In The Year 1108, These Hermits
Erected A Mean Church In The Place Of Their Hermitage, Which Was
Consecrated By Urban, Bishop Of Llandaff, And Rameline, Bishop Of
Hereford, And Dedicated To St. John The Baptist:
Having afterward
received very considerable benefactions from Hugh de Laci, and
gained the consent of Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury,
These same
hermits founded a magnificent monastery for Black canons, of the
order of St. Augustine, which they immediately filled with forty
monks collected from the monasteries of the Holy Trinity in London,
Merton in Surrey, and Colchester in Essex. They afterwards removed
to Gloucester, where they built a church and spacious monastery,
which, after the name of their former residence, they called
Llanthoni; it was consecrated A.D. 1136, by Simon, bishop of
Worcester, and Robert Betun bishop of Hereford, and dedicated to the
Virgin Mary.
{60} The titles of mother and daughter are here applied to the
mother church in Wales, and the daughter near Gloucester.
{61} William of Wycumb, the fourth prior of Llanthoni, succeeded to
Robert de Braci, who was obliged to quit the monastery, on account
of the hostile molestation it received from the Welsh. To him
succeeded Clement, the sub-prior, and to Clement, Roger de Norwich.
{62} Walter de Laci came into England with William the Conqueror,
and left three sons, Roger, Hugh, and Walter. Hugh de Laci was the
lord of Ewyas, and became afterwards the founder of the convent of
Llanthoni; his elder brother, Robert, held also four caracutes of
land within the limits of the castle of Ewyas, which king William
had bestowed on Walter, his father; but joining in rebellion against
William Rufus, he was banished the kingdom, and all his lands were
given to his brother Hugh, who died without issue.
{63} This anecdote is thus related by the historian Hollinshed:
"Hereof it came on a time, whiles the king sojourned in France about
his warres, which he held against king Philip, there came unto him a
French priest, whose name was Fulco, who required the king in
anywise to put from him three abominable daughters which he had, and
to bestow them in marriage, least God punished him for them. 'Thou
liest, hypocrite (said the king), to thy verie face; for all the
world knoweth I have not one daughter.' 'I lie not (said the
priest), for thou hast three daughters: one of them is called
Pride, the second Covetousness, and the third Lecherie.' With that
the king called to him his lords and barons, and said to them, 'This
hypocrite heere hath required me to marry awaie my three daughters,
which (as he saith) I cherish, nourish, foster, and mainteine; that
is to say, Pride, Covetousness, and Lecherie: and now that I have
found out necessarie and fit husbands for them, I will do it with
effect, and seeks no more delaies. I therefore bequeath my pride to
the high-minded Templars and Hospitallers, which are as proud as
Lucifer himselfe; my covetousness I give unto the White Monks,
otherwise called of the Cisteaux order, for they covet the divell
and all; my lecherie I commit to the prelats of the church, who have
most pleasure and felicitie therein.'"
{64} This small residence of the archdeacon was at Landeu, a place
which has been described before: the author takes this opportunity
of hinting at his love of literature, religion, and mediocrity.
{65} The last chapter having been wholly digressive, we must now
recur back to Brecknock, or rather, perhaps, to our author's
residence at Landeu, where we left him, and from thence accompany
him to Abergavenny. It appears that from Landeu he took the road to
Talgarth, a small village a little to the south east of the road
leading from Brecknock to Hay; from whence, climbing up a steep
ascent, now called Rhiw Cwnstabl, or the Constable's ascent, he
crossed the black mountains of Llaneliew to the source of the
Gronwy-fawr river, which rises in that eminence, and pursues its
rapid course into the Vale of Usk. From thence a rugged and uneven
track descends suddenly into a narrow glen, formed by the torrent of
the Gronwy, between steep, impending mountains; bleak and barren for
the first four or five miles, but afterwards wooded to the very
margin of the stream. A high ledge of grassy hills on the left
hand, of which the principal is called the Bal, or Y Fal, divides
this formidable pass (the "Malus passus" of Giraldus) from the vale
of Ewyas, in which stands the noble monastery of Llanthoni,
"montibus suis inclusum," encircled by its mountains. The road at
length emerging from this deep recess of Coed Grono, or Cwm Gronwy,
the vale of the river Gronwy, crosses the river at a place called
Pont Escob, or the Bishop's bridge, probably so called from this
very circumstance of its having been now passed by the archbishop
and his suite, and is continued through the forest of Moel, till it
joins the Hereford road, about two miles from Abergavenny. This
formidable defile is at least nine miles in length.
{66} In the vale of the Gronwy, about a mile above Pont Escob,
there is a wood called Coed Dial, or the Wood of Revenge. Here
again, by the modern name of the place, we are enabled to fix the
very spot on which Richard de Clare was murdered. The Welsh
Chronicle informs us, that "in 1135, Morgan ap Owen, a man of
considerable quality and estate in Wales, remembering the wrong and
injury he had received at the hands of Richard Fitz-Gilbert, slew
him, together with his son Gilbert." The first of this great
family, Richard de Clare, was the eldest son of Gislebert, surnamed
Crispin, earl of Brion, in Normandy. This Richard Fitz-Gilbert came
into England with William the Conqueror, and received from him great
advancement in honour and possessions. On the death of the
Conqueror, favouring the cause of Robert Curthose, he rebelled
against William Rufus, but when that king appeared in arms before
his castle at Tunbridge, he submitted; after which, adhering to
Rufus against Robert, in 1091, he was taken prisoner, and shortly
after the death of king Henry I., was assassinated, on his journey
through Wales, in the manner already related.
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