Welsh Princes Research Articles

Welsh Princes in an Anglo-Norman World: A Historicist Reading of the Third Branch of the Mabinogi

This article examines the internal historical evidence of the Third Branch of the Mabinogi. Through a close examination of the historical detail of Manawydan's sojourn as a craftsman in the cities of England, it becomes evident that the Third Branch reflects aristocratic social and economic anxieties in the decades following the Norman invasion of Wales. In light of an as-yet-unrecognized connection between the Third Branch and the twelfth-century royal biography Vita Griffini Filii Conani, this article suggests an early twelfth-century date for the former text.<br/> The Third Branch of the Mabinogi is generally seen as the 'simplest' – and arguably the most cohesive – of the Four Branches. It revolves around a single principal character in Manawydan fab Llŷr, who is never out of the frame throughout the tale. Its plot develops in a relatively linear fashion, moving steadily towards a 'happy and harmonious end'. The plot of the Third Branch may be summarized in terms of a three-part structure, as recognized by Glyn E. Jones:<br/> i. 'Manawydan fab Llŷr marries Rhiannon, Pryderi's mother' [and becomes the ruler of the kingdom of Dyfed].<br/> ii. 'Enchantment falls on Dyfed [leaving it entirely without people apart from Manawydan, Rhiannon, Pryderi and his wife Cigfa] and Manawydan and Pryderi spend a period in England. On their return to Dyfed, Pryderi and Rhiannon become entrapped in a magic fortress which vanishes'.<br/> iii. 'Manawydan succeeds in lifting the enchantment and freeing Pryderi and Rhiannon'.<br/> So far, so simple. Of course, the joy of the Third Branch is in the details: the stark image of Dyfed completely devoid of human and animal life; the psychological dimension of four characters having to deal with the emotional and practical consequences of this magical apocalypse; and the rather comic denouement, in which Manawydan stubbornly but cunningly negotiates with the villain of the piece (the sorcerer Llwyd fab Cil Coed) while holding the villain's wife hostage in the form of a mouse. Some of the most interesting details in the Third Branch come during Manawydan's period of poverty – during this time he and Pryderi (and later Cigfa), with their workforce suddenly having been taken away, are forced to make a living for themselves, first as hunters and scavengers in what is left of their home, then as craftsmen in the cities of Lloegyr, and finally as subsistence farmers back in Dyfed. 5 With these details we are torn from the mythic, heroic, otherworldly setting of much of the Four Branches and cast into the mundane realities of daily life. The Third Branch lends itself to a historicist reading, which reads these mundanities in the context of the early twelfth century, a time when Anglo-Norman culture and society was steadily encroaching on Welsh life. 6 This is especially evident in the representation of Manawydan and Cigfa's time spent as artisans in the cities of Lloegyr, which provides the clearest evidence for an Anglo-Norman context of composition for the Third Branch. This reading has potentially significant implications for the dating of the text, particularly in light of a possible and hitherto unrecognized connection between the Third Branch and the twelfth-century royal biography Vita Griffini Filii Conani.

The Illegitimate Offspring of King John of England Identified from the Rolls

King John was not unusual among medieval English monarchs for siring illegitimate offspring, among them three sons and a daughter born of aristocratic ladies. Chroniclers and moralists’ charges that John’s sexual predations extended to his barons' wives and daughters became a significant factor in baronial alienation that resulted in the 1215 rebellion. A search of royal records from John’s reign yields names of seven: six sons and one daughter, all acknowledged by him. Records from the reign of his son Henry III reveal three more, two sons and one daughter, a total of ten, a number far smaller than that of hs great-grandfather Henry I, famous for siring over twenty illegitimate children. John’s father Henry II fathered only four or five bastards, one of whom became an earl and another an archbishop. Before the Church won power to regulate marriages by the early thirteenth century, sons of kings, princes, and aristocrats born outside formal marriage experienced little stigma. Possibly due to changing attitudes, John’s bastards never rose in prominence as did earlier monarch’s illegitimate offspring, some of whom played major parts in England’s history. None of John’s illicit sons rose to an earldom or bishopric, although entered the baronial ranks and a daughter married the Welsh prince, Llywelyn. Most of John’s illegitimate sons had military careers, serving their father and their brother as royal household knights. Two sought careers in the Church, but neither rose to high rank.

