Strata Florida, and the tale of medieval monasticism.

There is an allure to Strata Florida Abbey, near Tregaron in central Wales. And it's not just due to the exoticism of the name! The name, incidentally, is a Latin bastardization of a more homely Welsh title, "Ystrad Fflur", meaning "valley of flowers". But anyway. The abbey today is a little misleading, the ruins being slight, and giving very little indication of its former glory. Welsh abbeys such as Tintern or Valle Crucis, with much more upstanding ruins, overshadow it today. But in its day Strata Florida was possibly the most important abbey in Wales. Allow me to explain.

The Cistercian order of monks came over from France in the early 1100s, having already founded a few abbeys on the continent, starting with the abbey at Citeaux, near Dijon, in 1098. The first Cistercian foundation in Britain was Waverley Abbey in Surrey, but it didn't take long for the White Monks (so-named because of their habits of undyed wool) to spread throughout the country. Unlike Benedictine or Augustinian monks, the Cistercians sought peace and tranquility, and made their foundations "far from the concourse of man". Effectively a breakaway branch of the Benedictine Order, Cistercians followed a stricter Rule of St Benedict, and were (at first) known for their almost severe austerity. As a missionary order, the Cistercians spread throughout Europe with abbeys sending out monks to found "daughter houses", establishing a hierarchy within the Order, with the Abbot of each monastery travelling to Citeaux for the annual General Chapter. A comparison to big businesses of the modern age won't be far off the mark. Cistercian monasteries were always built to the same plan, the theory being that a monk could go to any abbey in the world and feel at home. The cruciform church was laid out on an East-West axis, with a cloister off to the south, around which were arrayed the buildings necessary for the running of the enterprise, including the sleeping and eating areas. The abbey was set within a precinct, around which was usually built a wall to demarcate the monastic world within from the secular world without. Monks were always men, and women were virtually never allowed within the precinct walls (on the rare occasion that the monastery would have to deal with a woman, she was only ever allowed to speak to the Abbot, I assume because such a senior cleric would be above any temptation the female visitor may present). The monks followed a daily routine of prayer, with four services taking place daily within the church, around which the monks would live, copying manuscripts to preserve knowledge and tending to the land. 

The Cistercians arrived in Wales in 1140, with the foundation at Whitland from Clairvaux, itself a daughter house of Citeaux. Whitland is an important abbey for being the mother house of most of the other Welsh abbeys - indeed, Strata Florida was established as a daughter from Whitland in 1164, one of eventually twelve Cistercian abbeys (and two nunneries) in Wales. During this period of the middle ages monasticism was very popular, and a career in the church was an attractive and viable option for many, particularly for second-sons (Henry VIII was originally destined for the cloth). There was, then no real shortage of monks, but land to establish monasteries upon was more hard to come by. Monks generally relied upon gifts of land from wealthy landowners, at this time Anglo-Norman knights who were, by the code of chivalry, expected to be pious men. Knights would often give land to found a monastery, and the family would continue to gift lands as time went on, forming something of a close relationship with the original foundation. The idea being, of course, that you were securing a place in heaven. Medieval society is a subject I want to save for its own blog, but suffice it to say that, in this pre-Reformation period, religion was extremely important, and eternal damnation was a daily concern. For a knight, whose job was to kill men who opposed his King, it was important to ensure you cleanse the blood from you through generosity to the Church. This attitude led to some men being extraordinarily generous with land. 

It was the Anglo-Norman landowner Robert fitzStephen who gifted the original land to the Cistercians at Strata Florida, but as Welsh supremacy increased in the area, the French landowners were gradually expelled, the lands being united into the principality of Deheubarth under the Lord Rhys (d1197). Rhys ap Gruffudd, to give him his actual name, is a very important figure in Wales at this time, and in many ways deserves his own blog, but for now I'll limit myself to this. As Prince of Deheubarth, an area roughly corresponding to the old county of Dyfed, Rhys embarked upon a campaign of castle-building and ecclesiastical patronage, and Strata Florida benefited from this perhaps more so than any other abbey. It was traditionally here that the Princes of Deheubarth were buried, and the Welsh medieval chronicle, Brut y Tywysogyon (Chronicle of the Princes), was written and kept, and it was said that the Lord Rhys "loved and cherished" Strata Florida above all others. 

