St. Mary’s Church, Trefriw
Today we are talking about St Mary’s Church in Trefriw. Llanrhychwyn was also patronized and supported by Llywelyn Fawr. Why did he build another one? That’s the story we’re telling today, and it’s pretty simple, really. This area already had Llanrhychwyn, one of the oldest churches in all Wales, founded by St. Rhychwyn in the 6th century. We talked about it earlier in this season of videos. Llywelyn Fawr, who was the Prince of Wales, had many homes but came sometimes to his hunting lodge near Trefriw and in the early days always worshipped at the church at Llanrhychwyn. But, as anyone who has visited can’t help but notice, it’s quite a hike. Joan found the uphill walk to the church, followed by a steep descent, tiring. To please her, Llywelyn had St. Mary’s built at the bottom of the Read more…
Welsh Christianity
In one of this season’s earlier videos, we talked about ‘early’ Welsh Christianity and religion. Today we are talking about what was different about Christianity in Wales in later eras. Christianity in the first centuries AD was in still to some degree competing with paganism, particularly following the fall of Rome. While Rome had officially become Christian in 388, not only was Britain located at the end of the Roman Empire at that time, Rome completely abandoned it by 410. That meant that the Christianity that developed in Wales was organized around small cells of believers, led by inspired leaders who came to be known as saints. That’s why the period was called ‘the age of Saints’, where men and women formed monasteries and convents, but with little to none of the hierarchy and oversight that came later. By 800 Read more…
Temple Church London
Temple Church is the only commanderie in England we have ever visited. Unlike in France, they aren’t so thick on the ground. Only guessing, but the lack of surviving commanderies may be a product of the way their lands were parceled out after the fall of the order, combined with the Reformation, which destroyed many, if not most, religious sites throughout Britain. The Templars in England were disbanded but were allowed to continue living, which is one of the significant differences between what happened to the Templars in England as compared to in France. Initially, the London Templars met at a location that had once been a Roman temple. But because of the rapid growth of the order since its founding in England in 1128, by the 1160s the site was too small, and the Templars established a larger Read more…
Mob Ball, Football, and the Origin of Sports
Have you ever heard of ‘Mob Ball’? I hadn’t! People (and by that I generally mean ‘men’) played sports a thousand years ago or more, even if those sports wouldn’t have looked quite like what we experience today. Soccer (or Football) even existed, with the rather ominous name of ‘mob ball’ or ‘mob football’ (see below). Other sports included: Archery–always popular and in the reign of Edward I, a required activity for all villagers on Sunday afternoons; ‘Bowls’–a form of bowling, which also included another game called ‘skittles’; ‘Colf’, the precursor to golf; hammer-throwing; ‘shinty’–a hockey-like game; wrestling; horseshoes; quarterstaff contests; and ‘stoolball’–a precursor to cricket. http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/entertainment-middle-ages.htm ‘Mob football’ developed between the 7th and 9th centuries in Britain. This site writes: “It was explicitly violent and played between villages, at the time of celebration and festivity. In fact, it was Read more…
The Knights Templar
The Templar Order was formed in 1118, when nine knights took holy vows to defend Jerusalem. In 1128, their founder received a blessing from the pope to formally form a new order of warrior knights. They adopted the order of St. Benedict, remember we talked about them in previous weeks too, and the white robes of the Cistercians and began recruiting. Men flocked to their banner, and were accepted in a hierarchical system of knights, sergeants (who wore black robes), farmers, and chaplains. Within fifty years, the order became one of the largest landowners not only in the Holy Land but in France and England. They became money lenders in the major cities, and were one of the finest fighting forces in the world. On the way to accumulating land, wealth, and the power that came with it, they established Read more…
Tintern Abbey Ireland
? The Tintern Abbey in Wales has been referred to as ‘Tintern major’ and the abbey in Ireland as “Tintern of the vow” Dan: It can’t be a coincidence they have the same name. It isn’t, anymore than New York is name for ‘York’ in England. In this case, both abbeys were founded by the Norman Lord of Chepstow. In the case of the Tintern Abbey in Wales, that was Walter de Clare, and that abbey will the subject of a video coming up. Tintern Abbey in Ireland was founded by William Marshal, who was a later Lord of Chepstow, and named the Irish Tintern after the Tintern Abbey in Wales. As we talked about last week, William Marshal married Isabel de Clare, daughter of Richard de Clare, who made himself Lord of Leinster by marrying the daughter of Diarmait, Read more…