ОТЛУЧЕННЫЕ ПРИНЦЫ: ЭКСКОММУНИКАЦИИ В СРЕДНЕВЕКОВОМ УЭЛЬСЕ

Excommunication as a punishment for violating church rules on marriage and family relations was repeatedly imposed on members of Welsh dynasties during the 12th century. The aim of the research is to define the true reasons of such strict measures by means of analyzing historical sources: Welsh and English chronicles, including the Chronicle of the Princes, Annales Monastici, the corpus of Welsh native law texts known as the Law of Hywel Dda, the Historical Works of Gerald of Wales, some legal acts and official correspondence concerning Wales, including Thomas Becket’s letters. The Welsh native law was considered as a “barbarian” one by the Church. Undoubtedly, Welsh native customs contradicted canon law to some extent, allowing marriages between relatives, permitting divorces without reference to ecclesiastical procedures, and tolerating extramarital relationship. Incest marriages between members of major Welsh dynasties were a widespread phenomenon in Wales till the 13th century. Such marriages seemed to be an inevitable part of creating native political alliances in the face of danger from the Norman invaders. Welsh dynasties were often closely interrelated through marriages, but far not always this fact drew attention of the church. Owain Gwynedd and the Lord Rhys, who are believed to be the most powerful Welsh leaders of the 12th century, were both married to their first cousins. Owain Gwynedd was excommunicated for refusal to have his marriage annulled on the grounds of consanguinity. Meanwhile, the same circumstances of the Lord Rhys’ marriage went unnoticed. It must be taken into account that Owain Gwynedd’s canonically unacceptable marriage became a subject of the Pope’s attention only when the question of the Bishop of Bangor’s election and subsequent conflict with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, erupted. The Lord Rhys suffered the penalty of anathema just before his death not because of his scandalous marriage or immoral relationship but on account of disrespectful treatment of the Bishop of St. David’s, Peter de Leia. Obviously, conflicts between the Welsh rulers and the Anglo-Norman senior clergy as an essential part of Anglo-Welsh confrontation were the underlying reasons for such measures as excommunication. It is noteworthy that both of the aforementioned great Welsh princes were buried with due honor in the consecrated land despite the fact of excommunication, which demonstrated that the Welsh native clergy were loyal to their Welsh patrons rather than to the supreme ecclesiastical authorities.

Medieval Powys. Kingdom, principality and lordships, 1132-1293 by David Stephenson (review)

