Strata Florida: Ystrad Fflur

Reluctantly, we now leave Southwest Wales, the land of mystery and magic (Gwlad hud a ledrich), and the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.to take the road to Brecon. On our way, we detour to a very sacred spot, for it is here, on the banks of the Teifi, a few miles outside Tregaron, in Cardiganshire, that we find the ruins of the abbey at Strata Florida. The unusual name is a Latinized from of the Welsh Ystrad Fflur (Wide valley or plain of flowers). The Abbey was founded by the Cistercian Order in ll64 though there is evidence of an earlier Cluniac settlement nearby. Local Welsh chieftain Rhys ap Gruffydd is responsible for the existing church, though parts of the present-day ruins date from later centuries. In addition to its prestige as the religious and educational centre of all Wales in the l2th and l3th centuries, the Abbey, considered wholly Welsh in character, was also the country's political center for a short time.

The year l238 saw an assembly of Welsh princes at Strata Florida to swear allegiance to Prince Llewelyn's son Dafydd. It was one of the high points of Welsh resistance to English domination before the tragic events of the Edwardian conquest. The abbey, after experiencing great wealth and influence during the later centuries (mainly due to its extensive flocks of sheep and its skilful management of the wool trade), was abandoned during the rebellion of Owain Glydwr; the Dissolution that followed shortly after left only a grass-swept ruin.

Among the clutter of l8th century farm buildings that now cover most of the Abbey's original site stands a fine celtic-Romanesque west door that has a series of remarkable embellishments including triskel motifs. What makes the site so sacred, however, are not the scant remains of the Abbey, but the fact that much of the Brut y Tywysogion (Chronicle of the Princes) was written here. Of equal importance, the Abbey is the reputed burial site of the greatest of all Welsh love poets, Dafydd ap Gwilym.

At the time of Chaucer in England and just following that of Dante in Italy, Wales had its own "world-class" master of the poetic art. Many modern writers see Dafydd ap Gwilym (l320-70) as the greatest Welsh poet of all time, but certainly the most distinguished of medieval Welsh poets following the loss of political independence and the disappearance of the great Welsh princes, there was a century of political and social turmoil. Of the period, Professor Davies states that "lack of unity was the essence of the Welsh experience." Yet out of the vacuum Dafydd was able to create a bold synthesis of the Old Welsh bardic tradition and the European concepts of courtly love. Indeed, a body of literature was created in Wales that fully equaled that produced in either England or the continent. As exemplified by the works of Dafydd ap Gwilym, the period was one of the most glorious times in Welsh literary history. It is thus fitting that Strata Florida occupy a place of honor among our sacred places of Wales.