Dr Williams chatting after being made a university fellow

Dr Rowan Williams described it as a "privilege", and said the university had a special place in Welsh history.

He received his award along with 207 students collecting their degrees on Thursday.

During the award ceremony, Dr Williams led a two-minute silence in remembrance of the victims of the London bombings.

Speaking about being made a fellow after the ceremony at the university's Great Hall, the Archbishop said: "I feel like it's a huge privilege.

"I am very conscious Aberystwyth is not only the mother college of the universities, but its history is bound up with aspirations about education.

"It has a particularly special place in the history of Wales and my own history."

Dr Williams getting his graduation ceremony robe on Thursday morning

Of his links with Aberystwyth, he added: "I used to come here quite regularly when working in Wales.

"I preached here for the millennium in one of the chapels here. I'm no stranger and my first lecture I ever gave in Welsh, I gave in Aberystwyth and a very frightening experience it was."

Dr Williams also answered questions about the London bombings.

He said: "I feel we might have seen it coming and in a way we did at some time, but it was impossible to predict.

"The anxiety, of course, is the knowledge that it seems that it is British-born people who are responsible and it's just a reminder that terrorism does not know any boundaries."