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By the later part of the eleventh century, a growing dissatisfaction was being felt in France with the regime of existing monasteries in that country. As a result of slackness and negligence and a too comfortable way of living, the Benedictine and Cluniac monasteries had lost much of the essential spirit of the Rule of their sixth-century founding father, St Benedict.
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The dissolution and later history of the abbey |
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Despite the undoubted improvement, the monastic, life at St. Dogmaels remained a pale reflection of that to which the early monks had aspired. The end came in 1536 when, along with hundreds of other houses throughout England and Wales with an annual income of less than £200, the abbey was suppressed by King Henry VIII.
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The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries |
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The middle years of the thirteenth century seem to have been a period of relative prosperity for the abbey. This may have been connected with a firmer English control of the area and the rebuilding of Cardigan Castle in stone in 1240.
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The Twelfth-Century Norman Foundation |
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The remains of buildings that can be seen on the site today belong to the monastery founded early in the twelfth century by Robert fitz Martin, the Anglo-Norman lord of Cemais. Cemais included a large part of the Preseli area and was at that period somewhat insecurely held by the fitz Martin family from their castle at Nevern.
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St. Dogmaels and the Early Christian Church |
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St Dogmael (or St.Dogfael) is believed to have lived in the sixth century, but almost nothing is known about him save that he is likely to have been the son of Ithel ap Ceredig ap Cunedda Wledig. Dogmael was also reputed to have been a cousin of St David.
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The remains of the former abbey lie in a natural hollow in the centre of the present village, immediately north of Cwm Degwell and south of the river Teifi. It has been the false assumption of many writers that the abbey was founded by St Dogmael back in the mists of time and that it has always stood on the present site.
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