CHAPTER IV
BRECON CATHEDRAL
l)& former Priory Church of St. John
M ^ ^ t h e Evangelist at Brecon, counted the
J finest ecclesiastical edifice in Wales with
the exception of the cathedrals of St.
David’s and Llandaff, now ranks with them as a
cathedral— that of the new diocese of Swansea and
Brecon. It was fitting that the bishop's throne should
be installed in the church of Brecon instead of in
huge, busy and not very attractive Swansea, quite
apart from the fact that at the town beneath the
towering Brecknock Beacons there was a building
not unworthy of cathedral rank, that is to say as far
as pretensions go in Wales, whose cathedrals are on
a modest scale.
Brecon, as a town, probably dates from the vith
century or even earlier, but the name by which it is
now known is no older than the xith century, being
in fact the appellative given by the Norman barons
who at the prompting of William I. set themselves
lo the conquest of South Wales. Its Celtic name is
Aberhonddu, but it has always been one of the chief
i owns of the principality of Brycheiniog, now known
i. Ifrecknockshire.
The early history of Wales is extremely obscure
127
128 B reco n C ath ed ral
and the extant records are little more than the reflections of tradition. Except in the extreme south-
where Legio II. Augusta stood on guard at Isca Silurum (Caerleon), and at a few points along the coast , the Romans seem always to have allowed the tribesmen of wild and rugged Cambria to remain very much to themselves, as the Indian frontier clans have usually been left, except at such times as they violently abuse their privileges. Situated as Wales was, it is likely enough that there was much cross-
The policy of Rome during
the later period was decidedly to encourage settlements of warlike aliens within the bounds of the empire,
and there is good reason to believe that this was the
policy followed in Britain.
There is therefore, in default of better evidence,
no reason to question the Welsh tradition that Brycheiniog was founded by an adventurous chief named
Brychan, who, on his father’s side, was of Irish
descent— not by a British Cambrian, or by one of
the sons of the great Cunedda, who, about 400,
expelled the Irish invaders from North Wales.
A t the same time, Brychan had some kind of legal
claim to rule the district in which his father had
settled, since the latter had married a British woman,
But in those wild days the only right respected ill
Cambria was the right of the sword. A great deal
might be said about this founder of a local dynaniy
which played its part in Welsh history for six ceiiim in
and more, but when so scholarly and painstaking an
The State of Brycheiniog 129
historian as M r. Lloyd calls him one of the most
shadowy figures in the annals of the country, the
English writer may be pardoned for sparing his words.
The pedigree of the lords of Brycheiniog has come
down in a corrupt form, and the sequence of names
is not very certain. But it may be accepted as a proven
fact that the state was really founded by, and named
after, a chief named Brychan.
During the Dark Ages the principality appears as
involved in the customary Welsh dynastic quarrels
and almost endemic civil wars as well as in the perennial struggle with the English enemy to the eastward. In the vnth century there is mention of a
prince of Brycheiniog named Awst (Augustus or
Augustinus), showing that even yet the influence of
Rome was faindy felt by the wild mountaineers of
Wales. Its capital seems generally to have been
Talgarth, not Aberhonddu.
There is a tradition that Brychan himself was born
at the Roman station of Gaer, three miles from Brecon,
which is now in course of excavation, but it would
not be quite safe to accept this as a fact. The Kymric
princes of Wales seem to have been as little addicted
10 establishing themselves within Roman walls as
die English, In any case Gaer was quickly abandoned
for Talgarth.
Brycheiniog might appear to be tolerably well protccted by nature, but access into the mountains by
die valley of the Usk is not difficult, and thus in the
1 Kill century the Vikings made their appearance there.
This was in 896, when the Viking Great Army under
dir leadership of Haesten was endeavouring vainly
