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Llantwit Major
In the Old Welsh language, Llantwit Major was known as llanilltud Fawr and the date of the first settlements in this area is unknown. Archeological evidence found here shows occupation dating back as far as the Neolithic Period.
It is a small coastal town barely 4 ½ miles from Cowbridge, the birthplace of St. Patrick and roughly 12 miles from Cardiff and Llandaff Cathedral.
It is beautiful rolling farm and pastureland that rises slowly to the north and the Brecon Mountains. It has been described as, "the most beautiful of places".
This is the location that all the Welsh records, the Welsh Chronicles, the Welsh Triads and the Llandaff Charters state was the landing sight of Joseph of Arimathea and his disciples in 37 AD.
It was here that he built his first church the first Christian church in the world and it was here that he also built his school, Caer Eurgaine.
It was from this very place that Christianity branched out to the rest of Briton.
No sign of where the original structures stood remains but it is rumored that the Old Church, as the church is now known. Sits upon the foundations of an earlier building. Some say the earlier church lies slightly to the north of the present but no one can be sure of the real location with out extensive archeological work.
St. Illtyd, who took over a site originally occupied by St. Dyfrig, built the "Old Church" in the middle of the 5th Century. He also built a school or college as well as the church and monastery. It is recorded that the college became so popular that its pupils came from all over the world and had a total enrollment at one time of over 2000 students. This would make it one of the largest schools in the world for the time period.
Besides the church and the monastery there were 7 halls of learning and 400 hundred houses in which the students resided.
Nothing remains of the campus now to tell us where it stood or what it looked like.
The original or Old Church is a collection of additions strung out in a line, each one behind its predecessor. The oldest is the Western most.
The college produced some of the most famous and brilliant men to come of Welsh history and here I will name just a few:
The Bard Taliesin
Gildas the 6th Century historian
St. Paul Aurelian
St. Samson of Dol
St. Patrick
And scores of Welsh Princes and future Kings.
The school and church prospered till the Norman Conquest at which time it was destroyed by the invading armies sometime after 1066. It was rebuilt in 1111 AD and remained a major place of learning until the Dissolution of the Churches by Henry VIII at which time the school was abandoned.
It was a mystery to me why local residents do not mention or make claim to the original college founded by Joseph of Arimathea. It was only when I looked closer at the evidence and realized a few things that an answer began to form in my head.
The ruins of several Roman villas dating from the mid 2nd Century have been found in the area showing that it was a site of Roman occupation in the early stages of their 350 year rule.
If you were operating a Christian school and church at this time and Roman armies began building villas with in sight of your location what would you do? You must remember that they were still throwing Christians to the lions in Rome.
You would probably pack your bags and move into an area that they dared not go, like the Brecon Mountains.
This is more than likely what the surviving members of Joseph’s followers did. They were direct descendants of a group that had fled Israel because of the Romans and they were practicing a religion that the Romans had vowed to irradiate.
For the sake of their religion, their relics and themselves they probably up and moved into the mountains of Brecon where the Romans would not follow them.
Now you must also take into account the fact that Joseph of Arimathea was renamed Ilid by the Welsh and later St. Ilid by the church.
The saint credited by all as the founder of the college at Llantwit Major was St. Illtyd from the 5th Century.
The pronunciation and spelling of these two names is so similar that it is not unreasonable to imagine that at one time or another they have been confused with each other.
If you combine these two facts you can arrive at a plausible explanation and a timeline that is credible.
- 37 AD-Joseph of Arimathea arrives and establishes a church and a college. He is renamed Ilid (meaning Israelite) by the Welsh and later made St. Ilid by the church. His followers continue with the college after his death.
- 150 AD-The Romans arrive and the followers of St. Ilid (Joseph) move away.
- 410 AD-St. Dyfrig establishes a colony of Christians on the old site shortly after Rome becomes a Christian nation.
- 450 AD-St. Illtyd arrives and resurrects the college that Joseph had started.
This is only supposition and the dates are approximate but it all fits very nicely. Too nicely to be just chance.
Something drew these two influential and famous characters from Welsh history (St. Dyfrig and St. Illtyd) to this lonely and remote village and it wasn’t just the view. There was some reason they came and the only one that makes sense to me is the fact that they knew that it was the original seat of Christianity in Wales and Briton.
But what of the graves of Joseph and his disciples is there any sign or mention of them?
Sadly there is not.
Everything from the time of Joseph and St. Illtyd has disappeared back into the ground from which it came.
Even the graveyard has disappeared, over the years the remains of the dead have been dug up accidentally, all over the gardens and fields of the immediate area, showing that it was of a great size at one time. Some of these bones might have been those of Joseph himself but we will never know for sure.
Even the location of the grave of St. Illtyd is unknown but his cross remains within the present church of Llantwit Major, a constant reminder of the church’s illustrious past.
The four churches I have profiled here I have been able to connect with the Grail in one way or another with historical data. There is one other that is mentioned often when talking about the Holy Grail and that is Roselyn Chapel in Scotland.