Stained glass window at Llanllugan church depicting a kneeling nun
Llanllugan Abbey was a monastery of Cistercian nuns located at Llanllugan, Powys, Wales. It was one of only two Cistercian women's monasteries in Wales.
Maredudd ap Rhobert, Lord of Cedewain, issued an early charter to Llanllugan nunnery probably in the early thirteenth century.[1][2][3] The charter provided the nuns with their core estates in the township of Llanllugan between the two streams of the Rhiw. The abbey's other estates include Hydan grange in Castle Caereinion and Cowney in Llangadfan.[1][4] Llanllugan also received income from appropriated churches: the rectory of Llanfair Caereinion was granted by Bishop Hugh of St Asaph in 1239 and Llanllwchairan by Bishop Anian of St Asaph in 1263.[1] It was founded as a dependency of the Cistercian monks at the Abbey of Strata Marcella.
The Princes of Wales founded a number of Cistercian monasteries in that period, which were independent of the ones founded in Norman England. As a result, these houses were nominally allied with the native Welsh nobility.
The abbey is famous in Welsh literature from a poem by the leading poet Dafydd ap Gwilym entitled Cyrchu Lleian (English: Wooing a nun).[5] In the poem, Dafydd implores his anonymous messenger to travel to "proud Llanllugan" and entice one of the nuns from the convent to the forest grove.[5] It has been suggested that the abbey was small: only four nuns and an abbess were recorded in 1377. Dafydd's poem (written before the Black Death) suggests there were some 60 nuns at that time; however, that figure should be taken as poetic license, as the two Welsh communities of Cistercian nuns rarely seem to have had more than a dozen members each.
The former monastery church survives as the parish church of Llanllugan. However, the site of the abbey buildings remains uncertain: they might have been in a meadow 200 metres to the south of the church.
Dafydd ap Gwilym is regarded as one of the leading Welsh poets and amongst the great poets of Europe in the Middle Ages. Dafydd’s poetry also offers a unique window into the transcultural movement of cultural practices and preservation of culture in the face of occupation. Dafydd also helps answer questions that linger over the spread of culture. Even though it has been given less attention, cultural development in Wales differed slightly than in other parts of Europe during the same time.
Strata Florida Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey situated just outside Pontrhydfendigaid, near Tregaron in the county of Ceredigion, Wales. The abbey was founded in 1164. After the region around St Davids was firmly occupied by the Norman Marcher lordship of Pembroke by the early 12th century, with St Davids firmly under Norman influence thereafter, the princely Dinefwr family of Deheubarth transferred their patronage to Strata Florida, and interred many of their family members there.
The Diocese of Saint Asaph is a diocese of the Church in Wales in north-east Wales, named after Saint Asaph, its second bishop.
The Bishop of St Asaph heads the Church in Wales diocese of St Asaph.
Llantarnam Abbey is a Grade II*-listed abbey of the Sisters of St Joseph of Annecy and a former Cistercian monastery located in Llantarnam, Cwmbran in the county borough of Torfaen in southeast Wales.
The Abbey of Strata Marcella was a medieval Cistercian monastery situated at Ystrad Marchell on the west bank of the River Severn near Welshpool, Powys, Wales.
This article is about the particular significance of the century 1101–1200 to Wales and its people.
A clas was a native Christian church in early medieval Wales. Unlike later Norman monasteries, which were made up of a main religious building supported by several smaller buildings, such as cloisters and kitchens, a clas was normally a single building. The building was run by a community of clergy and headed by an abod. Clasau were autonomous and were administered locally.
Tŷ Mawr is a Grade I-listed timber framed house in the township of Trefnant in the historic parish of Castle Caereinion, Montgomeryshire, Wales.
