of Llantwit. In the time of Henry I. a small colony of Flemings settled in the district. The town and church derive their name from St Illtyd or Iltutus, styled the “knight,” a native of Brittany and a great-nephew of Germanus of Auxerre. Having come under the influence of St Cadoc, abbot of Llancarvan, 6 m. E.N.E. of Llantwit, Illtyd established at the latter place, about A.D. 520, a monastic college which became famous as a seat of learning. He attracted a number of scholars to him, especially from Brittany, including Samson, archbishop of Dol, Maglorius (Samson’s successor) and Paul de Leon, while his Welsh students included David, the patron saint of Wales, Gildas the historian, Paulinus and Teilo. The college continued to flourish for several centuries, sending forth a large number of missionaries until, early in the 12th century, its revenues were appropriated to the abbey of Tewkesbury by Fitzhamon, the first Norman lord of Glamorgan. A school seems, however, to have lingered on in the place until it lost all its emoluments in the reign of Henry VIII. The present church of St Illtyd is the result of a sequence of churches which have sprung from a pre-Norman edifice, almost entirely rebuilt and greatly extended in the 13th century and again partially rebuilt late in the 14th century. It consists of an “eastern” church which (according to Professor Freeman) belonged probably to the monks, and is the only part now used for worship, a western one used as a parochial church before the dissolution, but now disused, and still farther west of this a chantry with sacristan’s house, now in ruins. The western church consists of the nave of a once cruciform building, while in continuation of it was built the eastern church, consisting of chancel, nave (of great height and width but very short), aisles and an embattled western tower built over the junction of the two naves. A partial restoration was made in 1888, and a careful and more complete one in 1900–1905. In the church and churchyard are preserved some early monumental remains of the British church, dating from the 9th century, and some possibly from an earlier date. They include two cross-shafts and one cross with inscriptions in debased Latin (one being to the memory of St Illtyd) and two cylindrical pillars, most of them being decorated with interlaced work. There are some good specimens of domestic architecture of the 17th century. The town is situated in a fertile district and the inhabitants depend almost entirely on agriculture. Its weekly market is mainly resorted to for its stock sales. St Donats castle, 2 m. to the west, was for nearly seven centuries the home of the Stradling family.
As to the Roman remains, see the Athenaeum for October 20 (1888), and the Antiquary for August (1892). As to the church, see the Archaeologia Cambrensis, 3rd ser. iv. 31 (an article by Professor Freeman), 5th ser., v. 409 and xvii. 129, and 6th ser., iii. 56; A. C. Fryer, Llantwit-Major: a Fifth Century University (1893). (D. Ll. T.)
LLANWRTYD WELLS, an urban district of Breconshire,
south Wales, with a station on the central Wales section of the London & North Western railway, 231 m. from London. It is situated in the midst of wild mountain scenery on the river Irfon, a right-bank tributary of the Wye. The place is chiefly noted for its sulphur and chalybeate springs, the former being the strongest of the kind in Wales. The medicinal properties of the sulphur water were discovered, or perhaps rediscovered,
in 1732 by a famous Welsh writer, the Rev. Theophilus Evans, then vicar of Llangammarch (to which living Llanwrtyd was a chapelry till 1871). Saline water is obtained daily in the season from Builth Wells. The Irfon is celebrated as a trout-stream. Out of the civil parish, which has an area of 10,785 acres and
had in 1901 a population of 854, there was formed in 1907 the
urban district, comprising 1611 acres, and with an estimated
population at the date of formation of 812. Welsh is the predominant
language of the district.
Four miles lower down the Irfon valley, at the junction of the Cammarch and Irfon, and with a station on the London & North Western railway, is the village of Llangammarch, noted for its barium springs. The ancient parish of Llangammarch consists of the townships of Penbuallt and Treflis, the wells being in the former, which comprises 11,152 acres and had in 1901 a population of only 433. John Penry, the Puritan martyr, was born at Cefn-brith in this parish. Charles Wesley’s wife, Sarah Gwynne, was of Garth, an old residence just outside the parish.