North American journal of Celtic Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 (November 2018) Copyright © 2018 by The Ohio State University REVIEWS David Stephenson, Medieval Powys. Kingdom, principality and lordships, 1132–1293. Studies in Celtic History xxxv. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2016. ISBN 978–1–78327–140–5. 258 pp. $99.00 (hardback). Catherine McKenna Harvard University David Stephenson has made many contributions to the study of medieval Welsh history. Many Celticists will be familiar with his book on Political power in medieval Gwynedd (2014; an earlier edition, The governance of Gwynedd, was published in 1984). In the volume under review here, he has turned his attention to the kingdom of Powys, supposed site of the court of Cynddylan at Pengwern, home of the great twelfth-century poet Cynddelw, setting of Breuddwyd Rhonabwy. The introduction quite literally frames the medieval territory of Powys, establishing the particularity of its geographical situation, bordered as it was by Gwynedd, the March, and Deheubarth. As Stephenson shows, geography was the principal determining factor in the shifting alliances that have made Powys the favorite whipping boy of some nationalist historians of medieval Wales. His overview of the historiography of medieval Powys is telling, tracing the development of a prevailing narrative in which Powys was, at best, insignificant in the thirteenth-century drive toward a Wales united under the leadership of the princes of Gwynedd, and, at worst, a traitor to this cause, anachronistically conceptualized as ‘patriotic’. He concludes his introduction with a survey of the sources for the history of medieval Powys—chronicles, acta, charters, laws, and bardic poetry. The book is divided into two parts, the first providing an eight-chapter chronological narrative of the political history of Powys from the mid-eleventh through the end of the thirteenth century. Stephenson’s account of the fortunes of the descendants of Madog ap Maredudd brings into sharp focus the fact that the family of his nephew Owain Catherine McKenna [cmckenna@​ fas​ .harvard​ .edu] is Margaret Brooks Robinson Professor of Celtic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. Her research focuses on medieval Welsh poetry and narrative prose, and on Irish hagiobgraphy. She is one of the editors of the Cyfres beirdd y tywysogion. Reviews 187 Cyfeiliog and Owain’s son Gwenwynwyn, although reviled by nationalist historians for their failure to support the ambitions of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, was, in some ways, the most successful of the Welsh aristocratic families, as it survived the Conquest in possession of some of its lands. Although Powys re-appears in the historical record in the eleventh century after falling into obscurity in the ninth, Stephenson situates its emergence as a kingdom in the twelfth under Bleddyn ap Cynfyn and his son Maredudd; he regards accounts of eleventh-century Powys as likely reflecting the retrospective historiography of the thirteenth century. It was during the nearly thirty-year reign (1130–1160) of Maredudd’s son Madog that Powys took its place along with Gwynedd and Deheubarth as one of the three principal polities, to use Stephenson’s term, of medieval Wales. Madog built churches and castles, and, significantly, retained the services of the great poet Cynddelw. Cynddelw celebrated Madog and his court in two surviving eulogies and lamented his death in two marwnadau. In the latter part of his reign, Madog made a canny alliance with Henry II, but also shored up bonds with other Welsh princes by marrying a number of his daughters to their sons. The death of Madog’s designated heir at about the same time that he himself died led to the fragmentation of his realm. Whereas most historiography has focused on that fragmentation and the decline of Powysian glory, however, Stephenson emphasizes the stability and achievements of two of the successor polities, especially of southern Powys under Owain Cyfeiliog (ca. 1160–1197). He calls attention to the continuation of the ongoing ‘cultural flowering’ of Powys in the court of Owain Cyfeiliog, who is admired as the author of Hirlas Owain, a poem celebrating the members of his teulu in terms that vividly evoke Y Gododdin. Owain also established Strata Marcella, the first Cistercian monastery in Powys, and it is likely to have been during his reign that Cynddelw composed...

David Stephenson, Political Power in Medieval Gwynedd: Governance and the Welsh Princes. 2nd ed. (Studies in Welsh History 5.) Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014. Pp. liv, 257; 2 black-and-white figures and 1 map. £24.99. ISBN: 978-1-78316-004-4.

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsDavid Stephenson, Political Power in Medieval Gwynedd: Governance and the Welsh Princes. 2nd ed. (Studies in Welsh History 5.) Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014. Pp. liv, 257; 2 black-and-white figures and 1 map. £24.99. ISBN: 978-1-78316-004-4.Frederick SuppeFrederick SuppeBall State University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 92, Number 3July 2017 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/692267 Views: 59Total views on this site Copyright 2017 by the Medieval Academy of America. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Stephenson, Political Power in Medieval Gwynedd: Governance and the Welsh Princes, 2nd edition (University of Wales Press, 2014)

Review of David Stephenson, Political Power in Medieval Gwynedd: Governance and the Welsh Princes , (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2 nd edn. 2014), considering the text in light of its new edition, assessing the need for such a work and the benefits of an updated reprint. The review also considers the limitations of the new edition, and the impact on potential audiences.