Thanks to extensive grants of land under a charter issued in 1184, Strata Florida Abbey was given a vast income that allowed it to move to its current position and begin to build in a much more ambitious scale. Lord Rhys' patronage of Strata Florida also allowed it to begin to send out monks to found further abbeys, at Llantarnam (Glamorgan) in 1179, and Aberconwy in 1186. It was Whitland, however, that became almost the mother church of the entire Order in Wales, founding Strata Marcella in 1170, and Cwmhir in 1176, from which Valle Crucis in 1201, and Cymer in 1198, were both founded, respectively. 

Cistercian economy was based on sheep, which they farmed on the vast tracts of land they were given, using a system of outlying farms called granges to keep track of everything. Having such huge estates required the recruitment of a veritable army of lay-brothers to farm them. Indeed, lay-brothers were recruited for almost all of the menial tasks required around the monastery, allowing the monks to concentrate on prayer and the preservation of knowledge by copying texts. A big divide existed between the two groups, and in the church building itself this divide took the form of a physical barrier: the Choir Screen. The problem with this system in Wales specifically was that most farms were run by a peasant class of worker, something the Cistercians tried to avoid whenever they could, but the granges of Strata Florida were most likely farmed more by 'sub-contracted' peasants than by their own lay-brothers. 

These vast tracts of land eventually proved to be the Order's downfall in Britain. It's one thing for knights keen for salvation to gift land to a monastery, but then what does that monastery do with that land? Well, it makes money from it, of course. But then, what does an austere order of monks who wear plain clothes and build in plain styles want with so much money? Slowly but surely, the monks became corrupted by the pursuit of gold, using the money to build in a more decorative style that is now known as Gothic. Churches with incredible architecture began to be built, often a very far cry from the original desire. The Black Death brought about monasticism's first setback, when the number of lay-brothers began to dwindle, and abbots around the country were faced with sudden financial problems. 

I said before that a career in the Church was a viable option for many. Therein lay the problem, I think, when you have 'career-monks' whose object is to rise through the ranks for their own personal aggrandizement, rather than the glory of God, which is purported to be every monk's purpose. Abbots, I suppose, began to see themselves as something in the manner of tycoons, the spider at the centre of a vast commercial web. Without the means of keeping this commercial web operable - without the lay-brothers in sufficient numbers - the granges began to be sold off. Some particularly unscrupulous abbots had actually begun to speculate on the wool trade, selling their fleeces before shearing. Such activities eventually allowed for such stunning constructions as the tower over the north transept at Fountains to be built in the early 1500s. However, when this speculation fell short during the period of the Black Death, problems arose. Abbeys began to find themselves in debt, and some (like Rievaulx) had to curtail building plans or shrink their monastery down to a more manageable/affordable size. By the time of the Valor Ecclesiasticus in the 1530s, a lot of abbeys in Britain were still in debt. 

To some extent, monasticism recovered in the 1400s, though never to the extent to which it had bloomed in the 1200s. Strata Florida was something of a bastion for native Welsh custom during this time. It enjoyed a very close and strong patronage from the native Welsh princes, and had developed into an almost political centre for the kingdom. The abbots of Strata Florida were native Welshmen, rather than career-monks from elsewhere. Being so strongly pro-Welsh had caused problems for the abbey for a while, and in fact, in 1212 King John singled out Strata Florida as a target in his ongoing war against Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (already mentioned). In 1238 a conclave of all the native Welsh princes was called at the abbey, which seems to indicate its pre-eminent position in Welsh affairs at this time. 