St Beuno's Church, Bettws Cedewain lies within the historic county of Montgomeryshire in Powys. The church occupies a prominent position overlooking the village of Bettws Cedewain, on the northern edge of the valley of the Bechan Brook which flows into the River Severn. Bettws is about 9 miles to the south-west of Welshpool. The church is a single-chambered structure with a western tower, set in a near-circular churchyard. A campanile or bellcote was added to the earlier tower in the early 16th century by the vicar, John ap Meredyth, whose memorial brass remains in the church to-day. The church was extensively rebuilt in 1868 under the supervision of the architect William Eden Nesfield. This included a complete rebuild of the upper part of the tower
"The Girls of Llanbadarn", or "The Ladies of Llanbadarn", is a short, wryly humorous poem by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, in which he mocks his own lack of success with the girls of his neighbourhood. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, and this is one of his best-known works. The poem cannot be precisely dated, but was perhaps written in the 1340s.
"The Seagull" is a love poem in 30 lines by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, probably written in or around the 1340s. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, and this is one of his best-known and best-loved works.
Hawise Lestrange was the daughter of the Marcher lord John Lestrange (d.1269) of Great Ness, Cheswardine and Knockin (Shropshire). Married at a young age to the ruler of southern Powys, Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, she became a key figure in border affairs and in the management of her family and estates until her death at a great age. She was deeply implicated in a plot to overthrow the prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, in 1274, and with her husband sided with Edward I in the English king's conquest of Wales.
"The Ruin" is a cywydd by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets. In it the poet, considering a ruined house and remembering the love-affair he once conducted there, reflects on the transience of all worldly pleasures. "The Ruin" is commonly supposed to have been written in Dafydd's old age. It has been called one of his most poignant poems, and it was included in The Penguin Book of Welsh Verse, The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse, The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English and The Longman Anthology of British Literature.
"The Snow" is a 14th- or 15th-century Welsh-language poem in the form of a cywydd evoking a landscape which, to the poet's chagrin, is covered with snow. It has been described as an imaginative tour de force. Manuscripts of the poem mostly attribute it to Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, though some name Dafydd ab Edmwnd or Ieuan ap Rhys ap Llywelyn as the author. Modern literary historians have differed as to whether it is indeed by Dafydd ap Gwilym, but the two most recent editions of his poems have rejected it. The poem has nevertheless remained popular with translators and it continues to appear in anthologies, including Thomas Parry's own Oxford Book of Welsh Verse and Gwyn Jones's Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English.
"The Woodland Mass" or "The Mass of the Grove" is a poem in the form of a cywydd by the 14th-century bard Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets. It is one of his most popular works. Sometimes seen as blasphemous, it presents a woodland scene in which a thrush, sent by the poet's lover, and a nightingale officiate at a Mass celebrating both God and sexual love. "The Woodland Mass" is an example of a common type of medieval Welsh poem in which some bird or beast is used as a llatai or love-messenger, though this poem is unusual in that the message is sent to Dafydd rather than by him.
"The Mirror" is a poem in the form of a cywydd by the 14th-century bard Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets. The poem describes how Dafydd, languishing with lovesickness for an unnamed Gwynedd woman, is appalled by the wasted appearance of his face in the mirror. "The Mirror" can be grouped with several other of Dafydd's poems, possibly early ones, set in Gwynedd, or alternatively with the many poems in which he expresses his love for a woman he calls Morfudd. It has been called "perhaps Dafydd's greatest masterpiece in the genre of self-deprecation".
"To the Yew Tree Above Dafydd ap Gwilym's Grave" is a 14th-century Welsh-language poem in the form of a cywydd, and is usually seen as either an elegy written after the death of Dafydd ap Gwilym or a mock-elegy addressed to him during his lifetime. Its author, Gruffudd Gryg, also wrote another elegy or mock-elegy on his friend Dafydd, and conducted a controversy in verse with him in which Dafydd's poems were criticised and defended. The cywydd on the yew tree constitutes the main evidence for the widespread belief that Dafydd is buried at Strata Florida Abbey in Ceredigion. It has been called "a superb poem, perhaps Gruffudd Gryg's best...a remarkably sensitive and perceptive act of poetic homage that acknowledges, far more than any more direct statement ever could, Dafydd's status as a true athro for his generation". It was included in both The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse and The Penguin Book of Welsh Verse.
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