Welsh Journals

records show the ecclesiastical importance of the island in early times. Its importance was indeed so great that Professor Williams, of the Theological College, Bala, goes so far as to express an opinion that Caldey and not Llantwit was the original Llanna Ututi (Some Aspects of the Christian Church in Wales, pp. 57, 58) but however this may be, and his view is hard to reconcile with what Enoch tells us in the almost contemporaneous life of St. Samson above referred to, it is certain that in the sixth century there was an important monastery upon the island, representing probably (see Williams, as above) the Eastern rather than the Western type of Christianity, and closely bound up with the great names of Illtyd, Dubric, Samson, David, Paul and Gildas. How long the Celtic monks remained upon the island is not known, but in the reign of Henry I it was, as Dugdale tells us, given by that monarch to Robert, son of Martin, who gave it to his mother Geva, who in turn, with her son's assent, conveyed it to the celebrated monastery of St. Dogmaels,1 a Benedictine house which followed the reformed rule, 1 For a full account of St. Dogmaels, see Mrs. Pritchard's History oj St. Dogmaels Abbey. It was founded by the aforesaid Martin, sometimes called Martin de Turribus, and sometimes Martin of Tours, and was endowed by his son Robert. This Martin was one of the Conqueror's knights, and held lands in Buckinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Devon, where Combemartin, whence he probably sailed for Fishguard, took its name from him. The title Turonensis or de Turribus, however, given him by Owen, Fenton, and others, has caused no little confusion. It has been assumed that he came from Tours, and he has been even confused with St. Martin of Tours himself. In the last edition, for example, of Murray's Handbook to N. Devon we find it stated that the Manor of Combe- martin was given by the Conqueror to the powerful St. Martin of Tours, after whom it was called"; and in commemoration of this, as it would seem, a window to St. Martin has been erected in the Church! The fact, however, is that Tironensis and not Turonensis was most probably the title borne by Martin, and that he came not from Tours but Tiron, or, as it is now called, Thiron-Gardais, near Nogent-le-Rotrou, in Eure-et-Loir. See Owen's Pendrokeshire, p. 442, n. 3, and p. 363, n. 2; also Round's preface to his Calendar of Documents preserved in France, pp. xxxv and xxxvi.