In 1188 Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, made a tour through Wales,
preaching the crusade, and used this as an excuse for gaining access
to the churches of Wales and asserting therein his ecclesiastical
supremacy. When he arrived at Bangor he was in a very bad temper.
He had found everywhere that the Welsh princes and ecclesiastics
were unmoved by his appeals, and the few who took the cross had the
intention of slipping out of their obligation as soon as his back was
turned. Having crossed the Menai Straits he was met by Rhodri, son
of Owen Gwynedd and the fair Christiana, and the archbishop harangued
the prince and people on the shore. Some of the congregation accepted
the cross, but the youths of Rhodri’s family sat through the discourse
on a rock, swinging their legs, wholly unmoved by his eloquence; and
although Rhodri, out of courtesy to the archbishop, advised them to
take the pledge, they shrugged their shoulders and refused.
On entering Bangor, Archbishop Baldwin was a disappointed and offended
man, and seeing the tomb of Owen, Rhodri’s father, before the altar,
immediately gave orders that the body of the late king should be
removed from its resting-place and put in unconsecrated ground. Bishop
Guy of Bangor was forced to promise compliance. Perhaps he did as
bidden, perhaps not; but certain it is that the tomb, if it be that of
the excommunicated king, was not erected till later.
Another opinion is that this is the tomb of Bishop Anian, as there is
no sword cut beside the incised cross upon it. But if it had been that
of the prelate, we might have expected his pastoral staff to be figured
along with the cross.
In the cathedral is preserved a pair of “lazy-tongs,” used for catching
intrusive dogs by the neck and marching them forth without danger to
the sexton. At Clynnog there are also dog-tongs, with the date 1815 on
them. Indeed, dogs seem to have been a nuisance in churches for a long
time. One main reason for Archbishop Laud’s ordering the erection of
communion rails was to keep these animals away from the altar and from
defiling it.
The churchwardens’ accounts of Llanfair Talhaiarn, in Denbighshire,
show that the dog annoyance had grown to such a pass that in 1747 the
parishioners, in vestry assembled, passed a resolution to inflict a
fine of one shilling on the person who brought his dog to church during
divine service. It does not seem that this order remedied the nuisance,
for other resolutions were passed in 1749 on the same matter, and the
sexton was granted a quarterly payment “for keeping the Church clear of
’em”; and the vestry provided a stool for the convenience of the sexton
by the church door, that he might be ready to pounce on any dog that
put its nose in, and drive it out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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