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The Princes of Gwynedd and the Church by A. D. Carr

It is not easy to understand the relationship of church and state in pre-Norman Wales. In most societies their respective spheres of authority were reasonably clearly defined but in Wales and the other Celtic countries they were inextricably entangled. The virtual integration of ecclesiastical and secular authority meant that no great bishop played a political role nor collaborated with the king to bring about reforms in pre-Norman Gwynedd in the way that Dunstan did in England. Even the pattern of ecclesiastical organisation was different. The cathedral, the territorial diocese, and the parish were unknown; in each kingdom there was a bishop who was a member of the royal household and the king’s chaplain and confessor. The great churches like Bangor and Clynnog Fawr owed their wealth to the generosity of successive kings and they were regarded as the heritable property of the kindred of their founders.

The tide of reform that was running through the Western church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries brought ecclesiastical organisation in the Celtic world into line with that in the rest of Europe. One result of this was the appearance of territorial dioceses so that the bishop in Gwynedd became the bishop of Bangor with his Episcopal seat in that church and the body of canons attached to the churchof Deiniolbecame the cathedral chapter. The first bishop of Bangor, as we understand the term, was David the Scot who was consecrated in 1120; he also began the building of a new cathedral on the site of which the present building stands. But with these changes in the structure of the Welsh church there came also a change in the archbishop of Canterbury’s attitude to it. Successive archbishops tried to extend their metropolitan authority over the Welsh dioceses and although they were eventually successful their victory was won in the face of a prolonged Welsh resistance. In Gwynedd their claim posed a major constitutional issue since that kingdom was in no way subject to the English crown; consequently each vacancy in the see of Bangorduring the twelfth century led to a dispute. Between 1109 and 1120 Bangor was without a bishop because Gruffydd ap Cynan of Gwynedd and Henry I could not agree on a suitable candidate; no ruler of Gwynedd could accept any outside interference because of his special relationship with the bishop. A compromise was reached in 1120 when both parties were able to agree on David the Scot, a distinguished scholar, probably a Welshman (on the continent all Celts were known as Scots), who had been master of the cathedral school at Würzburg in Germany and had then been in the service of the emperor Henry V, King Henry’s son in law.

David’s relations with King Gruffydd, who died in 1137 leaving legacies to Bangorand many other churches in North Wales, seem to have been excellent but he himself died in 1130. One Meurig was elected bishop and was somehow induced at his consecration to swear fealty to the king of England. Despite the objections of Gruffydd ap Cynan’s successor, Owain Gwynedd, Meurig remained at Bangoruntil his death in 1161 by which time Owain was in a position to have his own way. The archbishop, Thomas Becket, and the pope tried unsuccessfully to persuade Owain to accept the authority of Canterburyand also raised the question of his marriage to his cousin Cristin; after a long and acrimonious dispute he died excommunicate in 1170. But the see remained vacant until 1177; the issue was revived when bishop Gwion died in 1190 but by the beginning of the following century it had been resolved and there was no further argument with the archbishop over nominations to Bangor. This dispute had been between the ruler of Gwynedd and the archbishop of Canterbury; it was not a clash between church and state in Gwynedd and when Owain died he was buried in the cathedral as his father had been despite his excommunication. But future bishops of Bangor did promise canonical obedience to the archbishop although the welcome accorded to Archbishop Baldwin when he visited the cathedral in 1188 was less than enthusiastic.

The general climate of reform in the church caused a clearer definition of the authority of church and state in Gwynedd as elsewhere and disputes now arose from time to time between the princes and the bishops of Bangorand St. Asaph. There was nothing unusual in this; there were demarcation disputes of this kind all over Europe. In 1261 two clashes between Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (1246-1282) and bishop Richard of Bangor, one over conflicts of jurisdiction and one over boundaries were settled by agreement but four years later the same bishop laid an interdict on the prince’s private chapel. This episode may have been an assertion of independence by a prelate who found the position of domestic chaplain to the prince which went with his office an invidious one. Richard’s successor Einion (Anian) found Llywelyn’s firm rule too much to bear and he went into voluntary exile for a time. Llywelyn also quarrelled with his kinsman Einion II, bishop of St Asaph, a proud man who eventually excommunicated the prince and transferred his allegiance to Edward I; thus, when the final crisis in Anglo-Welsh relations came in 1282 Llywelyn had lost the support of his bishops and a plot against him seems actually to have been hatched in the belfry of Bangor cathedral. A rather inept attempt by Archbishop Pecham of Canterbury to mediate between Edward and the prince was a failure.

As Wales was brought into the main stream of European church life the princes of Gwynedd came to have dealings with the papacy. In 1212 Pope Innocent III urged the Welsh rules to war against King John and Llywelyn the Great (1194-1240) and his successors saw the pope as their protector against the power of the English crown and as a guarantor of their independence. Llywelyn the Great sought papal support in his bid to make his son Dafydd his sole heir while Dafydd ap Llywelyn (1240-1246), under pressure from Henry III, tried unsuccessfully to become a vassal of the pope. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd turned to Rome for moral support against Edward I and seems to have won the sympathy of Pope Gregory X; moreover, it was the papal legate Ottobuono who negotiated the treaty of Montgomerybetween Llywelyn and Henry III in 1267.

One cannot discuss the princes of Gwynedd and the church without considering their relations with the religious orders. The twelfth-century reform dealt a moral blow to the old Celtic religious communities or clasau; Bangorbecame a cathedral and others, like Clynnog Fawr and Holyhead became collegiate churches served by chapters of secular canons. Bardsey, Beddgelert, and Penmon were re-founded, probably under the auspices of the princes, as houses of Augustinian or Black Canons. But a new monastic ideal had appeared in Europe in the shape of the Cistercians or White Monks and their austerity, reminiscent of the Celtic monastic tradition at its best, caught the Welsh imagination; between 1157 and 1201 Cistercian houses were founded in every part of Wales. Aberconwy in Gwynedd was founded in 1190 and in 1198 the monks obtained a generous charter from Llywelyn the Great; he and his two sons were buried there and the abbey replaced Bangor cathedral as the royal shrine of Gwynedd, resembling Westminster in England and St Denis in France. The Cistercians repaid this generosity; unlike the bishops of Bangor and St. Asaph their loyalty never faltered and when Einion of St. Asaph accused Llywelyn ap Gruffydd of hostility to the church and particularly to monks, the Welsh Cistercian abbots wrote to the pope in his defence. After Llywelyn was killed in 1282 his body was buried in the Cistercian abbey of Cwm-hir. The new mendicant orders also enjoyed royal favour; a Franciscan community was founded at Llan-faes in Anglesey by Llywelyn the Great in memory of his wife and there were Dominicans at Bangorand Rhuddlan. The friars served the princes well, especially as messengers, a function for which members of international organisations who were constantly travelling were ideally suited.

After 1282, when the native rulers were replaced by English kings and princes, the bishops of Bangor ceased to be figures of any political consequence. After the mid-fourteenth century the see was generally bestowed on friars who had often been royal confessors or clerks and who rarely obtained any further preferment. What had once been the chief church of the kingdom of Gwyneddhad become one of the smallest and most remote cathedrals of the Church of England. But the cathedral church of Bangorhad been the burial place of kings and had played its part in the history of Gwynedd and the attempts of its rulers to unite Wales, and if it lacks of the majesty of York or Lincoln it has no less historical significance.

The Princes of Gwynedd
Bangor Cathedral
from a commemorative booklet of the Exhibition held in the Cathedral Church of St. Deiniol, Bangor, on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.