Welsh Journals

certain chronological and other difficulties. Let one such difficulty be mentioned at the outset: due to corruption of the correct Welsh renderings, 'Cwmhir' and 'Cymer', mother and daughter-house respectively, have been frequently mistaken for one another, especially in the indices of older, published works. Even within the last years of the monastery's existence, Cymer was penned as 'Commere' and 'Comhere' in contemporaneous deeds.4 Grants from the British Academy, and the Cambrian Archaeological Association, have greatly helped towards the cost of research for this present series. Absence in North Africa, more recently, has necessitated several requests to friends at home to check certain points. Dr. F. G. Cowley has been very helpful in this respect, as, too, has been the Department of Manuscripts and Records at the National Library. Mr. Vaughan Gaskell, of Sandbach, kindly made available to me, at Nannau, two estate volumes normally in his possession. Mrs. Monica Cox, of the National Museum of Wales, has kindly typed the manuscript. Site and Remains The abbey lay formerly 'in Nannau', and was near the former motte of Uchtryd ab Edwin (1116),5 and was adjacent to the confluence of the Wnion with the Mawddach-hence its name of 'cymer'. More significant, was the monastery's position close to the estuary of the Mawddach, with the potential thus afforded for trade, fishing, and sea connections with its lands in Llyn. The monastery church is entirely of the early thirteenth century, save that because it was never completed in a cruciform plan, a west tower-unusual in Cistercian abbey churches-was added later. The somewhat assorted building materials included a variety of local rocks-glacial boulders, sandstones, shales and dolerite. The only dressed stone was a pale, fine-grained sandstone, probably derived from the local Cambrian strata. Vernon Hughes has pointed out the close similarity in plan between the churches of Cymer (f. 1 198) and Aberconwy Abbeys (f.1192), both constructed in the same years. Remains allegedly found at Cymer were displayed at the Cambrian Meetings in 1866 and 1884 (at Machynlleth and Bala respectively), and included a gold ring bearing the image of St. Catherine and a crucifix.6 More noted, and disputed, is the gilt chalice and paten found in 1890 in Llanelltud parish on mountain land once the property of Cymer. Bearing the inscription 'Nicholas of Hereford made me', it was possibly the work of a Chester goldsmith of that name who flourished around 1270. The original association of the chalice with Cymer has lately been doubted; A. J. Taylor suggests that it may have been part of royal treasure under guard in 1284 in the mountains near Castell-y-bere, or else a chalice sent by the king to Vale Royal for its consecration that year. More certainly, there can be little doubt N.L.W., Bachymbyd Deeds 98, 423. 6 U.C.N. W., Nannau-Hengwrt MS 870; T.Jones, Bruty Tywysogion (1952), p. 79; RR, p. 246. 6 Arch. Camb., 1849, pp. 281, 297, 308, 314; 1866, p. 545; 1884, p. 347. 7 H. J. Owen, 'The Romance of the Chalice and Paten of Cymer Abbey', in MHS, II, pp. 181-90; J. M. Lewis and D. H. Williams, The White Monks in Wales (1976), p. 5; A. J. Taylor, 'A Fragment of a Dona Account' in Bulletin of Board of Celtic Studies, XXVII, ii, p. 256.