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&rd)aeoIoflia Camfcrmsis* No. III.—JULY, 1846. LLANTHONY PRIORY, MONMOUTHSHIRE. Although Llanthony was founded at the commencement of the twelfth century, and flourished only thirty years, there is no other monastic establishment, within our knowledge, which possesses the advantage of a contemporaneous history from several hands. Indeed, remote as was this priory from the world, yet the fame of its first establishment, and the sin¬ gular circumstances connected with its desertion, neglect, and decay, seem to have made a deep impression upon an age, when religious fear, amounting to superstition, began to exact from the feudal system a compensation for wrongs inflicted by a mailed hand upon English freedom. In the many works which have, incidentally or purposely, touched upon Llanthony, we have not hitherto met with any succinct and satisfactory account of its foundation, derived from these authentic sources; fragments, indeed, from one and the other have been inserted in the county histories both of Gloucester and Monmouth, and are to be found scattered about the pages of tourists from Wyndham down to Roscoe. No apology, therefore, need be required for an attempt to elucidate the early history of a conventual house, which lays claim to the deepest interest, both on account of its situation, its origin, its architecture, and its singular destiny. The authorities are these: — 1. "The Mirror of the Life of the Venerable Robert de Betun, Bishop of Hereford, by William de Wycombe.'" Robert was Prior of Llanthony up to the year of his con¬ secration to the see of Hereford, 1131, and his biographer William, one Prior only intervening, succeeded to the same office in 1137. ARCHjEOL. camb. VOL. I.] X