By Peter Foden
Tregrug is now the name of a farm near Llangybi (Monmouthshire) and Edlogan the name of a residential road in Cwmbran New Town (Torfaen). But during the later mediaeval and early modern periods they were the names of adjoining lordships, both lying within the wider estate of the Earls of March which passed to the English Crown on the accession of Edward V.
My interest began in my own village of Llangybi, which lies within the historic boundaries of Tregrug. It is a modern commuter village which developed in the 1960s from a cluster of houses around the church of Saint Cybi. The foundation legend of the church as recorded in three Latin Lives of Cybi tells of his clash with a local ruler named Edelig and Edelig’s gift to Cybi of two churches. Edlogan may be derived from the name of this ruler. The setting of the meeting between Cybi and Edelig appears to be the late mediaeval landscape of Tregrug – the river Usk just about navigable from the Severn at high tide, riverside meadows overlooked by the seat of a lord on a nearby hilltop, from which he and his men gallop down to evict the intruders [David Callander, Trawsffwurfio’r Seintiau (2024), pp45-44 comparison of variant texts, pp87-88 Latin text]
A March within the March
What then was the relationship between these two lordships? Why is Cybi’s church in Tregrug and not in Edlogan (if Edelig was both lord of Edlogan and patron of the church)? Studying the boundary between Edlogan and Tregrug might help to answer this question. According to ET Davies, Edlogan had been a Commote, whereas Tregrug was one of a number of manors within a Commote of Bryn Buga or Usk [ET Davies, Ecclesiastical History of Monmouthshire (1953) p.42].
A perambulation of the boundaries of Tregrug was written (in English) in 1705 on the accession of Hopton Williams to the Baronetcy and Langibby Castle Estate [Gwent Archives, D3105.7]. There are some words and phrases in this document that suggest it was translated from an earlier Latin Custumal. Although this source is early modern, late mediaeval account rolls of Tregrug confirm that certain key locations within this boundary were within the lordship during the 14th century, and so add credence to its long establishment – notably for this discussion the flood plain of the river Usk to the east, Sluvad (in Panteg) to the west, Pen y glog (in Llandegfedd) to the south, and land in or juxta Dyffryn Sôr to the southwest (in Llandegfedd) [UK National Archives, SC6/925/10-18, SC6/1202/1, SC6/1202/6-7].
Lordships and parishes in both Wales and England often have different boundaries. The early modern parish of Llangybi lay entirely within the lordship of Tregrug, but the parishes of Llandegfedd and Panteg appear to have been divided between Tregrug and Edlogan. Davies [(1953) p90] asserts that parish boundaries in Monmouthshire are more ancient than the ‘ever changing’ manorial boundaries – an ‘article of faith’ that we might test in this case study.
The perambulation begins at Pwll Ucha on the river Usk (roughly where the highest tides reach). It follows the modern parish boundary between Llangybi and Tredynog, along streams called the Graenog [‘gravelly’] and Vyal or Viallen [perhaps bual, originally meaning ox or buffalo, but figuratively a drinking horn, and in this sense the variant buelyn is found in the Laws of Hywel Dda: Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymraeg, cf under the headwords bual & corn] and short earthworks – a ‘great ditch’ in the floodplain and ‘Ffoes Gwenllian’ near what is now the Cwrt Bleddyn Hotel. Gwenllian was a fifth-century legendary Celtic Saint as well as the ‘lost princess of Wales’ exiled to Sempringham in the 13th century, and the name was popular in early modern Monmouthshire, but of course might here be a descriptive name for a watercourse from gwen, blessed, and lliant, flow.
The river Sôr formed the boundary between the lordships within Llandegfedd (with one mysterious abuttal between Tregrug and an otherwise unknown Lordship called Bistor), but the portion of Panteg lying within Tregrug was higher ground and so its boundaries were more complex.
