![Crugiau Cemais skyline Crugiau Cemais skyline](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/sites/archaeology/files/styles/medium_image/public/BayvilLandscape.jpg?itok=D0zLqNvL)
Bayvil - a parish name of probable Cambro-Latin origin, referring to the township of the beu (pagus/ hundred/ cantref) - is the location of a polyfocal, multi-period assembly complex near Nevern in south-west Wales. Its various sites of assembly are scattered across an elevated plateau within an area that, from place-name evidence, appears to have been the administrative centre of the preConquest cantref (hundred) of Cemais.
![Crugiau Cemais Crugiau Cemais](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/sites/archaeology/files/styles/medium_image/public/CrugiauCemais.jpg?itok=6HS015o8)
The earliest indications of assembly functions are at the site of Crugiau Cemais where the banks of a late prehistoric multivallate enclosure partially enclose Bronze Age barrows and early medieval burials. Its place-name, which means 'the barrows of Cemais', echoes the regional associations of cognate Irish place-names that denote inauguration sites.
![Hillside under Caer Bayvil Hillside under Caer Bayvil](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/sites/archaeology/files/styles/medium_image/public/CaerBayvil.jpg?itok=9B0oDRcl)
Later assembly activities are located 1 km away around another early medieval cemetery, Caer Bayvil. Here place-names identify a hosting place on a low hill and a judicial court at a nearby barrow where the medieval manorial court may have met. The adjacent area appears to be the setting of midsummer festivals that are known from a fair charter of 1338, and from a twelfth century record of the Feast of Translation of a local post-Roman saint, Brynach, whose Life links him to the river that rises at the fair site. It may also have been the setting of Gwyl Awst / Lughnasa (Lammas) gatherings, given the dedication of a spring at the fair site to St James, who commonly Christianises Lughnasa sites.
- R. Comeau 2014: 'Bayvil in Cemais: An Early Medieval Assembly Site in South-West Wales?' Medieval Archaeology 58, 270-284