Event detail for site: Margam

1147: Foundation

Margam was founded on 23 November 1147 by Robert, earl of Gloucester and lord of Glamorgan, and was one of the first Cistercian abbeys in Wales.

The house lay between the Welsh lands of Afan and the Norman lordship of Kenfig and was effectively in a buffer zone.
Margam was one of the few houses in Britain to be directly colonised by monks from the renowned abbey of Clairvaux, France. The new community was led by Abbot William.
Prior to Margam's foundation, there was a ceremony of endowment at Bristol, where Earl Robert handed over a symbol of endowment (some 18000 acres of land) to Bernard of Clairvaux's own brother, who came across from France specifically to receive this.
Robert's endowment included all the lands between the rivers Kenfig and Afan, 'from the brow of the mountains to the sea' [Robinson, The Cistercians in Wales: Architecture and Archaeology, p. 253].

Gerald of Wales recounts a miracle that allegedly ocurred about the time of Margam's foundation:
At the time of its first foundation or thereabouts a certain young man of those parts, by birth a Welshman, kept making vociferous claims for certain lands which had been donated to the monastery, for he wanted to use them himself. He pressed his claims by various acts of violence and eventually he was inspired by the Devil to set light to the best barn belonging to the monks, which was piled high at the time with corn. Then he lost his reason completely and careered around the countryside quite distraught and raving mad. There seemed no likelihood that he would recover and in the end his relations had to seize hold of him and tie him up. Soon afterwards he tore off the chains which bound him, overpowered his captors and escaped to the abbey, baying like a dog and shouting that thanks to the monks he was being burnt up inside. In a few days he died, still howling miserably.
[Journey through Wales, trans. Thorpe, p. 127]

People associated with this event

Robert , first earl of Gloucester, lord of Glamorgan (founder)

Bibliographical sources

Printed sources

The Cistercian Abbeys of Britain: far from the concourse of men, ed. David M. Robinson (London, 1998) pp. 138-141

'Annals of Margam 1066-1232', in Annales Monastici, 1, Rolls Series, 36, 5 vols, ed. H. R. Luard (London, 1864; repr. 1965) p. 14

Medieval Religious Houses, England and Wales, ed. R. Neville Hadcock and David Knowles (Harlow, 1971) pp. 113, 122

Earldom of Gloucester Charters: the Charters and Scribes of the Earls and Countesses of Gloucester to A.D. 1217, ed. Robert B. Patterson (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1973) p. 114

Cowley, F. G., The Monastic Order in South Wales 1066-1349 (Cardiff, 1977) p. 71

Kinder, Terryl N., Cistercian Europe: Architecture of Contemplation, Cistercian Studies Series, 191 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2002) p. 82

Robinson, David M., The Cistercians in Wales: Architecture and Archaeology 1130-1540, Society of Antiquaries of London, Research Committee Report (London, 2006) pp. 253, 350

Web links (open in new window)

The Cistercians in Yorkshire Project - Margam (View website)

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