Recorded Talk
The Cistercian monasteries in Wales have been studied extensively over many years and we know much of their histories from documents, standing architectures and some archaeology. Those of Pura Wallia, as it was known in the Middle Ages, were founded and patronised by Welsh Princes who favoured this order in their well-documented gifts of land. We have known far less of their layouts and how they existed within the social and cultural landscapes of their time and how people would have seen them and what complex meanings they had as sacred places. Our recent project on this theme, focusing in particular on Strata Florida and Abbey Cwmhir, is exploring how we might reconstruct these past worlds holistically and give a fuller narrative for these important places in the cultural and political history of Wales.