capricious circumstances of conquest, irrespective of any common principle, is a point upon which those familiar with ancient local government could doubtless throw some interesting information. In conclusion, I trust that no statement of mine will expose me to the accusation of any wish to revive a feeling of animosity towards our English neighbours, so desirable to be for ever left in abeyance. Nothing would more grieve me than to be an instrument, however innocent in intention, in inducing any Welshman present, endowed with warm national susceptibilities, to commit a breach of the peace upon some unfortunate Saxon sitting beside him. Should such a catastrophe occur, there is this consolation, that the penalty will be awarded to the guilty party according to that law which knows no distinction between Welsh and English.

Hugh PowELL PRICE.

A WELSH COTTAGE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

NOTWITHSTANDING the fictitious and romantic tone which of necessity belongs to the mere narrative of the Mabinogion, there is no doubt that the descriptive features of those tales faithfully reflect the manners and customs of the times in which they were severally compiled. We would, therefore, earnestly urge the archæologist and historian to study them, with the view of ascertaining how our ancestors built, dressed, and lived in general, whilst they were as yet an independent nation. We present our readers with an extract from the Dream of Rhonabwy, supposed to have been written in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, which pourtrays in vivid colours the style of domestic architecture which then prevailed in Wales, and more particularly the kind of interior arrangement in which the peasants generally indulged. We use the elegant and vigorous translation of Lady Charlotte Guest.

ARCH. CAM B., NEW SERIES, VOL. V.

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Rhonabwy and Kynwrig Vrychgoch, a man of Mawddwy, and Cadwgan Vras, a man of Moelvre in Kynllath, came together to the house of Heilyn Goch the son of Cadwgan the son of Iddon. And when they were near to the house, they saw an old hall, very black and having an upright gable, whence issued a great smoke; and on entering they found the floor full of puddles and mounds; and it was difficult to stand thereon, so slippery was it with the mire of cattle. And where the puddles were, a man might go up to his ancles in water and dirt. And there were boughs of holly spread over the floor, whereof the cattle had browzed the sprigs. When they came to the hall of the house, they beheld cells full of dust, and very gloomy, and on one side an old hag making a fire. And whenever she felt cold, she cast a lapful of chaff upon the fire, and raised such a smoke, that it was scarcely to be borne, as it rose up the nostrils. And on the other side was a yellow calf-skin on the floor, a main privilege was it to any one who should get upon that hide.

“ And when they had sat down, they asked the hag where were the people of the house. And the hag spoke not but muttered. Thereupon behold the people of the house entered; a ruddy clownish curly-headed man, with a burthen of faggots on his back, and a hale slender woman, also carrying a bundle under her arm. And they barely welcomed the men, and kindled a fire with the boughs. And the woman cooked something, and gave them to eat, barley bread, and cheese, and milk, and water.

“ And there arose a storm of wind and rain, so that it was hardly possible to go forth with safety. And being weary with their journey, they laid themselves down and sought to sleep. And when they looked at the couch, it seemed to be made but of a little coarse straw full of dust and vermin, with the stems of boughs sticking up therethrough, for the cattle had eaten all the straw that was placed at the head and the foot. And upon

it was stretched an old russet coloured rug, threadbare and ragged;

, and a coarse sheet, full of slits, was upon the rug, and an illstuffed pillow, and a worn out cover upon the sheet. And after much suffering from the vermin, and from the discomfort of their couch, a heavy sleep fell on Rhonabwy's companions. But Rhonabwy, not being able either to sleep or to rest, thought he should suffer less if he went to lie upon the yellow calf-skin that was stretched out on the floor, and there he slept.'

PRIORY OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST, BRECON.

(Read at Brecon.)

When attention was lately drawn to the interesting and ancient remains of ecclesiastical foundations at Brecon, it was hoped that a careful research among the collections of MSS. in the British Museum and the Bodleian might supply information upon several points connected with their history and endowments, more abundant than we at present possess. The result, however, was not satisfactory; no further addition was made to the stock of materials already collected by the indefatigable Mr. Jones, the historian of the county of Brecknock, and by the editors of the last edition of Dugdale's Monasticon. Much time and labour were expended by the writer of this paper, fruitlessly, in his attempt to elucidate from new sources the ecclesiastical history of Brecon; although he must confess that his antiquarian diggings were rewarded by the discovery of some precious treasures, which may hereafter be produced to enrich the Journal of the Cambrian Archæological Association. Nothing more remains for him, therefore, than to arrange in a small compass all that is known of the Priory of Brecon, gathered from the voluminous accounts of the authorities to which he has alluded : he will also throw in a few remarks

upon any striking points in the documents which come before his notice.

