Kidwelly Priory Explained

Kidwelly Priory was a Benedictine abbey in Kidwelly, Wales (in Welsh, Welsh: Cydweli).

Roger, bishop of Salisbury (d.1139), a Norman invader founded the priory of Kidwelly,^[1] but it seems to have been a place of Celtic Christian veneration of Saint Cadog for some centuries prior to that.^{[2] [3] [4]}

It was a daughter abbey of Sherborne Abbey,^[5] and although well documented in the historical record it appears to have remained small for its extent. It was dissolved 1539, by Henry VIII.

Today the abbey remains a parish church, St Mary's^{[6] [7]} with much of the surviving fabric dates to the fourteenth century, c. 1320.^[8]

Priors of Kidwelly

Priors of Kidwelly Medieval^[9]

• 1240 Abraham
• 1268 Gervase
• 1284 Ralph de Bemenster
• 1301 Galfridus de Coker
• 1346 Robert Dunster
• 1361 John Flode
• 1399 Philip Morevyle
• 1404 John de Kidwelly
• 1428 Robert Fyfhede
• 1438 John Cauntville
• 1482 John Sherborne
• 1487 John Henstrige
• 1520 John Whitchurche
• 1534 John Godmyston
• 1539 John Painter

References

51.7368°N -4.3065°W

Notes and References

1. D. Daven Jones, A History of Kidwelly (Carmarthen, 1908), pp. 612.
2. [Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales]
3. F. G. Cowley, The Monastic Order in South Wales, 1066-1349 (Cardiff, 1977), chap. II.
4. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=47838#s10 Kegidock: Killey — A Topographical Dictionary of Wales (pp.445-456)
5. http://www.monasticwales.org/site/6 Kidwelly (Priory)
6. Web site: St Mary's Church (Priory Church). Coflein Database Record. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. 28 November 2016.
7. http://www.britainexpress.com/wales/carmarthenshire/churches/kidwelly.htm Kidwelly, St Mary's Church
8. http://www.monasticwales.org/article/12 Remnants of Kidwelly Priory
9. http://www.kidwellyhistory.co.uk/Articles/Priory/Priory.htm#2 Kidwelly Priory by GLANMOR WILLIAMS