Welsh Journals

SOME NOTES AS TO LLANTWIT MAJOR. By J. S. CORBETT. It occurred to me when it was proposed a few months since to carry out some excavations at Llantwit Major, that it might be well to put together a few notes as to the history of the place, not attempting to deal with it fully, but confining myself to such facts as might bear upon the question of what remains might be expected to be found there. There are traditions that the Emperor Theodosius established a college* there, and it is also stated in the genealogy of Iestyn ap Gurgan, in the Iolo MSS. f that Eurgain, daughter of Carac- tacus, founded a choir near Llantwit, I suppose at Caer Worgorn, where remains of a Roman house have been found. I do not think we need attach much importance to these traditions, so far as they relate to a school or college, but they are interesting from the circumstance that they existed at a time when, apart from such legends, no one knew that any remains of Roman date existed at or near Llantwit. It is a curious instance of the way in which tradition is carried on, and how tales of this kind get altered, though founded on fact. It seems very improbable that a school was founded at or near Llantwit, by or in the time of either of the Emperors named Theodosius. I need not here enter into the reasons for this view, but will merely suggest that from a desire to ascribe great antiquity to the later school of Illtyd it may well have happened that legends spring up which connected it with the Roman remains in the neighbourhood. lolo MSS. 1848 Edit., p. 422. t Ibid, p. 343. § Theodosius the Great died 395. Theodosius II., 408-50, was Emperor of the East.