J. Beverley Smith, in his exhaustive history of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, lists primary sources for his research in the back of his book Llywelyn ap Gruffydd: The Prince of Wales, (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998). In perusing the documents, it becomes clear that while the thirteenth century was no longer officially the ‘dark ages’, there is very little documentation for an enormous amount of what happened in Wales during Llywelyn’s reign. On one hand, we have the cryptic Chronicle of the Princes (from which I quoted a few days ago), but no other record, official or otherwise, of the events leading up to Llywelyn’s death. In addition, we don’t know: 1) When Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was born 2) If Senana was definitively his mother, though there is reference to him as the ‘uterine brother’ of Owain and Dafydd. 3)  Read more…