Welsh Journals

motivated by "a desire to further the education of Catholic youth", some Jesuits would devote themselves to teaching.72 In 1625 the province produced its first "Catalogus Tertius Rerum", a triennial financial statement submitted to the general. The annual revenue of the College of St Francis Xavier totalled 800 scudi [ £ 200]; regular alms added a further 160 scudi. By 1628 the annual revenue had increased to 920 scudi with 190 scudi in alms. The total supported a community of twenty- four.73 Unlike the house of probation of St. Ignatius in London, which was a sanctuary and secured with priest-holes, and the college of Blessed Aloysius in Staffordshire, which was under titled protection and secured, the Welsh college's safety lay in its isolation. Moreover, as the memorandum reported, because the Jesuits had built the house specifically for their own use, they had constructed enough priest-holes and hiding places for forty men. The Jesuits had been using the house for nearly twenty years, and so far no one had entered it without an invitation. But even if the defences were breached, there were more than enough hiding places for the members of the community. If, for some unlikely reason, the Jesuits were ever forced to flee, there were many residences in the vicinity that would shelter them. Seven Jesuits established the community in December 1622. With the exception of one elderly priest, they adopted the daily order and religious discipline then current in the Society. Spiritual conferences were held, presumably for the laity and secular clergy, and periodic exhortations were delivered to the community. The college's members who did not reside in the community periodically visited. Then they too practised the regular religious life.74 The annual letter for 1624 detailed a few of the college's spiritual accomplishments. Despite the renewal of persecution, "which tended seriously to hinder the efforts of the Fathers, and depress Catholicity", the Jesuits received 120 persons into the Catholic Church, baptised twenty, and resolved some quarrels. They arranged for seven boys to be sent to study at St Omers, and one young woman to a convent. The letters also recounted extraordinary occurrences during their usual ministries of anointing the sick and visiting the imprisoned. 75 Despite the description of the community, its location was never mentioned in any of the letters for reasons of security. We know, however, that the college was situated at the Cwm. The Cwm first appeared as a centre of Jesuit activity in 1605. Richard Griffiths stayed there with his brother William, and Robert Jones was a frequent visitor.76 The Cwm, part of the estates of the earl of Worcester, was a dwelling in the isolated parish of Llanrothal on the Hereford side of the Monnow river, five miles from Raglan Castle. Divided