Monastic Wales.








Display person:

Abbots of Whitland

A list of the known abbots of Whitland.

Morfan: ?-1147.
Is more likely to have been abbot of Tywyn.

Ivo: former monk of Clairvaux, c. 1150.

Walter: monk of Clairvaux, appointed abbot after 1153, and resigned between 1157 and 1161.

Cynan (Conan): ?-1176, when he died.
Monk of Vaucelles and then prior of Whitland, became abbot before 1164.

Richard (Rhyddirch): ?-1184.
Richard occurs as abbot in or after 1176; he died in 1184.

John: he is named as abbot in 1188.

Peter: ?-1202.
Peter occurs as abbot of Whitland in 1198 and c. 1201, but had left office by November / December 1202.

Cadugan of Llandyfai (Martin): ?-1215.
He resigned from office in 1215 to take up the see of Bangor where he served until 1235x36 when he retired to Dore (Herefordshire) and died there in 1241.

Unnamed abbot: he was deposed from office in September 1217.

Hoedlew: he occurs as abbot of Whitland in 1226 and 1227.

James: he is named as abbot of Whitland in 1275.

Llewelyn: occurs as abbot in 1280 and 1299.

Howel Seys: he appears as abbot of Whitland in 1352.

Lewis Dew: he occurs as abbot of Whitland in 1399.

Dafydd ap Rhys: appears as abbot in February 1433 and on various occasions until Easter 1444.

Dafydd (David): he occurs as abbot in 1453, February 1458, and 1459; he should perhaps be identified with Dafydd ap Rhys (above).

Maurice John ap Rhys: ?-1490/1.
He first occurs as abbot in April 1469. He resigned from office after Trinity term 1491.

Thomas ap Rys (Apriz, ap Reece): 1491-?
Thomas succeeded to the abbacy in 1491; references to him as abbot of the house occur between 1499 and November 1516.

William Vayne alias ap Thomas (Vayn, Vayns): ?-1539.
William was the final abbot of Whitland and presided over the house at the time of its suppression on 12 February 1539. He first occurs as abbot of the house in December 1527.

Sites associated with this person

Whitland Abbey, Carmarthenshire

Bibliographical sources

Printed sources

The Heads of Religious Houses in England and Wales, I, 940-1216, ed. D. Knowles, C. Brooke and V. London (London, 1972; 2001) pp. 147, 275

The Heads of Religious Houses in England and Wales, II, 1216-1377, ed. D. M. Smith and V. London (CUP: Cambridge, 2001) p. 323

The Heads of Religious Houses in England and Wales, III, 1377-1540, ed. David M. Smith (CUP: Cambridge, 2008) pp. 350-1

Benôit-Michel Tock, 'Les fondations anglaise et galloise de l'abbaye de Vaucelles', Revue du Nord 93 (2011), pp. 795-814


 
Graphic.