Welsh Journals

Some, at least, of the ecclesiastical associations of Llanddewibrefi are well known. All members of this Antiquarian Society will have heard of the early and miraculous association of the church with David, the patron saint whose name it bears, though most of them will have accepted that story with rather more than the proverbial pinch of critical salt. The majority of the members will also doubtless have a nodding acquaintance with some of the ancient Celtic stones preserved at Llanddewibrefi. Fewer, probably, may know that Thomas Bek, bishop of St. Davids (1280-93), founded a collegiate church there in 1287. The subsequent history of that collegiate church until its dissolution in the sixteenth century is likely to be very obscure to them. Llanddewibrefi in the Middle Ages has none of the glamour of its illustrious neighbour, Strata Florida it is hard put to compare with Llanbadarn Fawr. Yet it is one of only six churches of its kind in medieval Wales, and its history illustrates and crystallizes at a number of crucial points some important general tendencies in the history of religion in medieval and Reformation Wales. Unfortunately, the information which survives concerning it is nothing like as full as one would wish. If a church, like a nation, is happy when it has no history, then the canons of Llanddewibrefi, for long spells in the Middle Ages, enjoyed an unusually felicitous existence. Even so, enough evidence has survived to provide a reasonably coherent outline of the history of the church. The collegiate church itself was not founded until the comparatively late date of 1287. But in order to appreciate the full significance of the college established by Bishop Thomas Bek we have to go back many centuries earlier. For the transition which now took place in the history of this Cardiganshire church was only a small part of a much wider process. Llanddewibrefi was one among a considerable number of ancient ecclesiastical foundations of Celtic origins which were being transformed by the Norman bishops of medieval Wales into institutions with which they were much more familiar and of which they were much more approbatory. If only we could accept at its face value the evidence given in the oldest life of St. David by Rhigyfarch-a scholar with strong Cardigan- shire connections, incidentallyl-we should have to accord the church of Llanddewibrefi a place of great primacy in Welsh ecclesiastical history. It was there, according to Rhigyfarch, that the famous synod was held to combat the Pelagian heresy. After all others had failed, *An address delivered to the Society at Aberystwyth, 20 April 1963.