Priory of Brecknock in Wales; a Cell to Battle Abbey. --The confessor of Bernard de Newmarch, or Bernardus de Novo Mercatu, the Norman Conqueror of the lordship of Brecon, was one Roger, a monk of Battle Abbey, who persuaded the knight that he could not do better than sanctify the possessions he had won by the sword, after the example of the king, by erecting and endowing a religious house, under the shadow of his stronghold at Brecon. Consequently, a priory was built without the walls of the castle, for six Benedictine monks, temp. Henry I., - possibly just before the commencement of the

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twelfth century, the conquest of Brecon having been completed about the year 1090,--and was dedicated to St. John the Evangelist. By his successful persuasion Roger did a good turn to the new foundation of Battle Abbey, to which the priory with its endowments was affiliated, as appears from the “charter of Henry IV. reciting and confirming all the donations made to Battle Abbey in the county of Sussex, and all its privileges, freedoms, and immunities, as well as all the charters made to the Priory of Brecknock, which is a cell of Battle Abbey.” [Rot. Parl. 13 H. IV. Dugdale.

Dugdale. Carte ad Cænob. de Bello spect., No. XXII.] Nor were these endowments small; not only the knight, but his followers also, each devoted a share of the property from which they had violently expelled the unhappy Welshmen, to the enriching of the new foundation. We can imagine the indignation of the natives, when they saw the daughter of Battle Abbey rising in fair proportions upon the ridge close by the sullen Norman Castle, reminding them at one glance of a foreign crown, a foreign lord, a foreign hierarchy, and their own lands wrested from them to support a crown which they abjured, a lord whom they feared, a church which was eager to supplant their own. In the charter we have, first of all, Bernard's grant of a certain church, hard by his castle, which is situate in Wales in Brecheniog, which he had caused to be dedicated in honour of St. John the Evangelist, for the health and soul of his lord Henry, and for the soul of King William, his father and mother, and for the health of his own soul, his wife's, his sons', his daughter's, and of all their ancestors, alive and dead. This strikes one as rather a wholesale establishment of the Norman race in the land of the Cymry; the commemoration of these warlike progenitors, intertwined with the stern remembrance of the Conqueror, and the reality of his politic son, was to be paid for out of the plunder of the natives, whose wishes, had they been consulted, would have rather tended to eject the red-haired tribe from their own mountain home, to have scattered the ashes of William the Norman upon the sea which he

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had made the highway for his ambition, and to curse rather than to bless the shades of those freebooters, who were subjecting the whole island to their yoke. Then follows a list of the endowments, and it must be confessed Bernard was a politic knight; he married Nest, or as the Norman monk who drew the charter called her, Agnes, daughter of Llewelyn ap Gruffydh, Prince of Wales, [Powel, p. 115,] a lady who, although she was a slight link of sympathy between the conquerors and the conquered, reflected but little credit in after life upon the princely line whence she descended; and in conformity with the same clear views, he took a large lump of Saxon spoil, which he had found in the rich county of Hereford, and threw it into the lap of St. John the Evangelist, at Brecon; so that Norman munificence might be praised for even-handed justice in robbing both Wales and England, and in devoting most religiously a modicum of the plunder from both quarters to pious uses. The principal grants in Wales were a mill upon Usk, and two-thirds of another mill upon Hondu; five burgages in his castle, and one plough of land close by; two estates, Londeworne (Llanwarn), in exchange for Llanhiangel, and Costinio (Llangasty tâl-y-llyn), in which the soul of his son Philip was to enjoy a special interest; and a certain “vast city” called Carnoys, no doubt Caerbannau, the old town out of which, an ancient MS. says, Bernard quarried large stones for building his castle, removing most likely much solid Roman masonry; he gave also a tenth of his tolls and grist-money, and a tenth of his bread. Jones remarks that the scriveners in those days, who were most probably Norman monks, make sad havoc with the Welsh names of places; they seem to have caught them from the native tongue, shaping them into Latin etymology as nearly as sound and spelling could be brought together; the approximation, however, was not very close, and hence the greatest difficulty is experienced by any one, who would identify the particular localities mentioned in the deeds, with their Welsh names. But one thing is quite certain, the monks knew very

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