The Liber Landavensis, Llwfr Teilo, or, the Ancient Register of the Cathedral Church of Llandaff; from MSS. in the Libraries of Hengwrt and of Jesus College, Oxford: with an English Translation and Explanatory Notes. By the Rev. J. W. REES, M.A., F.S.A. 8vo. pp. 646. Llandovery: W. Rees, 1840.

THIS is the first of a series of publications projected by the Welsh Manuscript Society; a society which was founded at Abergavenny, in 1837, and numbers among its members the most influential of the inhabitants of the principality, and many of the English nobility. Its object is to rescue from the decay into which they are hastening, and from the danger of loss or destruction to which they are exposed, the more interesting of the many extant manuscripts in Welsh, Latin, and English, connected with the history and antiquities of the Principality. So well supported as it is, there can be no fear but that this laudable purpose will be well and fully carried out; and we have, in the volume under notice, a sample of the treasures in store, and of the manner in which they are to be produced.

The Liber Landavensis is the "The Ancient Chartulary, or Register Book of the Cathedral of Llandaff, wherein were recorded Memoirs of its more eminent Prelates, Grants of Endowments, and other interesting and important particulars, relating to the Church and Diocese."* The whole of the existing manuscript is supposed to have been compiled anterior to the year 1133, as the death of Bishop Urban, which occurred in that year, is not recorded in the work, nor are any subsequent

events.

This manuscript is partly compiled, or extracted, from a more ancient one formerly preserved in the church at Llandaff, called the Llwfr Teilo, or Book of St. Teilo, and said to be the cheirograph of that saint, who lived in the earlier half of the sixth century.

Doubts have been thrown upon its authenticity, and these do not seem to have been removed in a manner quite satisfactory; at best, it seems to have been in great part compiled from earlier documents, in themselves not all authentic: but even if the whole should be regarded as a forgery, too sweeping a conclusion to come to from the few discrepancies in dates, &c., that have been detected, the manuscript would still possess great interest, and would be well worthy of publication in the form in which it appears. It may then have been composed about the thirteenth or fourteenth century; but the curious legends of several Welsh saints contained in it,-S. Teilo, S. Dubricius, S. Oudoceus, and S. Sampson, could not have been ventured upon, if the legends had not, in their main features, been current at the time. We should like to quote one of these legends at length, but they would not be quite suitable to the intention of this work; we shall, therefore, content ourselves with an extract from the account of the first-mentioned saint, relating to the foundation of the present cathedral church of Llandaff.

St. Dubricius "migrated to the Lord," from the island of Bardsey, where his piety had been for some time hermetically sealed, in the year 612. But his remains were removed from the island, in 1120, by Urban, Bishop of Llandaff, and conveyed to the church of the see.

"On Sunday, the 23rd day of May, he was received into his church of Llandaff, when there was a procession, and the holy cross with abundance of relics, was carried; and on whose arrival there was plenty of rain, which was much wanted by the people, for it had not rained even a drop for seven weeks and upwards throughout the district of Glamorgan. On Wednesday, the 2nd day of June, the aforesaid Bishop of good memory, after the labour undergone, and on account of the obtaining of so great joy to himself and the church, for having procured so great a patron, and fasting and prayer having been made, called together his canons and his brother Esni, who was dean of the same church and a man of chastity and very great prudence, and also his chaplain, named Isaac, a man of great shrewdness and ability. And the sacred relics of St. Dubricius being laid on the ground, were placed together that they might be prepared, the dust separated, and be washed with water after so long a journey. Being put with their own hands, out of reverence towards so great treasure and the whole country, into three basons, before the altar of Peter the apostle, and the holy confessors Dubricius, Teilo, and Oudoceus; immediately, by the touch of the holy relics, the water bubbled on all sides in a marvellous manner, as if a great hot stone had been thrown into it. And they did not only wonder, being amazed at the various ebullitions throughout the whole bason, but also because they perceived the water to be very hot: not only for a short time, or the space of a moment; but also, as long as they were alternately moved by them, in common, in the water, so long the water increased in heat, to the end of the ebullition; and not only the sight and touch perceived this miracle, but the hearing likewise, for the sound of the bubbling of the heated liquid was heard.