Myth and Historiography: One Hundred and Sixty Years of Madog and the Madogwys

This essay examines texts in both English and Welsh from the period 1580–1740 which present versions of the ‘history’ of Madog, the Welsh prince who was believed to have sailed to America in 1170 and whose venture supposedly led to the creation of a Welsh-American colony or nation. One main line of inquiry focuses on ways in which early modern writers referenced and adapted various aspects of the medieval Welsh literary tradition, including bardic poetry, prophecy and the historiographical tradition of the Brutiau. Also of concern is the manner in which the Madog legend was used to articulate the relationship between the Welsh language and national identity.

Crime and Punishment in Medieval Wales

The article is devoted to the analysis of the provisions of the Welsh Laws of Hywel the Good, related to the criminal law. The law remained the main source of law in Wales until the conquest of the Principality of English by King Edward I in 1284, and the introduction of Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284. The creation of the Act is attributed to the Welsh King Hywel the Good (X century), although the earliest surviving manuscripts of the Act are dated back to the 13th century. Particular attention is given to the substance of the third part of the Act Justices' Test Book, original manuals, knowledge of which was mandatory for the administration of the duties of a judge. This part of the Law distinguishes the contemporary medieval vaults from the Laws of Hywel the Good. Justices' Test Book, which is a set of rules of criminal and procedural law, consists of subsections, dealing with murder, theft, fire, compensation for damage caused to property, personal injury. The main part of the Justices' Test Book is dedicated to order payment of all sorts of compensation and fines associated with the commission of an offence. The author emphasizes the role of the clan in Welsh society: all fines and compensation payments were laid on the shoulders of the perpetrator and his relatives. A major issue addressed in the article is the evidence of the commission of the offence by the accused. The author draws the attention to the process of announcement and the process of finding an acquirer in bad faith of assets recognized as stolen. It is interesting that such a rule is found in the Russian Justice and Swedish Vestgjotalage. The author finds the ascendancy of compensation payments for damage caused prevailing over the above penalties in Welsh law, explaining this relative weakness of public authorities on the one hand and the other by legal tradition, as even the increased power of Welsh Princes in the XII-XIII centuries. has not led to significant changes in the rules.

The Invention of Viking America

The Invention of Viking AmericaThis essay is an extended review of Annette Kolodny's In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of Discovery (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012). The 448-page paperback includes ten illustrations and is priced at $27.95.IN SEARCH OF FIRST CONTACT: THE VIKINGS OF VINLAND, THE PEOPLES OF THE DAWNLAND, AND THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ANXIETY OF DISCOVERY. By Annette Kolodny. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2012. xiv + 448 pp. $27.95, paperback.Since the publication of her seminal books and articles in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Annette Kolodny has been a true pioneer in literary historiography. Indeed, if the field of Literature as understood today has come to include multiple approaches and perspectives- including multicultural, multilingual, trans- and circum-Atlantic, as well as hemispheric perspectives-thereby utterly transforming what we mean by both American and Literature, it is in great part owing to Kolodny's tireless efforts in opening up new archives beyond the New Critical canons to include texts written in English as well as other languages by white men as well as nonwhite men and women, many of whom originated from outside the traditional Anglo-American elites. Her most recent book, In Search of First Contact, continues her quest to transform literary and to open up new archives by considering the literary record of the contact between the Americas and Europe in the eleventh century resulting from the voyages of Leif Eiriksson and other Norsemen, in particular the so-called Vinland Sagas first preserved among the Norse as oral traditions and then written down in the fourteenth century, as well as various Native artifacts and oral traditions possibly bearing testimony to this first contact. In addition, the book considers the cultural of the idea of a contact resulting from the Norse in Anglo-American letters from colonial times to the twentieth century. On the one hand, then, Kolodny writes, [T]his book is overwhelmingly about stories: about who told them, when, and where (10). On the other hand, however, it also means to take full advantage of much recent scholarship in archaeology, anthropology, ethnology, and history (10) in order to raise new historical questions about the nature and location of the Vinland colony, as well as about the Native Vinlanders (called Skraelings in the Sagas). The result is a book that impresses in the innovativeness of its thoroughly inter- or multi-disciplinary methodology, drawing as it does on a number of literary and nonliterary archives.As the author is doubtlessly aware, the of the notion of a contact or discovery predating Christopher Columbus's voyages reaches back in Europe to Columbus's own time, when such Spanish imperial historians as Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, writing on behalf of the Spanish crown in the context of its legal fight against the Columbus family, spread tales about some anonymous pilot who had supposedly imparted the secret knowledge of the existence of a fourth to Columbus before the latter embarked on his first transatlantic voyage. The implications of this tale, if true, were clear: the rights and privileges that the crown had previously bestowed on Columbus and his descendants in the Capitulations of Santa Fe in April of 1492 regarding any lands and islands he might on his Westerly way to Asia were null and void, since he would not have been the first to discover those lands. During the seventeenth century, English imperialists such as Samuel Purchas added their own versions to the old story of a prediscovery by arguing that the so-called Rights of Discovery of the North continent belonged to England because of John Cabot's voyages on behalf of the English crown, rather than to Spain or Portugal (given that Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci had only touched the Caribbean islands and South America), and that, in any case, America had already been discovered by some medieval Welsh prince named Madoc in 1170. …