It wasn't all prosperity for the abbey, however. Following Edward I's invasions of Wales, Strata Florida received £84 in compensation for damage (just over £1m in 2010). However, as the chronicle at Chester tells us, the abbey was then struck by fire, the majority of the church being consumed. During the revolt of Madog ap Llywelyn in the 1290s, the abbey was again subsumed in flames when it was razed by royalists. However, Edward I granted the monks leave to rebuild, making the statement that the action was "contrary to our wishes". It was at this time that the monastery was rebuilt on a slightly smaller scale, perhaps indicating a diminishing monastic community already, prior to the outbreak of the Black Death in 1348. During the Owain Glyndwr rebellion of the early 1400s, Henry IV took control of the abbey and billeted his men there, ejecting the pro-Welsh monks. As part of the recovery plan from the 1420s, the community lived within modest means, and by the time of the Suppression, which came for Strata Florida in 1539 following its valuation at £118, there were just seven monks and their abbot. 

Post-Suppression, the abbey buildings were broken up and sold of all the lead, glass, and gold, as was happening all over the country, and the actual buildings and land came into the possession of the Earls of Essex. In the late 1600s, a house was built on top of some of the claustral buildings, Great Abbey Farm, again something that was happening up and down the country (cloister buildings were much more easier to convert into a private house, as happened with Neath or Lacock, for example). It wasn't until the later Victorian era that the monastic ruins began to attract attention once more, which is something of an anomaly given the vast amount of attention lavished upon places like Tintern in the Romantic era. It was the railway engineer Stephen Williams who began to bring people to see the sights here, particularly the fourteenth-century tile pavements that were discovered by Williams during his excavations of the 1880s. The tiles depict, among other things, the arms of the Despenser family. Such decoration within the abbey is again an example of just how far from the original ideals the Cistercian order drifted. 

The ruins today feature one of the most famous West Fronts of all ruined abbeys, and the aforementioned tile pavements. However, there is the hint that, perhaps, the site today is a little small, as I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. The construction of a private house on top of a sizeable portion will do that, of course, but it is important to remember that the actual abbey buildings contribute only a small overall area of the lands actually controlled by that abbey. Those lands belonging to Strata Florida are, in the words of the Cadw guidebook, "unusually extensive", covering what is believed to be 6300 arable acres. The Strata Florida Research Project, being undertaken by the University of Wales, is making great strides in the history of the Strata Florida landscape, and I strongly recommend you check out that link! Among other discoveries, the gatehouse to the inner court of the abbey precinct has been excavated, and there is strong evidence for metalworking within the wider precinct area. Exciting stuff! 

While by no means extensive, I hope you have enjoyed this taster of medieval monasticism in the context of one of Wales' most important and influential abbeys. I hope to get round to more of this in future blogs, including a detailed look at the Dissolution of the Monasteries. So stay tuned!!

Drowned Wales

The inspiration for this post is, in part, down to the discovery in my attic of some photos from my dad's collection, and in part because I'm poised to begin an Open University module on "themes in the history of Wales", which is a fascinating topic, as I hope to tempt you all with today! 

The subject of Welsh national identity is one that is quite fervently debated, and one which has been for hundreds of years. Welsh independence has been a dream pursued by many people, since before the Conquest of Wales by Edward I in the late thirteenth century. Throughout the twentieth century in particular, this dream, and this subject, sparked violent clashes - often physically violent - between Welsh nationalists and our English neighbours. Something happened in the 1950s that brought this to a painful head, which is something I'm going to try to look through today.

This looks beautiful, no? The typical scene from the Welsh countryside in the summer. This is Llyn Celyn in the Tryweryn Valley, in the middle of North Wales, part of what I like to call "the Welsh Lake District". Nearby are Llyn Tegid and Llyn Brenig, as well as many smaller lakes, and not far away is Llyn Trawsfynydd. Despite being on a fairly major road, the lakeside is quite peaceful, even in summer, with the odd biker group going by but that's often it. Let me show you another version of this same scene:

Slightly different, and not only because it was taken in the autumn. This is what's under Llyn Celyn, and in times of drought it can become something of an attraction, as evidenced by the folks walking across the bridge here. For an even more different view, try this. What you're seeing here is Capel Celyn, a typical rural Welsh hamlet until the early 1960s, when it was flooded to create the lake. But why?

Well, this is where everything gets controversial.

