CHAPTER 15
The story of Illtyd and his bell may be fictional, but what certainly isn’t is the profound effect that Sir Robert Fitzhammon’s invasion of Glamorgan had upon the spread of Arthurian traditions among the Norman and French nobilities. Sir Robert divided up the manors and castles among his chief retainers, but he also redistributed the wealth of the churches. Up until the Norman takeover, the organizational structure of the Church in Wales was entirely different from the one in England. Churches were very much associated with their founding ‘saints’ who, like Illtyd (a first cousin of King Arthur), were usually members of the ruling families. In general, the saints were married men with children, and consequently the churches they founded remained family possessions. They were called clasau and were run as family businesses that were more or less independent of the church hierarchy. A clas was, in fact, more like a college than what we would term a church. It functioned both as a seminary for priests and as an educational establishment where the children of the nobility could be taught how to read and write. Some of these, such as Llancarvan (founded by St Garvan, but closely associated with St Cadoc), were major institutions with considerable reputations. Others were much smaller. The major ones would have satellites in other parts of Wales. These churches would look to their own mother church, the chief clas of their founder, for inspiration and leadership rather than to the local cathedral. For centuries, these churches continued to belong to the family of the founder, for when he died their ownership passed to his heirs. In Wales, unlike in England, where it was the tradition that the eldest, living male heir inherited everything, legacies were spread evenly among all the sons. Thus, after a generation or two, a church could have a majority of lay owners: the sons, grandsons, etcetera, of the saint who had originally founded it.
In his book of 1598, The Story of the Burrowes of Merthyr Mawr, John Stradling, a local antiquarian, explains all this:
‘The divergence from Continental practice was particularly marked in Wales. Here the Church was subordinate to the state in political matters and, even after the various churches had one by one come to accept the leadership of Rome, during the three centuries preceding the Norman conquest, little advance was made towards the establishment of diocesan or parochial control and the Church in Wales remained essentially local in character and tribal in outlook …
There was no exclusive ecclesiastical authority over a special region or “diocese” and the sphere of a particular church was not determined by the boundaries of a parish. Each monastery [ie clas], with its subordinate churches, formed a separate group with an independent organization acknowledging no superior ecclesiastical control. The monasteries had for the most part been established during the sixth and seventh centuries by religious men or “saints”, pious founders who gave their names to the monastic house with which they were associated. Many of them were members of the families of regional dynasties who, assuming the religious habit, made the family territories the centre of their missionary enterprise, thus establishing a family right to the church of their founding. They were men of great religion, zeal and devotion to learning, exercising their influence less by accident of birth than by their own personal character.’
In addition to the church itself, most clasau owned other properties that had, over the years, been given to it as bequests. The most famous example of this was the church of Llandaff (now Llandaff Cathedral), which tradition says was founded by King Lucius but which was rebuilt by St Teilo at the time of King Meurig (early 6th century). Many bequests were made to this church, often by the Kings of Glamorgan, but sometimes by other individuals, too. The standard procedure with these bequests was to write the details about them – what land had been donated, its location and how it was delineated – into the margins of the church’s chartulary or principal bible. Every church had a chartulary; by writing such contracts into the pages of the bible, they became oaths in perpetuity. They were also signed off by witnesses to the gift, generally the king and his family and various members of the clergy (the local bishop, perhaps an abbott, plus one or two younger priests or monks).
All this changed when the Normans invaded, as they had scant regard for Welsh law. Sir Robert Fitzhammon, in particular, had no scruples about taking over the clas churches in the places that he controlled. In most cases he gave them over to continental religious orders that were encouraged to start new monasteries and priories. Thus, the famous clas church of Llancarvan (where the Gorsedd for the Roll of the Round Table had been held) was reduced to the status of a parish church. It was transferred, with its revenues, to the jurisdiction of the Benedictine abbey of St Peter’s Gloucester (now Gloucester Cathedral). Meanwhile, Llantwit Major and Llandough, the two other great clasau of the Vale of Glamorgan, were given over to the newly founded Benedictine abbey of Tewkesbury. Stripped of their monks (many were transferred to Tewkesbury and Sherborne abbeys) and the revenues from their extensive lands, they became mere shadows of their former selves. New French-style monasteries were founded in their place. At Margam, where the Kings of Glamorgan had once lived, a Cistercian abbey was built that was soon to become the largest monastery in South Wales. Not far away, in the Vale itself, a second house was founded called Ewenny Priory. This too was run by the Cistercians, a more extreme version of the Benedictines. In Cardiff itself, the Lords of Glamorgan established yet another Benedictine abbey, this one dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
These changes caused consternation in Wales, especially with the church of Llandaff. This church, originally founded by King Lucius (Lleirwg) and rebuilt at the time of King Mauricius (Meurig), found itself in dire straits because of the theft of its lands. Accordingly, the local bishop made a direct appeal to the Pope for restitution. Under the circumstances, given that the Lords of Glamorgan had Palatine – effectively dictatorial – status, this was the only authority to which they were subject.
To back his claim, the Bishop had a book compiled, composed of transcripts of all the land donations contained in the church’s chartulary. Copies were made of this book, and these have survived to the present day. This is very important, since although the chartulary itself has long since disappeared, it means that we still have a record of the land charters that were recorded centuries earlier. These charters were each signed off by members of the royal family and the local clergy of their times. As they tell us who these people were, and often their relationships to one another, we are able to use them to build a family tree of the ruling dynasty. This confirms the information we know from other sources that King Arthur (called here Athrwys) was the son of Maurice (Meurig) and grandson of Theoderic (Tewdrig), all three of them Kings of Glamorgan in the period of the 5th to 6th centuries.
As we have seen, the church of St Illtyd at Llantwit Major was also a very important clas church. It claimed to be a refounding of the earlier college of Eurgain, the daughter of King Caractacus, after she returned to Britain from Rome in about AD 60. It seemed significant, therefore, that following the Norman Conquest, both this church and Llandaff were given by Fitzhammon to his new priory church of St Mary Tewkesbury. Could it be, I wondered, that along with various treasures, books and clergymen, something else had also been transferred? Perhaps even a bardic school with Welsh links? Anxious to see if this might be the case, I decided to investigate further.