Early Modern Migration from the Mid-Wales County of Radnorshire to Southeastern Pennsylvania, with Special Reference to Three Meredith Families

In 1971 the Honorable Thomas M. Rees of California observed that "very little has been written of what the Welsh have contributed in all walks of life to the shaping of American history." In 1979 historian David Galenson maintained that "the issue of the composition of America's early immigrants is an impor-tant one and will continue to receive considerable attention from historians who seek to understand the social and economic history of colonial America." However, Douglas Greenburg's examination of the historiography of the middle colonies revealed that Pennsylvania, which witnessed the immigration of many early modern Welsh Quaker migrants, has not attracted as much attention from researchers as has its neighboring states.

King Edgar, Wales and Chester: The Welsh Dimension in the Ceremony of 973

This article addresses two related aspects of King Edgar's visit to Chester — why he went there and how he got there. Interpretations of its purpose have generally been based upon English sources and have paid less attention to Welsh evidence: this article attempts an alternative perspective. The first of the two aspects is a stage in the development of the ‘Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’ expressed in the coronation at Bath and a tenth-century durbar at Chester when the might of the King of all England was pronounced to the outside world. The second, which was linked to that and specifically directed at the North-West, was a determined attempt to define and strengthen the north-western frontier of the extended kingdom and tighten Edgar's grip upon the northern Welsh princes whose constant infighting presented an opportunity for Norse and/or Irish incursions. His actions became an economic as well as a military necessity, to maintain the English grasp on North Wales and to protect the important trading links between Chester and Ireland.

Latin Arthurian Literature by Mildred Leake Day (review)