In 1956, a private member bill was put before parliament, seeking to create a water reservoir in the Tryweryn Valley. This bill was brought for Liverpool City Council, and doing things this way allowed them to bypass the usual circus of applying for planning permission to the relevant landowning authorities in the area. The creation involved disrupting railway lines, and road links, and - crucially - the flooding of the village of Capel Celyn. As one of the last bastions of Welsh-only speaking settlements in Wales, feelings were instantly aroused to fever pitch as the notion of the English drowning out the Welsh, the symbolism of the creation of the reservoir being extremely potent. 

See, Welsh nationalism had been developing since the turn of the century, with Plaid Cymru being formed as the national party of Wales in 1925, after increasing dissatisfaction with the Labour party as not listening to the needs of the people of Wales. Support for the party grew steadily until the 1950s, when the charismatic Gwynfor Evans was elected president of the party. Under his leadership, Plaid Cymru began to be seen as a serious political force in Wales, and he was eventually to be returned as the first Plaid Cymru MP, in 1966. Upon his death in 2005, many of his political colleagues paid tribute to the lengths to which he had gone in the promotion of the Welsh language and Welsh nationalism at large. Back to the private member bill.

35 of the 36 Welsh MPs in Parliament voted against the bill, with the 36th abstaining. However, the bill was passed into law, leading to years of protest and uphill struggle by the people of Capel Celyn to save their homes. A Welsh militant faction developed, Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (Movement for the Defence of Wales), analogous to Sinn Fein I suppose, undertaking bombing activity first in 1963 when a transponder on the dam here was blown up. It was all for nothing, however, and the people were forced to leave in 1965. The buildings were demolished, the residents were offered the option of having relatives exhumed from the cemetery before it was covered in cement, and then the water was allowed to rise.

The valley flooded, Llyn Celyn opened in October 1965, with Plaid Cymru organising a political demonstration of opposition. Flooding a Welsh valley to provide an English city with water was seen as a major turning point in the history of Plaid Cymru - as mentioned, the party won its first seat in Parliament a year later, and public outcry in favour of Welsh national opinion over this issue led to the creation of the Welsh Office, and a Secretary of State for Wales, creations that still exist today (both, admittedly, to some serious controversy, largely based on English politicians filling the role). I do not feel, however, that the events of the 1957 vote demonstrate Westminster's disinterest in the voices of the people of Wales. Yes, the majority of Welsh MPs voted against the creation of the reservoir, and yes, despite this the bill was passed, but I think this is more to do with the fact that, in Parliament at this time, there was a maximum number of 630 MPs. The fact that 35 MPs voted against a bill would have next to no effect on that bill's passage whatsoever. It is important to note that information on how the other MPs in the House at this time voted is so difficult to come by as to be non-existent. 

It is still seen as a hugely negative episode in cross-border relations, by some people it is akin to Edward I's subjugation of the Welsh as mentioned already. While hardly the same as building a castle from which to rule the native population, the creation of the reservoir had the same effect as building those castles almost seven hundred years earlier: it displaced the native population by force. The residents of Capel Celyn were allowed to leave with their lives, of course, but I feel the point remains. 

Is this behaviour to be condoned, however? Is this right? The reservoir appears to largely be superfluous to the demands of Liverpool, whose watery needs are met by two other reservoirs (one of which is Lake Vyrnwy, also in Wales), and it has been since reported that the city doesn't use all of the water it gets from Llyn Celyn, after all. There is a deep resentment over this issue, many people calling it "a racist act" because of the perceived victimization of a Welsh-speaking village. I would have to refute this, as I find it highly unlikely that anyone involved in this decision looked at a map of Wales to single out a Welsh-speaking village to drown. I find it far more likely that Capel Celyn was chosen for geographic, and not demographic, reasons. What I do not refute, however, is the lamentable fate of the village. 

There is no doubt about it, this is a very sad episode in Welsh history. It is also a very important episode in Welsh history, particularly in the development of Welsh Nationalism. It is sad to see, however, that what started as genuine political complaint with Westminster, and what I suppose can be called non-personal violence to reinforce these complaints, has degenerated into all-out conflict and a blanket hatred of the English by the Welsh.

