Hi,
I have this record of a silver Chalice that was given to St Michael's Church in Llanfihangel Nant Bran, breconshire, Wales in 1615. Please see attached..
There are two inscriptions on the Chalice that I would like to interpret..
They are:
G and G
T P T B
The incumbent Priest was David John Gwilym and I think the donors of the silver chalice had their own initials inscribed when it was presented to him
I think the "G" in both inscriptions indicate that they were members of the Gwilym family, possibly David John Gwilym's sons. They had initials T P and T B, so may have had the patrynomic names
TP Gwilym and TB Gwilym, but were better known as Thomas Pugh and Thomas Beavan, both around Merthyr Cynog Breconshire at that time.
Thomas was a very popular Christian name in Wales, but surnames were mostly patrynomic.. "ap" signified "son of" ... ap Hugh could be Pugh and ap Evan could be Beavan
Were there any protocols for donor incriptions on old Church plate? Do they often include initials? The 1614 hall mark indicates that the chalice was made specially for the Priest, David John Gwilym, who was appointed to the Parish in 1615. The donor inscriptions were probably made around the same time.....
Any Comments will be much appreciated..!
Thanks
Llanfi
