Welsh Journals

explanation of the anomaly that the bishop of Bangor was a principal owner of land in the cantref, being lord of almost the whole of the commote of Llannerch, which consisted of the modern parishes of Llanfair and Llanelidan.27 Frank Price Jones offers another explanation. He sees in the set-up a vestige of tribal times, when it mattered not where a man lived, but to whom he belonged. He applies this to the ecclesiastical scene, and suggests concerning native churches that it mattered little where they were sited, but who founded them. Should it be accepted that churches in Dyffryn Clwyd were founded by missionaries from Deiniol's cell in Bangor, it would suffice to explain why the deanery remained a constituent part of Bangor diocese long after the advent of the diocesan episcopate.28 It would appear that any attempt to adjudicate on the origin of the deanery of Dyffryn Clwyd must take into account three factors the impact of military- political fortunes on the deanery, the hold of the occupant of the throne of Deiniol on rights and possessions within it, and its possible connexion with Bangor arising from missionary activity initiated in Bangor. Territorial Divisions In ancient Welsh parlance, gwlad (country) signified 'a political region subject to single rule and a single dynasty'. The native king or prince exercised certain well-defined privileges and prerogatives in his gwlad, and had in his entourage a distain (steward), judge, hebogydd (falconer), court priest, court bard and a personal bodyguard.29 At an early stage the court priest emerged as a significant member of the royal retinue. It was certainly the case in Gwynedd. By the Middle Ages the cantref (cant = 100, tref = town), corresponding to the English 'hundred', had become the most important unit of a gwlad, and each cantref was divided into two or more cymydau (commotes) or neighbourhoods. A. H. Thompson explains that the rural deanery was founded on the cantref system the civil division was responsible for the ecclesiastical. 30 In Wales most certainly a case can be made out that the creation of rural deaneries antedated the general organization of the parochial system. The parishes themselves did not correspond to ready-made divisions within a cantref, but evolved normally as an amalgamation of two or more of the cantref's townships.31 The Norman plan to convert Welsh bishoprics from their monastic setting to a diocesan pattern proceeded much slower in the case of Bangor than in other Welsh regions for the simple reason that 'there were no Norman lords there to exercise the external pressure' that could expedite the change.32 Indeed, any pressure brought to bear upon the ecclesiastical situation was exercised by the native princes of Gwynedd, and it was a pressure calculated to support the rights of the native Church as against encroaching Norman influence.33