The Sacred Landscapes of Medieval Monasteries
The Sacred Landscapes of Medieval Monasteries: an inter-disciplinary study of meaning embedded in space and production
The Sacred Landscapes of Medieval Monasteries: an inter-disciplinary study of meaning embedded in space and production
The Sacred Landscapes project, funded by a major grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, began in January 2019 and ran until the end of January 2023. The project examined how the landscape around monasteries was shaped to reflect the sacred, and the intellectual and emotional responses to the nature and productivity of the land on the part of the monks and their associates. At the heart of the project were comparative studies of the historic landscapes of two Welsh Cistercian abbeys, Valle Crucis and Strata Florida, and a cluster of monasteries in Lincolnshire.
The project was led by Professor David Austin (UWTSD) as Principal Investigator, along with Co-investigators Professor Ann Parry Owen (the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Celtic Studies), Professor Janet Burton (UWTSD) and Professor Emilia Jamroziak (University of Leeds). At CAWCS, Dr Jenny Day worked with Professor Parry Owen to produce new editions and translations of the poetry addressed by Gutun Owain to two abbots of Valle Crucis, Siôn ap Rhisiart and Dafydd ab Ieuan, and investigating what the poems reveal about the abbey and its estate in the context of the wider landscape, culture and history of north-east Wales.
It is clear from the poetry that Gutun Owain was a frequent visitor to Valle Crucis and well acquainted with the abbey and its abbots:
Dafydd, i’w lys rydd yr af – i gwyno
Rhag annwyd y gaeaf;
Aur a gwin, bob awr a gaf
Is acr y Groes wresocaf.
‘Dafydd, it is to his liberal court that I go
to bemoan winter’s chill;
at every hour I receive gold and wine
beneath the acre of the warmest Cross.’
(the opening lines of one of Gutun’s awdlau addressed to Abbot Dafydd ab Ieuan)
Gutun was famously fond of the abbey’s lavish food and wine on feast-days, but he was also an appreciative participant in the worship in the abbey church, as his poetry reveals:
Naw o’i fynych, nef anant,
Naw carol nefol a wnânt;
Lleng o engylion y llys,
Llu i falu llef felys.
‘Nine of his monks, heaven’s musicians,
make nine heavenly carols;
a legion of the angels of the court,
a host to produce a sweet sound.’
(lines from one of Gutun’s cywyddau addressed to Abbot Dafydd)
As both poet and scholar, with a particular interest in history, genealogy and bardic grammars, Gutun was also well acquainted with manuscripts belonging to the abbey. It is thought, for example, that it was at Valle Crucis that he and another, anonymous scribe wrote the collection of historical narratives known as the Black Book of Basingwerk.
Gutun was familiar too with the landscape around the abbey. He referred to Valle Crucis’s location beneath the wooded hill of Hyrddin (Is Hyrddin … / A’i goed), and mentioned its proximity to ‘the Cross’ or ‘the Old Cross’ particularly often, referring to the monument now known as the Pillar of Eliseg. Associating the abbey with the ‘Old Cross’ was just one of the ways by which Gutun emphasised the integral place of the Cistercian community of Valle Crucis within the cultural landscape of north-east Wales. The nature and significance of the barriers between the monastic enclosure and the wider world are further topics explored by Jenny Day’s work for this project, and by the work of other team members.
See further:
Jenny Day, ‘ “The Houses of the Old Cross”: Valle Crucis Abbey in the poems of Gutun Owain, Cîteaux – Commentarii cistercienses, 73 (2023), pp. 255–75. ISSN 0009-7497.
https://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/id/eprint/2399/
Jenny Day, ‘ “Beuno tŷ Sain Bened”: seintiau a hunaniaeth yn y canu i’r abadau’, Dwned (forthcoming)
External links:
Information about the project on the University of Leeds website.
Information about the project on the AHRC (UKRI) web site, including other publications by the project team.
Two of Gutun Owain’s most famous manuscripts are digitised on the National Library of Wales website: