Event detail for site: Cymer

c. 1198: Foundation

The Cistercian General Chapter received a request from 'Grifini', prince of N. Wales (Gruffyd ap Cynan), to build an abbey of the Order.

The prince petitioned once again the following year and preparations for the new foundation were duly instigated. The new community was established under the patronage of Gruffudd and his brother, Maredudd ap Cynan.
While Waddell [Twelfth-Century Statutes, pp. 428-9] thinks that the prince in question was Madog ap Gruffudd and the house Valle Crucis, both Smith ['Cymer Abbey and the Welsh Princes', pp. 101-5] and Robinson [see below] argue that it was most likely Gruffud ap Cynan who settled the monks at Cymer.
The original foundation charter has not survived but details regarding the abbey’s early endowments are revealed in a charter of 1209 that was granted to Abbot Esau of Cymer by Prince Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great).

The name Cymer - ‘the meeting of the waters’- evokes the abbey’s location for it was situated near the confluence of the rivers Mawddach and Wnion.

Bibliographical sources

Printed sources

'Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis ab Anno 1116 ad Annum 1786' 8 vols ed.Josef Canivez(Louvain 1933-1941) vol. 1, pp. 230, 236

'Twelfth-Century Statutes from the Cistercian General Chapter' Cîteaux Commentaria cistercienses, Studia et documenta 12 ed.Waddell, C.(Brecht 2002) pp. 428-429

Robinson, David M., 'The Cistercians in Wales: Architecture and Archaeology 1130-1540' Society of Antiquaries of London, Research Committee Report (London 2006) p. 235

Robinson, David M., 'The Cistercians in Wales: Architecture and Archaeology 1130-1540' Society of Antiquaries of London, Research Committee Report (London 2006) pp. 344-5, n. 2.

Smith, J. Beverley, 'Cymer Abbey and the Welsh princes' Journal of the Merioneth Historical and Record Society 13 (1999) pp. 101-5

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