REVIEWS85 conversion or MaryMagdalene's departure from the Holy Land. Elsewhere flashbacks serve to fill in details about Sophie's and, perfunctorily, Langdon's childhoods. But, when the pivotal scene in which a younget (uncharacteristically shocked) Sophie witnessed an ominous ritual involving het 'grandfather' is shown in flashback for only a couple ofseconds, there is nothing to indicate that what shocks het is anything more than a standard sex scene with observers. Mark Twain once described Wagner's music as 'better than it sounds.' I wish I could suggest that The Da Vinci Code is better than it seems, if only because it eliminates some ofthe excesses and nonsense ofthe novel. But it is in fact plodding and sometimes incoherent. The novel, deeply flawed as it is, at least kept millions of people turning pages and anticipating the next twist or the next puzzle. Sadly, the film, with a capable cast, an experienced director, appealing scenery, and many millions of dollars, is unable to make us (as well as the characters) care much about the story as either historical conspiracy or contemporary thriller. NORRIS J. LACY Pennsylvania State University mildred leake day, LatinArthurian Literature. Arthurian Archives XI. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005. Pp. via, 284. isbn: 1-84384-064-2. $85. Latin Arthurian Literature incorporates editions, with translations, of the three ptose tomances, De ortu Waluuanii nepotis Arturi (The Rise ofGawain, Nephew of Arthur), HistoriaMeriadoci Regis Cambriae (The Story ofMeriadoc, KingofCambria) Narratio de Arthure rege Britanniae et rege Gorgalon lycanthropo (The Tale ofKing Arthur andKing Gorgalon the Werewolf), and the verse satire 'Epistola Arturi Regis ad Henricum regem Anglorum' ('The Letter from King Arthur to Henry, King of England'). The introduction gives a full account of the textual situation of each, with subheadings on DateandAuthorship, Sources andAnalogues, Influences (on latet works), Artistic Achievement, andManuscript(s). The Latin texts are edited by Day from the manuscripts and presented with facing-page English translations. The fitst two nareatives in this book, De ortu Waluuani and Historia Meridoci— which derive from the same manuscript (Cotton Faustina B vi) and which were previously edited by J.D. Bruce in 1913—are substantially the editions published separately by Day in 1984 and 1988, respectively, but with newly expanded and updated introductions. With tegatd to both texts Day strengthens the case for rwelfth-century authorship by Robert de Torigni. De Ortu Waluuanii may be the best known of the four texts presented here. (Day's translation is also found in the anthology The Romance ofArthur, ed. James J. Wilhelm, 1994). It tells of Gawain's orphaning, obscure infancy, exile to the continent, and illustrious debut in the Papal court of Rome, and famously contains the phantasmagoric recipe for Greek Fire. Gawain's unhorsing ofArthur at the tale's conclusion—with the lame excuses Arthut makes to Guenivere for the state of his armor—is one ofthe finest comic episodes inArthurian literature. In her introduction, Day demonstrates De Ortu s analogues with Sir Gawain andthe Green Knight, both 86ARTHURIANA textually and as a sharet offolk motifs, also pointing out its influence on Diu Krone and on Book I ofSpenser's Faerie Queene. Set in the days when 'the Goddess Fortuna controlled human affairs' the Historia Meriadoci is the story of the Welsh prince who escapes assassination by a murderous uncle, travels to the Continent as a metcenaty knight, participates in the Merovingian domination ofGaul, and marries the emperor's daughter. Finally, the hero encounters the Goddess Fortuna hetself in her otherworldly stronghold. Two of these plot elements are grounded in history: the fourth-century migration ofsome Bretons to Brittany led by Conan Metiadoc, and the victory ofClovis over the Alemmani and the Burgundians (late fifth or early sixth centuty). This tale is also interesting for the peculiarity ofits engagement with the Dame Fortune motif. In het Introduction, Day charts this tale's influence on the poet of TheAwntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne, as well as its probable influence on Malory's 'Tale ofSir Gareth.' Malory, she suggests, was familiar with and likely drew directly from the Latin text ofHistoria Meriadoci. Narrano deArthure rege Britanniae et rege Gorgalon lycanthropo is an installment in the 'what do...

Medieval

Books reviewed:F. Donald Logan, A History of the Church in the Middle AgesClifford Offer, In Search of Clofesho. The Case for HitchinRyan Lavelle, Æthelred II: King of the English 978–1016M. K. Lawson, The Battle of Hastings 1066David Crouch, The Normans: The History of a DynastyDavid Crouch, William Marshal: Knighthood, War and Chivalry, 1147–1219Christopher Harper‐Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (eds), A Companion to the Anglo‐Norman WorldRoger Turvey, The Welsh Princes: The Native Rulers of Wales 1063–1283P. Coss and M. Keen (eds), Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval EnglandTranslated by David Preest, William of Malmesbury. The Deeds of the Bishops of England [Gesta Pontificum Anglorum]Jan Frans Verbruggen. Edited by K. De Vries. Translated by D. R. Ferguson, The Battle of the Golden Spurs (Courtrai, 11 July 1302). A Contribution to the History of Flanders’ War of Liberation 1297–1305David Green, The Battle of Poitiers 1356S. H. Rigby (ed), A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle AgesThomas A. Fudge (ed), The Crusade against Heretics in Bohemia, 1418‐1437John Rhodes (ed), A Calendar of the Registers of the Priory of Llanthony by Gloucester, 1457–1466, 1501–1525Paul. F. Grendler, The Universities of the Italian RenaissanceIan Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renaissance: The Case of Learned Medicine

