CONCERNING SAINT DOGMAEL,
IN THE COUNTY OF PEMBROKE OF WALES.
6th Century.
The cult and foundation of the Abbey, in the Borough bearing his name.
Dogmael, in the County of Pembroke of Wales (St.)
AUTHOR G. H.
There are in the County of Pembroke two
cities, which drew their name
from Saints: the chief of these
is the Episcopal city of Menevia,
now called St. David's, to
whose Life on the Kalends of March, all
the things which about Wales the region and the County of Pembroke can be read pertain, set forth there, page 38.
[2] Proceeding from this Menevian city of St. David's
toward the North, to the Hibernian or
Vergivian sea, is the Barony of Ramesia, to some Kamesia,
in which besides twenty military fiefs and twenty-six parishes,
there are three towns; Fishguard, named from the catching of fish,
at the river Gwain; Newport, at
the river Nevern; and the Borough of St. Dogmael, at
the river Tivy, the Borough of St. Dogmael, not far from the city and County of Cardigan.
This Barony of Ramesia, says Camden
in the Demetae and the County of Pembroke, Martin
de Tours first wrested from the Welsh by force and arms.
a monastery, Who, or his posterity, founded the monastery of St. Dogmael,
in a valley surrounded by hills,
to which the adjacent Borough (as many other towns to monasteries)
owes its origin. Thus there.
[3] In the Monasticon Anglicanum volume 1 page 444, is set forth
under the title of the Priory of St. Dogmael in the County
of Pembroke, a cell of the Tyron monastery, and
then, the Manuscript Collectanea of Leland being cited, these things are read:
The Abbey of Saint Dogmael,
of the Order of St. Martin of Tours, an Abbey
professes the rule of St. Benedict. Flud,
Precentor of the church of St. David's, told me, that Martin
de Tours first among the Normans acquired Kamesia
(rather Ramesia) by war, and founded this
monastery, and was there buried in the middle of the choir. Then is added the Charter of King Henry
the first; by which he grants, whatever Robert,
son of Martin, gave or is about to give to the Monks of Thyron;
and then is subjoined the donation of Robert himself; in
which, he says, for the exaltation of the holy Church, founded in the 12th century: in my land
of Wales, compassionating the poverty of the Tyron Monks,
establishing a monastery in honor of the holy Mother of God, ever
Virgin Mary, with some Brethren there religiously conversing,
an Abbot to be set over them by the Lord Abbot
William, and the whole convent of Tyron, with God
helping, at last by many prayers I obtained; whose
necessities of food, according to the measure of my ability,
desiring to meet… I gave them the ancient church
of Saint Dogmael, with the possession of land adjacent to the same
church, an ancient church, whose name is Llandudoch,
in the province of Kames, near the bank of the river
Tivy. And after various donations, I gave, he says,
to them also the fishery of St. Dogmael; and I granted
to them that through the whole water, a fishery, as long as it extends in their land,
they should make other fisheries or mills,
etc. This donation therefore was made on that day, on which the first
Abbot of that place, Fulchard by name, by
the Lord Bernard Bishop of the Menevian Church,
was enthroned. This Bernard was, a Norman by fatherland,
Chaplain of King Henry the first, consecrated Bishop
on the 12th of July in the year 1115, as in
Godwin is read. At the same time too was Abbot
of Tours in the Greater monastery William or
Guillielmus, who presided over it from the year 1104 to the year
about 1124.
[4] In the ancient church of St. Dogmael, is
the monastery of St. Dogmael, and the borough of St. Dogmael. But at what
time the Saint lived or migrated to the Lord,
or what in his life he did, is wholly hidden. Michael Alford,
when about to conclude the first volume of the Annals of the British Church at the year five-hundred, relates various Saints, his memory on 14 June.
who in ancient times flourished, and among them,
he says, St. Dogmael, who in our Martyrology
is written to have been illustrious for sanctity of life and miracles,
about the year of the Lord five-hundred. There is seen
in the region of the Demetae and the field of Pembroke
a noble Abbey, named from St. Dogmael, about which
Harpsfield and Speed in the Catalogue, and Camden
in the Demetae. This Saint the Britons call
St. Tegwel: and he is read inscribed among the Saints in our Fasti
on 14 June. Thus Alford. The English Martyrology
of Wilson of the second edition, inscribed the memory of St.
Dogmael on this 14 June; by whose example,
approved by Alford, we have related the same;
nevertheless we would wish to obtain more certain monuments.