LLEWELYN, the name of two Welsh princes.
Llewelyn I., Ab Iorwerth (d. 1240), prince of North Wales, was born after the expulsion of his father, Iorwerth, from the principality. In 1194, while still a youth, Llewelyn recovered the paternal inheritance. In 1201 he was the greatest prince in Wales. At first he was a friend of King John, whose illegitimate daughter, Joanna, he took to wife (1201); but the alliance soon fell through, and in 1211 John reduced Llewelyn to submission. In the next year Llewelyn recovered all his losses in North Wales. In 1215 he took Shrewsbury. His rising had been encouraged by the pope, by France, and by the English barons. His rights were secured by special clauses in Magna Carta. But he never desisted from his wars with the Marchers of South Wales, and in the early years of Henry III. he was several times attacked by English armies. In 1239 he was struck with paralysis and retired from the active work of government in favour of his son David. He retired into a Cistercian monastery.
See the lists of English chronicles for the reigns of John and Henry III.; also the Welsh chronicle Brut y Tywysogion (ed. Rolls Series); O. M. Edwards, History of Wales (1901); T. F. Tout in the Political History of England, iii. (1905).
Llewelyn II., Ab Gruffydd (d. 1282), prince of North Wales, succeeded his uncle David in 1246, but was compelled by Henry III. to confine himself to Snowdon and Anglesey. In 1254 Henry granted Prince Edward the royal lands in Wales. The steady encroachment of royal officers on Llewelyn’s land began immediately, and in 1256 Llewelyn declared war. The Barons’ War engaged all the forces of England, and he was able to make himself lord of south and north Wales. Llewelyn also assisted the barons. By the treaty of Shrewsbury (1265) he was recognized as overlord of Wales; and in return Simon de Montfort was supplied with Welsh troops for his last campaign. Llewelyn refused to do homage to Edward I., who therefore attacked him in 1276. He was besieged in the Snowdon mountains till hunger made him surrender, and conclude the humiliating treaty of Conway (1277). He was released, but in 1282 he revolted again, and was killed in a skirmish with the Mortimers, near Builth in central Wales.
See C. Bémont, Simon de Montfort (Paris, 1884); T. F. Tout in the Political History of England, iii. (1905); J. E. Morris in The Welsh Wars of Edward I. (1901).
LLORENTE, JUAN ANTONIO (1756–1823), Spanish historian, was born on the 30th of March 1756 at Rincon de Soto in Aragon. He studied at the university of Saragossa, and, having been ordained priest, became vicar-general to the bishop of Calahorra in 1782. In 1785 he became commissary of the Holy Office at Logroño, and in 1789 its general secretary at Madrid. In the crisis of 1808 Llorente identified himself with the Bonapartists, and was engaged for a few years in superintending the execution of the decree for the suppression of the monastic orders, and in examining the archives of the Inquisition. On the return of King Ferdinand VII. to Spain in 1814 he withdrew to France, where he published his great work, Historia critica de la inquisicion de España (Paris, 1815–1817). Translated into English, French, German, Dutch and Italian, it attracted much attention in Europe, and involved its author in considerable persecution, which, on the publication of his Portraits politiques des papes in 1822, culminated in a peremptory order to quit France. He died at Madrid on the 5th of February 1823. Both the personal character and the literary accuracy of Llorente have been assailed, but although he was not an exact historian there is no doubt that he made an honest use of documents relating to the Inquisition which are no longer extant.
The English translation of the Historia (London, 1826) is abridged. Llorente also wrote Memorias para la historia de la revolucion española (Paris, 1814–1816), translated into French (Paris, 1815–1819); Noticias historicas sobre las tres provincias vacongadas (Madrid, 1806–1808); an autobiography, Noticia biografica (Paris, 1818), and other works.