6

"Those things having been seen, heard, and felt, as the Lord is wonderful among his saints," the Bishop took a bone of the arm, and handling it for great joy, put it into the water; and when it was at the bottom of the water, it moved itself there for the pace of more than an hour, no one moving it but the power of God. Which, he alone having at first seen, he called the dean to him who was near, that he might see the moving of the bone and water; and also the chaplain,—as every testimony should be in the mouth of two or three witnesses: and they returned thanks to God for so great a miracle. Which being seen, the relics of St. Dubricius were for the praise and exaltation of the church of God, placed in a tomb suitable for the purpose, and in the old monastery, before the altar of St. Mary, towards the north side.

"And the aforesaid prelate of good memory, observing the small size of the place, being in length 28 feet, in breadth 15, and height 20, and with two aisles, one on each side, of very small size and height, and a porch of a round form, 12 feet in length and breadth,—with the advice of Ralph, archbishop of the church of Canterbury, and all the clergy and people of the same,-began to build a greater monastery, in honour of Peter the apostle and of the holy confessors Dubricius, Teilo, and Oudoceus, on Wednesday, the 14th day of April, in the year 1120; and having received for himself and his church letters of the lord archbishop, with a blessing and pardon to all who would give their assistance, the work was commenced.

The Liber Landavensis, as it now appears, has been edited with great skill and care by the Rev. W. J. Rees, Rector of Cascob, Radnorshire. To the original Latin is added a well-executed English version, with useful explanatory notes. We may add that the book, though produced at a small town in South Wales, may bear comparison in typographical beauty, with any that has emanated from the English press elsewhere than in London or the Universities.

CHURCH NEWS.

ACCORDING to the Twenty-second Annual Report of the Church Commissioners, it appears that since the preceding one, fifteen churches have been completed, making an aggregate up to the present time of 296 churches, and 362,595 sittings, of which 200,798 are free. Two only of those named in this last report, claim notice from us on account of their locality, Cumaman, Carmarthenshire, and Leigh, near Bradford, Wilts. In addition to the above, twenty-four churches to which the commissioners have contributed pecuniary aid, are in progress; of which one is in the parish of St. Philip and Jacob, Bristol, and others are St. Mary, Cardiff, a Norman church with two towers, of which the first stone was laid on the 10th of July, 1841, and which is now nearly completed; one at Easton in the parish of St. Cuthbert, Wells, a Norman design, foundation laid April 1842; and one at Kidderminster in Worcestershire, likewise Norman. Plans for seven other churches have been approved of by the Commissioners, and among these we find one at Merthyr Tidvil, and another at Totworth, Somerset.

A NEW church at Crockerton, in the parish of Deverell Longbridge, Wilts, was consecrated on Thursday the 20th of April, by the Bishop of Salisbury. Upwards of eighty of the clergy attended in their surplices, scarfs, and college-caps, and all the principal gentry of the neighbourhood were present at this interesting ceremony. The church, built by Wyatt, is a small Norman structure (with some features borrowed from the contemporary Romanesque of Germany), and is of considerable merit in point of design. It stands upon a steep acclivity, and consists of a nave, with a tower at the north-west angle, and an apse. Its chief fault is the absence of a chancel; this, it is said, is to be erected at a future time; but it is a strange plan to build a perfect apse, ornamented with some elaborate stone-work and with windows of stained glass, intending shortly to remove the whole some twenty or thirty feet from its present situation to make room for a chancel. It would have been better, surely, to have postponed the erection of a tower, which could at any time have been added without inconvenience. There is some novelty about the design of the steeple, which is terminated by a low, square, leaded, broach spire, with symbols of the evangelists, well carven and of a large size, at the angles of the tower where the spire commences. Considering that the slope of the hill is from north to south, perhaps the effect would have been better, had the tower been placed upon the south side instead of at the west end; as the west front would not have been in that case so conspicuously a front, and consequently the slope of the ground would have appeared less out of harmony with the lines of the building. Besides, the tower itself would then have appeared as a much more prominent object, and it would have seemed to act as a buttress to the side of the building most in need of support. The lower stage might, as now, have served as a porch; indeed, in any case there should have been a porch on the south; for, facing the valley, that side should have been as much a front as possible. The church is too wide for a nave without an aisle, and this has induced the architect to have recourse to the very objectionable light tie-beam roof. The walls are plastered internally; if the expense proved an impediment to their being lined with ashlar, (this is always to be desired in a church, and might be used much more frequently than at present is the case,) the angles round the splays of the windows should at least have been cut in stone, as a wooden bead in such a situation has a most mean and Modern-Gothic air. As there is a good deal of carven ornament in various parts of the building, the chancel arch should not have been left quite without any enrichment.