^ Llyn Celyn is also the site of the most famous piece of graffiti in Wales.

So what does it mean to be Welsh? To me, today, it feels like you need to be an insular Anglophobe. This is so emphatically not what it should be, to me, however. As time has gone on, I feel that nobody knows what it truly means to be Welsh anymore. Even the ability to speak Welsh doesn't actually seem to be part of this identity anymore. "Cofiwch Dryweryn" aside, the graffiti daubed on the walls on this September day in 1989 is in English, after all. Something of a disturbing paradox there, I feel. 

Ah, Shropshire! (part two)

For part two of my Summer of Shropshire, I'd like to take you all on a trip to Viriconium Cornoviorum, or Wroxeter Roman City. 

Viriconium was founded in the 40s, during the invasion conducted under Emperor Claudius as little more than a marching camp. A fort developed here for the 14th Legion to stage from when they were poised to invade Wales. As happened a lot with Roman forts, a civilian settlement grew up outside the main fort complex, called a 'vicus', where the wives of Roman soldiers lived with their families. What we have on show today that has been excavated is just the main city baths, which means the site name of "Roman City" is something of a misnomer in my eyes. But what has been excavated is nonetheless impressive, so let's continue!

^ The basilica

The fort at Wroxeter was soon abandoned, as the Legion moved on up to Chester (Deva Victrix), but the vicus that had grown up nearby simply expanded to take in the fort buildings, and over time the civitas (basically 'city') grew to be the fourth largest settlement in Roman Britain (and, as the new guidebook states, slightly larger than the town of Pompeii). At its heyday in the 2nd century AD, it is estimated that between 5000 and 10000 people were living in over 250 separate structures within the city limits. 

^ known during the eighteenth century as "the old work", this surviving piece of wall is one of the tallest surviving Roman walls in Britain. Its survival is possible due to being incorporated into later buildings.

^ a row of shops on the western side of the site. Shopping was an important part of bath culture - a trip to the baths for the Romans was akin to a trip to a cinema today, more than anything else. 

Following the civil service shake-up under Diocletian, the province of Britannia was divided into four, with Wroxeter falling within Britannia Prima, whose capital was at modern Cirencester. Perhaps as a result of this, a shift is seen in links between the two from the third century, particularly in the similarity of mosaics produced here. 

^ the market hall in the foreground, looking north-east towards the basilica. 

The collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century is most often followed, in Roman Britain, with a mass-exodus of folks from the towns back into the countryside, but not at Wroxeter. There is evidence to suggest, when the skilled folks who were needed to maintain buildings such as the baths had left, the buildings were patched up as best as could be done, or else relocated. A chapel was created within the bathhouse complex, and by the end of the fifth century burials were taking place around it. This is a strong piece of evidence to suggest that, while people remained living within the city, they were no longer 'Romanized' as burials within the city walls were strictly forbidden by Roman law (which was commonly misinterpreted for years as the Romans being afraid of zombie-like appearances, but is now accepted to be the wish to avoid contamination of the city water supplies).

^ the plunge pool.

So let's talk baths. As I'm sure everyone is aware, the Romans loved their baths. It was one of the first orders of business for the army when they settled. It is generally accepted that the Romans didn't understand the link between uncleanliness and illness at the microbal level we do today, but they were great observers (the physician Galen being a big promoter of this), and knew from observation that a settlement created next to a bog or stagnant pool of water would result in ill-health for its inhabitants, but a settlement near running water was a safer bet. The running water would also provide for them both their drinking water and their bath water. They were fantastic engineers, and their aqueducts that survive in southern Europe are spectacular feats for an ancient society. As technical knowledge improved, therefore, they didn't need to site their settlement so close to this water, as they could channel what they needed directly to their chosen spot. Wroxeter is sited up the bank from the River Severn, as the river could be prone to flooding. 

^ the furnace (foreground) with the caldarium (behind) and tepidarium (middle ground).