… abutting up along the said River Soar to one brook called Sirrowy dividing the parish[es] of Panteg and Llanddewy, and then abutting along the said river of Sirrowy and the Lordship of Edlogan dividing the parishes of Panteg and Llanddewy and from the said brook Sirrowy abutting upon the Glebe Lands belonging to the Rectory of Panteg and to a place called Crosfach, and from the said Crosvach abutting upon the lands of Mrs Mary Taynter in the tenary of Jenkin Jones and also abutting to the Lordship of Edlogan and abutting also to the lands of John Hanbury Esq to a place Called Rydd Elen and there adjoining to the lordship of of Usk and from the said place called Rydd Elen abutting to one Brook called Nant Ytwch to the river called Soar aforesaid … [spelling mostly modernized]
Rhyd Elen – the street of Elen – appears to be a variant of ‘Sarn Helen’, a common mediaeval Welsh descriptor of a Roman road. And Croes fach suggests a man-made landmark in the form of a boundary cross. The land in Panteg lying within Tregrug is a hilltop called Sluvad, rising to 144m. 14th century spellings (in Tregrug account rolls) include Estleuarth or Estlenarth, Slenarth [SC6/925/10-18]. In the sixteenth century it was usually Slowarth [View of Account, 1540-41, UK National Archives E315/82]. This name needs some etymological research. The river Sôr, now submerged under Llandegfedd Reservoir, would have been a more natural boundary. Income was received from ‘Estlenarth’ in the 14th century for agistment of cattle, enclosure of waste, and for a grove. [SC6/925/10-18]
Cymorth Calan Mai
It would be an easy assumption to make that Tregrug and Edlogan had long been in the same lordship, and that the Anglo-Norman lords took over a pre-existing territorial unit, and that the cluster of late mediaeval lordships extending from the mouth of the Usk to the hinterlands of Caerleon, Trellech and Usk had always been one. Perhaps Tregrug had been carved out of Edlogan/Edeligion (if indeed we can equate these two units), and boundary crosses and ditches created where natural features such as watercourses could not be used.
A key piece of evidence in an early 17th century Exchequer case about land in Panteg was ‘that the free holders there [in Edlogan] used and do use to pay their free rents at St Andrews day yearly, and every second year at the feast called Hock Day or Ail Glame’ [E 134/6Chas1/East15]. Glame is a variant of Galan Mai, May Day [GPC, under headword Calan], when the Biennial payment of Cymorth was common in the Welshries of South Wales [William Rees, South Wales and the March 1284-1415 (1924) pp229 et seq.]. It has nothing to do with Hocktide (the week after Easter). In the mediaeval account rolls of the Earldom of March, it is always the Latin word auxilium that is used, glossed as cymorth by historians. William Rees has pointed out parallel examples, albeit under other dialect names, from the North West of England – Yr Hen Ogledd – which suggest that these periodic payments may be very ancient, perhaps even dating back to the fifth or sixth centuries. Rees argues that they were levies of cattle by ‘Celtic Tribesmen’ and their payment on May Day coincided with herding them to their upland pastures. The names of the rents vary in both Wales and Yr Hen Ogledd, but the association with May Day on a cycle longer than one year is consistent. [Rees, Survivals of Ancient Celtic Custom in Mediaeval England, in O’Donnell Lectures: Angles and Britons, Tolkien et al (1963) pp152 et seq.]
Professor Rees noted that intervals varied, and sometimes Cymorth was paid every third or fourth year. He also noticed that in one lordship in South Wales it was paid every third year, not on May Day, but at Lammas (ad Gulam Augusti), and that anomalous lordship was Tregrug [Rees (1963) p229 fn4]. There is evidence from the early 14th century to the mid 16th century to confirm this pattern [UK National Archives, SC6/925/10-18, SC6/1202/1, SC6/1202/6-7, E315/82], but it probably came to an end soon after the Williams family acquired Tregrug in 1544 [Henry VIII’s grant of various manors and advowsons to Roger Williams, Llangibby Castle MSS B1847, National Library of Wales]. Rees did not attempt to explain our local anomaly.
Here, then, is a clear distinction between Tregrug and Edlogan. Studying this might reveal something about the earlier history of both and the relationship between them. The biennial Calan Mai cycle was the commonest, so there must have been something unusual about Tregrug. Geographically, the landscape north and south of our boundary is similar except that Tregrug has a large area of flood plain in the lower Usk valley. Lammas suggests harvest: perhaps Cymorth here related to harvest rather than to herding cattle. Something to do with Welsh ascetic vegetarianism maybe? But a 15th century Tregrug account states that the auxilium paid by nativi was variable because it was assessed on the number of their animals [SC6/928/19]. So it does appear to have been understood then as a cattle tax. Might Lammas have been a more appropriate date for herding cattle onto flood plain meadows, after haymaking? Flood plains are traditionally grazed only in August and September [floodplainmeadows.org.uk]. Tregrug account rolls document haymaking in several locations on the flood plain in the 14th century (Crowe, Kilhelig, Hele), confirming both that these areas lay within the lordship, and probably indirectly that some drainage and diversion of the main river bed had already been completed [SC6/928/10-18].
