CARTULARIUM PRIORATUS S. JOHANNIS

EVANG. DE BRECON.

PREFACE.

AMONG the publications proposed to be undertaken by the Welsh MSS. Society was one styled "Registrum Prioratus de Brecknock"; a work which, unfortunately, was not undertaken by the spirited publishers. Their proposal has, however, stimulated inquiry where the materials were to be found, and has led to the fulfilment of it by the Cambrian Archæological Society in the following pages.

It is well, by way of an introduction, to give some account of the foundation of the Priory of Brecon, its remains, and of the MSS. which have been made use of for the work.

Nothing is known of the origin or early history of Bernard Newmarch, further than that he was a follower of William the Conqueror in the latter part of his reign, and a witness to the two charters which he granted to the famous Benedictine Monastery of St. Martin of Battle, founded and built in performance of the Conqueror's vow, after the battle, on the spot where the royal standard stood, and where his noble adversary, Harold, fell in defence of his country against the invading Normans. A passing reference to the event may suffice here; but the reader will do well to peruse Mr. Freeman's brilliant narrative of the foundation of the Abbey.1

The name of Bernard Newmarch does not occur in Domesday Book, and the span of life renders it improbable that he was a sharer in the victory of Hastings; for one of the Brecon Priory charters shows that he was alive while Bishop Bernard occupied the see of St. David's, perhaps at as late a period as 1120.

Circumstances delayed the fulfilment of the Conqueror's vow. Battle Abbey was not built before the ap

1 History of the Norman Conquest, vol. iv, p. 402.

B

1

pointment of Gausbert as Abbot in 1076, and it was not consecrated until the reign of William Rufus in 1094. Bernard appears to have been one of the leaders, with Roger de Lacy and Ralph de Mortimer, in the insurrection against William Rufus soon after his succession to the throne. In the following year he was in possession of the manor of Glasbury, part of the Welsh province of Brecheiniog; and in five years afterwards he had conquered the three cantreds of the same province, thus possessing the whole of Brecknockshire except the cantred of Buelt, or Builth. In Bernard's crowning victory, Rhys ap Teudwr, King of South Wales, was killed in battle, near his Castle of Brecon, during the Easter of 1093. Soon afterwards, Roger, one of the monks of Battle Abbey, tarried for some time with Bernard, and by much importunity persuaded him to give to the church of St. Martin a district in Wales, with the old town and the church of St. John the Evangelist near thereto, situate just without the defences of the Castle of Brecon. Roger thereupon, with the aid of another monk named Walter, rebuilt2 the church, and proceeded with the erection of monastic buildings, acquiring meanwhile, by prayer or gift, from the neighbours some possessions of land or tithes. As time went on, Nest, Bernard's wife, suffering from ill health, with her husband's assent gave a small vill, afterwards known as the manor of Berrinton; and so Bernard's bounty having been gradually increased by other gifts of lands, mills, churches, and tithes, Walter was appointed by the Abbot and Convent of St. Martin the first Abbot of the Convent of Brecon, paying a yearly sum in money as a recognition of the subjection of his Convent, to Battle as the mother

church.3

In the selection of the spot near which the vanquished Welsh King fell, as the site of the future convent, Ber1 Flor. Wig., vol. ii, p. 33 (Thorp's ed.); Itinerarium Kambric lib. i, cap. 2, also 12.

2 Restauravit".

3 Chronicon de Bello, Dugd., Mon., tome i, p.

316.

nard was probably actuated by a desire to imitate the Conqueror, and to place it safely under the defence of his castle. In the early part of the reign of Henry I, Bernard, in a charter, with the King's assent, granted to the church of St. Martin of Battle the church near his Castle of Brecon, which he had caused to be dedicated in honour of St. John the Evangelist, and recorded the particulars of the gifts of mills, lands, churches, and tithes, in Wales and England, which he, his wife, and followers, had previously made to the church of St. Martin. In a second charter he described more fully the lands which he had granted. These donations were from time to time augmented and confirmed, during the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, by the charters of his grandsons, Roger Earl of Hereford, Walter, Henry, and Mahel; by William de Braose the elder, Reginald de Braose, and Humphrey de Bohun, succeeding lords of Brecon; and also by Peter Fitz Herbert, lord of Blaenllyfni and Dinas, and many others, including members of the families of Pichard, Traveley, Torell, Baskerville, and Burghill.

It is unnecessary to give here a description of these possessions of the Convent, because the ecclesiastical taxations which occur in the early pages of the Cartulary and the marginal notes give the information. The charters, the bishops' confirmation of them, and the compositions of disputes with other monastic houses, are worthy of a careful perusal, and give much interesting information on an obscure period in the history of Breconshire.

The ground on which the conventual church and buildings were erected, occupies a small space. It was rendered less available for building by its steep inclination on the south and east to the river Honddu. It lay without the town wall, near the old Port Superior, and extended to the outer ward of the Castle. Little can now be made out of the arrangement of the monastic buildings. It is evident, however, that they were not extensive. A strong and lofty wall, with a wide, arched

opening as an approach to the Close, still bounds the ground to the west. In the line of this wall, near the entrance to the churchyard, are low buildings with remains of gargoyles near the eaves, and wooden, framed windows, introduced probably after the suppression, showing externally and internally an alteration of the original structure. The noble conventual church occupies the north side of the Close. At its western end a building, converted into stables and other offices, runs southward, which formed apparently an ambulatory, with an approach through a door (now closed) into the church. Its upper floor was probably the dormitory of the Convent. Samuel and Nathaniel Buck's view of the south-east of Brecknock Priory in 1741 shows a building running parallel with the church, the roof of which hides the lower part of the windows of the south transept, and a modernised house, connected with the dormitory, occupying the south-west of the cloister croft. They mention that on the north (south) side of the church is a very good paved cloister, which opens into the church and joins it to the Priory house, where the refectory is still remaining. The present Priory house is a comparatively modern, detached, structure, built on the sloping ground towards the river, and so affords no assistance in making out the monastic arrangements. The cemetery, at a late period styled that of the church of the Holy Cross, lies north of the church, and was approached from the close through an arch in a wall running from the west end of the church.

Nothing remains, unless it be the font, of the church of the twelfth century. If there had been anything noteworthy in its structure, or appearance, Gerald de Barri, whose residence of Llanddu was in the immediate neighbourhood, and whose name appears as a witness to several of the charters, would have mentioned it in his Itinerary. The present church was built after his death. No annals, or register, of the convent have come down to us, so a notion of its date can be formed only from the building, as we see it now.