The church contains a good stone pulpit, and a handsome font with figures of the apostles around it. The architect has dealt very skilfully with a small western gallery, rendering it one of the most ornamental features of the interior.

THE church at Bishport, by Mr. Fripp, is now finished; so far at least as the present state of the funds admits of its being conducted: the proposed upper stage of the tower will be postponed, until subscriptions can be obtained for completing it, according to the original design. We trust, however, the necessary sum will soon be raised, as the part omitted is the best bit of the whole design, and the effect of the building will mainly depend upon it. The church altogether is more in the spirit of the old Norman churches, than is common in modern adaptations. It has a nave with aisles, but without a clerestory, the roof externally being continued in one slope over the aisles; a tower at the east end of the nave, its lower portion serving as a chancel; and an apse. There is a porch on the north and a vestry on the south side. The interior effect of the tower and apse is particularly good, the obscuro of the former giving strength to the chiaro of the latter. It was consecrated on the 22nd of April, by the Bishop of Salisbury, who expressed himself much pleased with its architecture and arrangements.

THE ancient and greatly admired font at Wellow church, Somerset, has been recently restored, at the cost of the Vicar, the Rev. C. Paul, as a preliminary step to the renovation, by public subscription, of the entire interior of the church. This church is a handsome building, consisting of a chancel, a nave with aisle, and a tower at the west. It was built about 1372, at the sole expense of Sir Walter Hungerford, and is dedicated to St. Julian.

THE Queen Dowager has given £20 towards rebuilding the parish church of Radipole, Dorset.

SIR John Smyth, Bart., of Ashton Court, who is the lay impropriator of the parish of Stapleton, has given £1000 towards the endowment, and £350 towards the erection of a parsonage house in that parish.

THE late Edward Davies, Esq., who at the time of his decease was registrar for the Diocese of Salisbury, has bequeathed £500 to the fund for keeping the cathedral of that city in repair.

THE Bishop of Salisbury has undertaken to restore, at his own expense, the beautiful chapter-house of his cathedral; the cost will not be less than £2000.

THE following is from an advertisement that lately appeared in the Times: "The Bishop of London acknowledges the receipt of £5000, from an anonymous donor, to be expended in building a church in London, as an offering to Almighty God, and for the glory and good of his church.'

"ARRANGEMENTS have been completed for the erection of a new church in the parish of All-hallows on the Walls, Exeter. The site determined on is Bartholomew Yard, and the sacred structure will be in a new style of Perpendicular Gothic, with buttresses, vestry, entrance-porch and tower." The foregoing we extract from a Bristol paper; the Archæological world will await with intense anxiety this development of a new style of Gothic architecture; and curiosity will be but the more excited, from the knowledge that it is to be a new style of Perpendicular Gothic; but, perhaps the newspapers make some mistake. The architects of the present century have not hitherto succeeded in forming a new style; but the previous age, one of more surprising taste and invention, boasts of its Gothic Architecture Improved, and of its Shakspeare in rhymed couplets.

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