Note 35 — Chapter III · EWYAS AND LLANTHONI

Landewi Nant Hodeni, or the church of St. David on the Hodni, is now better known by the name of Llanthoni abbey. A small and rustic chapel, dedicated to St. David, at first occupied the site of this abbey; in the year 1103, William de Laci, a Norman knight, having renounced the pleasures of the world, retired to this sequestered spot, where he was joined in his austere profession by Ernicius, chaplain to queen Maude. In the year 1108, these hermits erected a mean church in the place of their hermitage, which was consecrated by Urban, bishop of Llandaff, and Rameline, bishop of Hereford, and dedicated to St. John the Baptist: having afterward received very considerable benefactions from Hugh de Laci, and gained the consent of Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, these same hermits founded a magnificent monastery for Black canons, of the order of St. Augustine, which they immediately filled with forty monks collected from the monasteries of the Holy Trinity in London, Merton in Surrey, and Colchester in Essex. They afterwards removed to Gloucester, where they built a church and spacious monastery, which, after the name of their former residence, they called Llanthoni; it was consecrated A.D. 1136, by Simon, bishop of Worcester, and Robert Betun bishop of Hereford, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.