Welsh Journals

THE CISTERCIAN NUNNERY OF LLANLLUGAN. By EDWARD OWEN, F.S.A., Secretary OF THE Royal Commission ox Ancient Monuments in Wales and MONMOUTHSHIRE. IT may be well at the outset of this short paper to set forth the exact terms of the reference to the gentlemen constituting the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in Wales and Montgomeryshire.1 They were enJoined" to make an inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments and constructions connected with, or illustrative of, the contemporary culture, civilization, and conditions of life of the people in Wales and Monmouthshire from the earliest times, and to specify those which seem most worthy of preservation." There are, at least, two ways in which this injuncfion could be fulfilled The Commissioners might have decided upon a bald inventory of monuments, very much after the style of an auctioneer's catalogue, and just as informing. This would have been in accord with the strict letter of their instructions, would have been comparatively easy of execution, and would have left the people in Wales who are interested in antiquities, as much in the dark with reference to the real character of its monuments as, after sixty years of the Cambrian Archaeological Association, they in the main appear to be. Or the Commissioners might determine upon taking a wider view of their reference, and resolve to utilise every source of light upon the 1 This paper was written in September, 1910, immediately after the publication of the Royal Commission's Volume on Ancient Monuments of Montgomeryshire.