The Welsh Princes: The Native Rulers of Wales, 1063-1283

1Cambridge The Welsh Princes: The Native Rulers of Wales, 1063–1283 RogerTurvey HarlowPearson Education 2002xxxi + 215Paperback£15.99

The Welsh princes: the native rulers of Wales, 1063-1283

Editor's Preface.Preface.Abbreviations.Genealogical Tables and Maps.Introduction: Outlines and Sources.1. Family, Descent and Inheritance: The Princes and their Principalities.2. Conflict or Coexistence: Marchia Wallie and Pura Wallia.3. Challenge and Response: English Kings and Welsh Princes.4. The Governance of Native Wales: The Princes as Rulers.5. Conquest and Consolidation: The Princes as Warriors.6. Culture and Religion: The Princes as Patrons.7.Conclusion: The Princes after Conquest.General Bibliography.Index

Medieval settlement and landscape change on Anglesey

ABSTRACT In 1283 the Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd was conquered by Edward I of England and the royal lands of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd passed into the control of the English Crown. This case study will examine aspects of the bond settlements at two Anglesey maerdrefi (royal estate centres) in the two south-western commotes of Malltraeth and Menai. It will attempt to determine more closely their location and character and to chart the transformation of the landscape from the Age of the Princes, through the sale of Crown land in the seventeenth century, to the present day. Recent studies have drawn attention to the potential for locating the llysoedd of the Welsh princes of Gwynedd during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, at the core of their royal estates, through the use of documentary evidence and targeted fieldwork (Johnstone 1997). The work of Glanville Jones has considered the organisation of the maerdref in general and maerdref Aberffraw in particular (for example, Jones 1979). However, less attention has been paid, in detail, to the settlements of the bond tenants of the Prince, which it is argued, are likely to have been concentrated in nucleated villages (Carr 1982, p. 31), or to the ancillary components of the estates which constitute the immediate landscape. The components of medieval settlement on Anglesey are described in the context of the administrative and tenurial framework. These provide background to the study of settlement and landscape change on lands formerly held by the Princes of Gwynedd. The pattern is one of increasing consolidation of holdings and the amalgamation of individual small tenancies, with large properties in the hands of a small number of landowners. By the sixteenth century the enclosure of the open field with banks had begun. The dispersed arable quillets of an earlier landscape can be seen to have been increasingly brought together in parcels and closes. By the early nineteenth century, the superimposition of large fields, characterised by ruler-straight boundaries where once ran sinuous strips in open field, has obscured and all but obliterated the pattern of the medieval landscape.

Metaphors of Dispossession: American Beginnings and the Translation of Empire, 1492-1637 (review)