Roman baths were a suite of rooms much like a Turkish bath, the rooms designed around different levels of heat. You would enter through the portico into the basilica, which could double as an exercise yard if required, then change in the changing rooms (by 'change', I mean 'get naked', because that's basically what happened). Naked, you'd then be rubbed down with oil and have your body shaved hairless, as this was the fashion and was considered to be cleaner. Seneca makes a wonderfully vivid description of bathers being plucked rather than shaved, from the time when he lived near a bath house in Rome. You'd then proceed through a series of hotter and hotter rooms, from the unheated frigidarium, to the warm tepidarium, to the hot and steamy caldarium. There was also the option of a scaldingly hot dry sudatorium, if you felt the need. From here, you'd finish off with a refreshing dip in the cold plunge pool (natatio) to close the pores. Ah, wonderful!

The hypocaust was, of course, key to all this. The floor was built on a platform supported on tile columns as seen on the left of the picture above. A fire was lit in a furnace room (as shown in the previous picture) then this room was closed off - the resultant heat would then move through the columns and heat the space; hot air rises, so it would filter through the floor and into the room above. The caldarium, being nearest to the furnace room, was of course the hottest of the sequence. The walls here also had a channel in them for the air to move through, resulting in heat from below and the sides. Ingenious!

^ the 'annointing room', that strip of white on the left. The white expanse between it and the Old Work is the frigidarium. To the right of this picture is the sudatorium.

Bathing was, as I briefly mentioned before, a very important social process. People had private baths attached to their houses if the house was of a decent size, but you would still come to the city baths to socialize, because so much business was transacted there. People would play games, make dinner dates, make political alliances, gossip (the Romans loved to gossip), and recite poetry. It was just part of the culture. Bathing was regulated by time of day - the poor people would be in before 7am, then women were allowed to bathe before 3pm, then once the baths had gotten to their most efficient, the men would bathe. Contrary to the popular belief of the Romans as harbingers of debauched excess, city life was actually very restrained, and particularly under the Emperor Augustus, there was quite a strict morality enforced on society. Men and women still socialized on a more-or-less equal level - women were present at Roman dinners, for example, unlike at Greek symposia - but society remained dominantly a patriarchy. 

^ Caer Caradoc Hill, as seen from the south-west from Wroxeter. It is supposedly from here that the folk hero Caractacus made his last stand against the Romans. 

In 2010, a Roman town house was recreated for the TV show "Rome wasn't built in a day", using locally sourced materials and original methods. The design is based on a town house excavated at Wroxeter in the early 20th century, and built on top of the site of the city's forum (hence the raised platform, to preserve the archaeology below). The pillar-bases seen in the first photograph are actually the colonnade of the forum that faced onto Watling Street.

^ the fence in the centre denotes the course of Watling Street, the main road between London and Holyhead.

^ a reproduction of a shrine to the sun-god Sol Invictus, the official sun-god of the Empire in the pre-Christian era.

Nearby is the church of St Andrew, an Anglo-Saxon foundation that incorporates many features taken from the Roman city following its collapse in the sixth century, including these columns (above), and the font (below), which is carved in the base of another Roman column. The church may be part of a monastery that was founded before the city was abandoned at an indeterminate time between the late fifth and early sixth centuries. The settlement of modern Wroxeter certainly moved further south from the Roman city as time progressed, so that by the time of the Norman Conquest and Domesday Book, when the fitzAlans held the land here and had a manor house built in the field opposite the church. 

The ruins were uncovered during the eighteenth century, with Thomas Telford being involved in uncovering at least one town house. He seems to have done a lot of that, though, in the process of building roads and such. Being the county architect for Shropshire will, I suppose, have its advantages though. Anyway, as The Grand Tour became fashionable with young aristocrats touring Europe to see the ancient sites, interest in Britain's own ancient sites grew. The Romantic movement later in the century brought with it a heavy vogue for ruins of all descriptions, and Wroxeter's allure grew further. Extensive excavations were carried out in the 1910s (even during World War I), though it wasn't until the 1920s when the forum was excavated that the town was recognized as being Viriconium. Local landowners destroyed much of archaeological interest before the Ministry of Works could step in after World War II to consolidate the remains, but while the extent of the city continues to be studied by geophysics and other non-invasive means, we only have the baths complex open for visiting. But it's well worth it!