Clonmines
Clonmines is one of my favorite spots in Ireland and one we were not supposed to go to. Sshh! We were driving beside the road and said, “what is that!” and we just had to see it. It turned out to be a medieval town, established by William Marshal, the great knight and Lord of Leinster, as an alternative port to one already established. What’s incredible about Clonmines is the way it is so intact. One of the things we remarked upon as we were traveling throughout the country was how few medieval sites there were. Clearly there is a variety of reasons for this, which I won’t go into today. Clonmines survival may in part be due to the fact that it is on private land. To be perfectly frank, we trespassed, if inadvertently, to take these pictures. The Read more…
Norman-Irish Christianity
Is Norman-Irish Christianity different from just plain Norman? It is different in the sense that the Normans didn’t conquer parts of Ireland until a hundred years after they conquered England. Dan: I don’t recall talking about the Norman conquest of Ireland last year. Weirdly, we didn’t really, or at least not very much. So, in a nutshell, in 1169 Richard de Clare, known to history as Strongbow, who was the Earl of Pembroke in Wales, took it upon himself to aid Diarmait, the King of Leinster, against his enemies. In exchange, Diarmait promised to give Richard his daughter in marriage as well as the throne of Leinster upon Diarmait’s death. The glitch in this plan was that King Henry of England did not think that one of his vassals should become a king in his own right. As a result, Read more…
Lanercost Priory
Lanercost was founded roughly in 1169 by a 12th century nobleman, Robert de Vaux, who later became the Sheriff of Cumberland. Robert’s family had been granted a barony on the border with Scotland, as reward for their part in the Norman Conquest, but the area had only come under English rule in 1157. According to English Heritage, the founding of a priory was a symbol of Robert’s permanence in the area and of his wealth, as well as an act of piety. He gave the priory considerable lands and the living from churches nearby, and allowed the canons the freedom to elect their own prior. Much of the work on the priory is from the late 13th century, using stones taken from Hadrian’s Wall—as evidenced by the fact that you can still see Roman inscriptions on some of the stones. Read more…
Halloween in Wales
As I sit here munching candy corn (which my son at one point declared ‘the best candy’–even better than chocolate–though he can’t have any because he’s allergic to corn), I’m thinking about the Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mystery, The Fallen Princess, which takes place at Halloween. Except that during the Middle Ages, it was called ‘All Hallow’s Eve’, the day before All Saint’s Day, and it was less about candy and more about a belief in actual spirits. All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween, has its roots in an older, pagan tradition, called Nos Calan Gaeaf , Welsh for Samhain, a Gaelic word meaning ‘Summer’s End’. This is the most well-known Halloween tradition in Wales. http://www.controverscial.com/Samhain.htm The Welsh translation, interestingly, is ‘the first of winter’. From the National Museum of Wales: “A pagan holiday dating back to the Iron Age Celts, Samhain was Read more…
Tintagel
We are talking about Tintagel today because it is associated with King Arthur as the place he was conceived. This comes only, however, from Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote his highly fantastical History of the Kings of Britain in the early 12th century. Honestly, Geoffrey’s work is so ahistorical that the fact he claims Arthur was there is reason enough to doubt the veracity of the legend. As he tells it, Arthur’s farther was turned into the likeness of Gorlois, Igraine’s husband, and thus he slept with her, and she conceived Arthur. Even with the unlikeliness of this particular aspect of the story, Tintagel does have a fascinating history. The castle, as it exists today, was begun in the 12th century by Earl Reginald, brother to Robert of Gloucester, for whom Geoffrey wrote his history to justify the Norman Read more…
The Kings of France: Louis and Philippe
The Kings of France in the 13th century, namely King Louis and his grandson, Philippe, between them ruled France with an iron hand. Both sought to centralize power within themselves while expanding the borders of their kingdom. In the process, they built extensive fortresses throughout the country, started wars, and in the case of Philippe, expelled the Jewish community from France, destroyed the Templars, and assassinated a pope. During our recent visit to France, we visited numerous monuments to their respective rule, including Aigues Mortes, Carcasonne, and Sainte-Chapelle on the Ile de La Cite in Paris. Although Charlemagne built a tower at Aigues Mortes, the founding of the city dates to 1240 during the rule of King Louis. At the time, Louis had no port on the Mediterranean, so to gain access, he did a land exchange with the Church Read more…
^