almsgiving, and charity, and all of them supported and cultivated learning."2 One tradition roughly computes the number of the monks at three thousand; and another estimate is two thousand one hundred.4 The terms "hall" and "college" are rather pompous when applied to the simple arrangements of the primitive Celtic monastery. The original church of Illtyd was probably of wood, and close to it would stand a smaller building, used as a sacristy. A little apart from the rest of the village would be two buildings, also wooden, and with little to mark their distinction. These were

3

the abbot's house and the guests' house. The monks were wont to take their meals in common, in refectories somewhat larger than the other buildings,

Iolo MSS., p. 555. This perpetual service was called "Laus perennis." 4 Ib., p. 548.

2 Ib., p. 549.

3 Ib., p. 556.