Welsh Journals

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Littere Wallic, p.86) for damage done to the church by the soldiery during Edward I's war of conquest in 1282. King Edward at the intervention of Arch- bishop Pecham of Canterbury set up a commission of three persons consisting of the Prior of Rhuddlan Friary, the Guardian or Warden of Llanfaes, and Ralph de Brocton, the King's clerk, to assess the amount due for damage in the case of the numerous churches affected. The next mention of the church is in the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas of 1292. Belonging to this period, the latter part of the thirteenth century, is the mutilated effigy of a lady in the recess on the south side of the sanctuary. It has been suggested that the lady may have been connected wtih Maesmynan-a princely residence. Where in the church the effigy in question was originally placed is not known. The recess where it now lies-or at least the arch above it- is of later date. The tower, with the exception of the upper part which was built in 1769, dates from the early fourteenth century, the decorated period, as do perhaps most of the walls. Considerable alterations were carried out-it is difficult to ascertain the extent-late in the fifteenth century or beginning of the sixteenth. The east windows and others are of the same period, many of them having been renovated or renewed at later times. Between the two parts or aisles of the church, now profanely called respectively the kitchen and parlour stood three wooden columns replaced in 1894 by the present stone pier, responds and arches. The recess in the south side of the chancel, already referred to, is a good example of the decorated style of the architecture of the 14th century. It contained either an effigy, presumably now missing, or was what is known as an Easter sepulchre. In the Easter sepulchre was placed from Good Friday till Easter morning either the reserved sacrament or a figure representing the dead Christ. Other remains of medieval or pre-reformation times are a number of sepulchral slabs incorporated in the walls near the font. These coffin lids date from the earlier or possibly latter part of the fourteenth century, when the country seems to have enjoyed considerable prosperity, for similar monuments are fairly common in the country. One finds them in many churches in this part of Wales, for example Cilcain, Whitford, Dyserth, Cwm and Llanasa. On two of them are Latin inscrip- tions in Lombardic letters, only partly legible. One of these slabs has been re-used for a seventeenth century inscription, Here lyeth the body of Katherine vch (furl — daughter of) Hugh who dyed the XVII of February, 1666." On another slab is a long epitaph in Latin, only here and there decipherable, dated 1566 — Hie jacet Corpus Gwenllian [?] Uxoris Lloyd.' Of pre-reformation date also is the glass in the decorated window in the south side of the sacrarium, which is now a jumble of fragments pieced together anyhow. This glass seems to have belonged to more than one window. Several bits of inscriptions are included. One part of a word that can be seen is rectionem possibly the latter portion