Patronage and Power in the Medieval Welsh March

162 pages

English

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University of Wales Press - David Stephenson

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162 pages

English

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Description

This is the first full-length study of a Welsh family of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries who were not drawn from the princely class. Though they were of obscure and modest origins, the patronage of great lords of the March – such as the Mortimers of Wigmore or the de Bohun earls of Hereford – helped them to become prominent in Wales and the March, and increasingly in England. They helped to bring down anyone opposed by their patrons – like Llywelyn, prince of Wales in the thirteenth century, or Edward II in the 1320s. In the process, they sometimes faced great danger but they contrived to prosper, and unusually for Welshmen one branch became Marcher lords themselves. Another was prominent in Welsh and English government, becoming diplomats and courtiers of English kings, and over some five generations many achieved knighthood. Their fascinating careers perhaps hint at a more open society than is sometimes envisaged.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Genealogical Chart
Map
Prologue: Crisis at Cefnllys
Chapter 1: Questions of Ancestry
Chapter 2: Diligence, Danger and Distinction:
The career of Hywel ap Meurig
Intermezzo: The sons of Hywel ap Meurig
Chapter 3. Philip ap Hywel: Administrative eminence and political peril
Chapter 4: The empire builders: Master Rees ap Hywel and his sons
Chapter 5: Continuity and new directions: Sir Philip Clanvowe
Chapter 6: The last of the line: the later Clanvowes
Chapter 7: Some reflections
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

Europe

Wales

History

Great Britain

Histoire

Informations

Publié par	University of Wales Press
Date de parution	15 novembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781786838193
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	4 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0624€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

PATRONAGE AND POWER IN THE MEDIEVAL WELSH MARCH

One Family’s Story

David Stephenson

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardi CF10 3NS.

www.uwp.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78683-818-6 e-ISBN: 978-1-78683-819-3

The right of David Stephenson to be identiîed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The publisher acknowledges the înancial assistanceof the Books Council of Wales.

Typeset by Marie Doherty Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Melksham, United Kingdom

For Jan

Preface Acknowledgements Genealogical Chart Map

Prologue: Crisis at Cefnllys

Chapter 1: Chapter 2:

Chapter 3:

Chapter 4:

Chapter 5:

Chapter 6: Chapter 7:

Hywel ap Meurig: Questions of Ancestry Diligence, Danger and Distinction: The Career of Hywel ap Meurig

Intermezzo: The Sons of Hywel ap Meurig

ix xiii xv xvii

5 11

Philip ap Hywel: Administrative Eminence and 33Political Peril The Empire Builders: Master Rees ap Hywel and 51His Sons Continuity and New Directions: The Career 69of Sir Philip Clanvowe The Last of the Line: The Later Clanvowes 81 Some Reections 109

Appendix: Meurig and William, Sons of Rees ap Meurig

Bibliography Index

123

129 137

Preface

The family which is the subject of this book emerged into the light of historical sources in the March of Wales during the thirteenth century. The March of Wales ( ) was a term used in the medieval Marchia Wallie period to describe the lands, of varying extent from place to place and from time to time, which lay to the west of the English mid-land counties or which ran along the southern coastal rim of Wales. Historians have argued over the date or dates of its creation but have generally agreed that it was a land of Anglo-Norman, subsequently English, lords who exercised quasi-regal powers over a Welsh popu-lation who were often conîned to the upland areas of lordships, the ‘Welshries’, and an immigrant English population who inhabited the more fertile lowlands and the towns which were created and privil-eged by the lords. In that reconstruction of the March the Welsh population is often pictured as being of little account, the principal focus being on the 1 Marcher lords themselves. And yet that was not always true, and it became less true as the thirteenth century wore on. In many areas of the March English ‘gentry’, often lesser lords holding sub-lordships or manors, were joined by a growing elite of Welsh notables who can also be described as gentry. Writing in a celebrated study of the fourteenth-century March of Wales published in 1978, Rees Davies noted that ‘the “gentry” of the medieval March are an even more elusive group than their English equivalents. Much may yet be achieved by studies of indi-2 vidual families….’ The present book is one such study. I cannot claim Rees Davies’s words as an inspiration: if I read them, many years ago, I had either forgotten them or they did not make the impression which