Other more fanciful explanations of this unusual 1st August Auxilium or Cymorth might include the ancient Celtic festival of Lughnasadh, more common in Scottish and Irish contexts, although Ronald Hutton reports some slender Welsh evidence presented by Maire MacNeill, including traditional customs of mountain climbing in South Wales on 1st August, and a discussion about whether the Latin Gula Augusti has a Welsh etymology via Gwŷl Awst [Hutton, Stations of the Sun (1996) pp327-331]. Some late sources also place Saint Cybi’s feast day in August [https://seintiadur.saints.wales/chwilio.php?saintid=40], and to relate this to Cymorth would require several leap-frogs of faith into the realms of Celticism.
Churches and their land
Triennial papal taxes and episcopal visitations might suggest an ecclesiastical association. Is it possible that before the Anglo-Norman Marcher Lords arrived, the whole of Tregrug might have belonged to the church? We are told in his Buchedd that Saint Cybi was given two churches [Callander, p88]: is it possible that a whole territory was carved out of Edelig’s lordship? It does, after all, contain two churches today – Llangybi and Llandegfedd.
How old are the parish boundaries and glebe land in the lordship of Tregrug? Welsh churches notoriously originated as isolated chapels and communities of monks. Tithe maps may be an anachronistic source for historical landownership, but they are the best and earliest comprehensive maps available. They show a cluster of ecclesiastically-owned land along Cwm Ffrwd, sometimes in deeds named Gwenffrwd. The churches of Henllys, Llangeview, and Llanllywel, all held land in close proximity and around the confluence of the Ffrwd and Sor, where there was also Chantry land belonging to Llandegfedd Church [Exchequer depositions E134/8Chas1/East3]. Ton Farm nearby included land acquired in the early 17th century from a ‘Doctor Roboathon’, likely to be a clerical title [Will of Philip Powell, 1654, PROB11/237/556]. Was it a coincidence that marginal land had been given to different churches relatively recently, or is this a relic of earlier Celtic church organisation? More study is needed of the distribution and history of glebe land in the March.
We hit a problem here: none of the 14th and 15th century account rolls of Tregrug even mention the parish name Llangybi. All archive listings including the National Library of Wales, British Library, Gwent Archives, and UK National Archives, cross refer between the two names, as if they were interchangeable. But Llangybi is strangely absent from written records between circa 1200 and circa 1500 [Hywel Wyn Owen & Richard Morgan, Dictionary of the Place Names of Wales (2007) p264]. CADW give a late fifteenth century date for the fabric of St Cybi’s Church, grudgingly acknowledging the ‘essence’ of an earlier church on the site [https://cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.net/reports/listedbuilding/FullReport?lang=en&id=2669]. This appears to coincide with a change of name for the parish around the same date. Papal Taxations of 1254 and 1291 list the parish as Tregrug and not as Llangybi [ET Davies (1953) appendix 1]. Deeds of land later acquired by the Williams family suddenly change from ‘in the fee and parish of Tregrug’ [1485, Llangibby Castle MSS B623, 1502, ibid. A1012] to ‘in the parish of Llangybi and fee of Tregrug’ [1502, ibid.B626]. Meanwhile, Rector of Llangybi’ begins appearing as a party or witness to deeds in place of ‘parson of Tregrug’ or ‘rector of Tregrug’ around the same time [Tregrug variant spelling, 1465, Badminton Muniments (1)564; Llangybi or variants, Llangibby Castle MSS: 1512, B635; 1513, B871; 1520, B39; 1522, B869; 1523, B38; 1524, B35]. Adam of Usk was the Rector of Tregrug.
The Liturgy of Saint Cybi, discovered transcribed in the Yale Buchedd, probably also dates from the late 15th century, but originates in North Wales [David Callendar, Trawsffurfio’r Seintiau (2024) p91, & lecture in St Cybi’s Church, June 2023]. So there was probably a revival of interest in Celtic Saints, encouraged by the Tudor Monarchs after 1485. Rededicating a parish that was at the time under royal patronage to one of these saints was a bold move. Was this a rededication or a new dedication? And was the Lordship of Tregrug ever the location of Cybi’s legendary meeting with Edelig?
About the author:
Long ago, Peter Foden read ASNaC and History at Cambridge, and Archive Administration at Liverpool, and since then has worked in all kinds of archives – on both sides of the desk. He is now a freelance historical researcher based in Monmouthshire. Peter also teaches palaeography as a sessional lecturer in the Department of Information Studies at UCL. Long fascinated by Welsh history, language and culture, he is currently learning Welsh with Coleg Gwent (lefel Uwch).