Reviewed by: Metaphors of Dispossession: American Beginnings and the Translation of Empire, 1492–1637 Gordon M. Sayre (bio) Metaphors of Dispossession: American Beginnings and the Translation of Empire, 1492–1637. Gesa Mackenthun. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. 370 pp. Mackenthun offers a provocative reading of early episodes of Spanish and English colonization in the Americas. The book acknowledges its models with frequent quotations from Tzvetan Todorov's The Conquest of America, Stephen Greenblatt's Marvelous Possessions, and Peter Hulme's Colonial Encounters, and its analysis of the metaphors of dispossession parallels in some ways Eric Cheyfitz's The Poetics of Imperialism. Happily, the book deserves the attention that those scholars have received. Metaphors of Dispossession includes three chapters on English colonial literature, focusing on the Hakluyts' editions of sixteenth-century conquest narratives, on Harriot's and Raleigh's writings about Roanoke and Guiana, on John Smith and Jamestown, and finally on the Pequot War. But it also features a fine chapter about the conquest of Mexico. Mackenthun reminds us that "the early colonial history of England in North America cannot be understood in its historical complexity without consideration of its discursive indebtedness to the colonial history of Spain in the Caribbean and Mexico" (71). After all, in the 1580s as the English colonized Roanoke, the resupply of that colony was fatally interrupted by the battle with the Spanish Armada. Mackenthun argues that English imperial theory did not simply cast the Spanish conquest as a negative model. Notwithstanding the 1583 translation of Las Casas's Brevissima Relacion, "the leyenda negra was publicly exploited in England hardly at all in the sixteenth century" (66). The foremost "metaphor of dispossession" in Mackenthun's eyes is not the Black Legend, but the stories of Europeans voyaging to America before Columbus, myths that had the effect of "turning the indigeous 'prehistory' into a prophetic anticipation of the arrival of the Europeans. The power of this prophetic narrative, which denies the existence of any history beside itself, extends into scholarly texts of our day and therefore calls for painstaking analysis and critique" (4). Mackenthun accordingly sets out to restore Native American historical agency. Yet the book's methodology remains skeptical about the recovery of such an indigenous voice [End Page 137] and the authenticity of the many speeches by Native leaders that appear in colonial texts. Mackenthun does not read these texts as sources for an ethnohistory of Native people's customs or legends. Instead, the book seeks to critique the ideological projections found in all accounts of Native beliefs: "The native mythologies they claim to describe, though certainly not consciously invented, are still to a large degree the product of European myths" (78–79). Richard Hakluyt promoted the legend that the Welsh Prince Madoc had sailed to America in the twelfth century. His sources, M. David Powel and George Peckham, both relied on the story of the migration of the Aztecs out of mythical Aztlan, as told by Cortes and Gomara, to support their claim that Madoc had traveled to America in 1170. In its Welsh folkloric sources, Mackenthun shows, there was no mention of the land that Madoc arrived in. Imperialist fantasy adopted the story to support an English desire to absorb America as it had annexed Wales in 1536. Having established this common source in Cortes's second letter to King Charles V, chapter 2 turns to the Spanish version of this imperial myth, the story of Quetzalcoatl's return. The Aztec culture hero, associated with the classical culture of the Toltecs and the city of Tula, had departed toward an exile in the east centuries before. Mackenthun argues that Cortes, looking to justify his rebellion from Velasquez and buttress his king's consolidation of church and state rule, concocted the tale that he was an emissary from the departed god and that Montezuma freely transferred his rule. The myth of Quetzalcoatl holds a fundamental place in Mexican national historiography, as significant as Malinche and Guadalupe. Mackenthun is certainly not the first to question it (Jacques Lafaye and Louise Burkhart have also done so), but she may be the first scholar to carry the controversy outside of Mexican scholarship and compare it...

Dafydd ap Gwilym: Influences and Analogues by Huw M. Edwards

Dafydd ap Gwilym: Influences and Analogues by Huw M. Edwards

Literary convention and historical reality : The court in the Welsh poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

Welsh poetry from its earliest days has focussed on the court of the ruler. Descriptions of court celebration had already become a topos of the poetry of the official bards by the time of the Gododdin stanzas of the sixth century. This paper mainly analyzes the poetry of the Gogynfeirdd of the 12th and 13th centuries, which have been referred to as ‘The Court Poets of the Welsh Princes’. They use the same topoi to describe court life. The poets also refer to specific places. The names of some of these, such as Aberffraw and Cemais, have a significance in contemporary politics. After characterizing the llys (court) with the help of the Lawtexts, archaeological data and historical documents, the author deals with some particular questions, such as poems dedicated to court officials, or poems corroborating the legal documents.

Magna Carta and the Charters of the Welsh Princes

Magna Carta and the Charters of the Welsh Princes