| It
is thought that Gilbert, first Earl of Pembroke and the son of
Walter de Clare, was buried at Tintern. The Cistercian monastery
was one of the wealthiest in Wales. Much of it was rebuilt in
the l3th to l5th century at which latter time it was the largest
and wealthiest monastic foundation in the principality and the
monks instead of having to use the sparse buildings which were
originally erected for prayer, were able, because of the lavish
gifts bestowed on the abbey by rich patrons, to convert them into
more elaborate dwellings. Nevertheless the inhabitants of Tintern
were rigorous in the cultivation of their lands, where the diversity
of cultivation was extensive.
When
the Black Death swept the country in 1348-49 it caused changes
throughout monastic lands, at Tintern it lead to abbey estates
being leased to tenant farmers. After 400 prosperous years the
Cistercians left the Abbey at its dissolution in l536 by Henry
VIII, at which time most of the articles of value were catalogued,
weighed and sent to the king's treasury. However, many treasures
and documents that appertained to the abbey were also stored at
Raglan Castle; where they were destroyed during the English Civil
War.
The ruins decayed into magnificent obscurity, until the publication
of the Reverend William Gilpin's observations on the River Wye
in l782. Soon after the first visitors began to arrive to view
the abbey, that small trickle of visitors became a flood after
the paintings of William Turner and the writings of William Wordsworth
made the ruined Abbey known throughout the land |
