The simple daisy loves the spot,
And there, the leafy June
Strews many a sweet Forget-me-not
Beneath the dewy moon.
And hallowed—hallowed be the ground
Where sleep the good and brave,
Decked by the firstlings of the Spring,
And soothed by Honddy’s wave! &c.
It has been already observed, that monastic establishments were not generally popular among the Cambrians. They reminded them too sensibly of the haughty domination of those Norman lords, who had parcelled out the country amongst them, and hoped to extenuate their crimes by the building and endowment of religious houses. But the memory of what was gained by force or fraud, was not to be effaced by multiplying shrines and priories—great crimes were not to be buried under abbey walls. To every free-born Cambrian, the sight of an abbey appeared like a monument of his country’s degradation and bondage, for it was difficult to separate in his mind the blessings of religion from the galling yoke of oppression; he saw that what was at first gained by force of arms, was to be retained by the yet stronger hand of spiritual despotism. The ecclesiastical power was at times more efficient in subjugating a chief, than all that a feudal baron could carry with him into the field; and when both united for the purpose of conquest, their strength was irresistible, the result certain; and the hatred of the oppressed was naturally roused against the grinding sense of a twofold oppression.
Superstition was a mighty engine. An austere old writer gives us the following instance of its working in this golden age of the Church:—“The yeare after this, Gruffyth, son to Conan ap Owen Gwyneth, a nobleman, died, and was buried in a monke’s cowle at the Abbey of Conway; and so were all the nobles, for the most part, of that time buried. For they were made to believe by the old monkes and friers, that that strange weed was a sure defence betwixt their soulis and hell, howsoever they died. And all this baggage and superstition received they with monkes and friers, a few yeares before that, out of England. For the first abbey or frier-house that we read of in Wales, sith the destruction of the noble house of Bangor, which savered not of Romish dregges, was the Twy Gwyn, built the yeare 1146; and after that they swarmed like bees through all the countrie; for then the Cleargie had forgotten the lesson that they had receaved from the noble clerk, Ambrosius Telesinus, who, writing in the yeare 540, when the right Christian faith, which Joseph of Arimathea taught at the isle of Avalon, reigned in this land, before the proud and bloodthirsty monke Augustine infested it with the Romish doctrine, in a certaine ode hath these verses in Welsh, which may be thus Englished, almost word for word:—
“Wo be to that priest yborne,
That will not cleanlie weed his corne,
And preach his charge among!
Wo be to that Sheepherd, I saie,
That will not watch his flocke alwaie,
As to his office doth belong!
Wo be to him, that doth not keepe
From Romish Wolves his simple sheepe,
With Staffe and weapon stronge!
“And because that no man should doubt of them, I have set them down here as they were written by him that made them; whereby it may be produced that the Britaynes, the first inhabitants of this realme, did abhorre the Romish doctrine taught at that time.”[338]
Architecture.—The Abbey of Llanthony was built, like those already described, in the cathedral form—with a nave, lateral aisles, transepts, and chancel. It measures in length, from the western door to the great eastern window, two hundred and twelve feet; and the breadth of the nave, including the side aisles, is fifty feet. The style is a compound of Norman and Early English, or Gothic, of which the lancet-pointed windows in the nave are illustrations; while the Norman character is preserved in the arch between the choir and south transept, and again in the outer wall of the same transept by a double window. Of the roof, which was was of stone, nothing remains except a fragment in the north aisle; the transepts have also crumbled down; but the central tower, which connected the whole fabric, still presents a massive, though mutilated, feature of the ancient pile.
The Nave, with its six noble arches, which separates the body of the church from the north aisle, is the grand and imposing feature of the scene. To the spectator, who takes his stand at the west door, the objects present a picture of wild and melancholy grandeur. Before him rise the monuments of a religious Order, who exercised no small influence over the destinies of mankind; and, when their own were fulfilled, left behind them, in the ruins that still adorn the land, the strongest evidence—with the highest homage that art and science can offer to religion.
We do not pretend to say that the remains of Llanthony are equal in architectural beauty to those of many other religious houses in the kingdom; but as every object of this description depends—for the effect it may exert over the spectator’s mind—upon the character of the scenery, and the circumstances under which it is viewed, we may safely claim for these ruins an effect much beyond what others, though more lofty, elaborate, and extensive, could ever inspire. The monastic ruins that, in more favoured districts, attract and command attention, do not, and cannot, take such hold of the imagination as the contemplation of this temple of the Desert, where everything seems in harmony with the thoughts suggested; and where the combined features of Nature and Art invest the scene with peculiar solemnity.
The nave was separated from the two aisles, north and south, by eight noble arches, supported by massive pillars on each side. But of these several have disappeared on the south, and left only their grass-covered bases to indicate their size and position. Of the great tower, only two sides remain; and on that facing the nave, may be seen the angular lines where it was joined by the stone roof to the nave. On a line with the tower on the right are seen part of the south transept, with its double Norman window opening into the interior; and at the base, externally, a lancet-shaped doorway, opening into a side chapel. On the centre of each pillar, and on a line with the upper tier of windows, or clerestory, are seen the remains of the springing columns, which supported the groined roof—showing, by the triple-moulded shaft, the base or impost from which the ribbed arch threw its delicate ramifications along the stone vault, and connected the walls under a magnificent canopy, adorned at every intersection of the ribs with carved bosses and rosettes; but of which scarcely a fragment is left.