Castell Dinas
“Castell Dinas” in Welsh means “City Castle”, making the name in a way reflective of what is known about the place–which is not much! That said, the castle was once an impressive edifice, so the name is in no way a reflection of its worth, at least at one time. Though attributed to the Normans, the castle is situated much more like a Welsh castle, as it is located on the top of a hill, with wide views of the surrounding countryside. In fact, the castle is notable for being the highest castle in Wales! It seems to have been built to defend the Rhiangoll pass between Talgarth and Crickhowell. The site was originally an iron age hillfort, which makes sense given its location, and was originally occupied by native Britons between 600 BC and 50 AD. The stone castle Read more…
Welsh Resistance in South Wales
The theme of this video is Welsh Resistance in South Wales. Deheubarth was a kingdom in South and West Wales, one of several along with Gwent and Morgannwg. It was one of the major kingdoms during the age of Welsh independence, beginning with the ascension of Hywel Dda in 934. While certain scholars claim that Deheuabarth was conquered by the Normans in 1093, after which the Welsh were ‘allowed’ to hold certain lands only, that isn’t a perspective that would necessarily be shared by the Welsh themselves. With the coming of the Normans, the subsequent centuries were characterized by conflict. The power of the Kings of Deheubarth, like in Powys and Gwynedd, ebbed and flowed over the decades, in large part depending upon the skills of the leader at the time and the resolve of the Normans they opposed. Starting Read more…
Penrhyn Castle
Penrhyn Castle is located just to the east of Bangor, on a promontory overlooking the Menai Strait. It was originally a medieval fortified manor house, founded by Ednyfed Fychan, who was the seneschal to the Kingdom of Gwynedd and served Llywelyn the Great and his son Dafydd ap Llywelyn. That original construction was destroyed in the building of the Neo-Norman folly that can be seen today. The present castle was begun in 1822 by George Day Dawkins-Penrhyn, who’d inherited the estate from his cousin, the first Baron Penrhyn. The Penrhyn fortune was built initially on the backs of nearly 1000 slaves who worked sugar plantations in Jamaica and then, after the abolition of slavery in 1833, through the exploitation of generations of Welsh slate miners. By the late 19th century, over three thousand men worked the Penrhyn mine, the largest Read more…
Wiston Castle
Wiston Castle is located in the Welsh kingdom of Deheubarth, in South Wales. It’s one of the best-preserved motte and bailey castles in Wales, built by an early Flemish settler to Deheubarth with the exceptional name of Wizo. (a motte is a small hill, usually fortified, surrounded by an open area, or bailey, inside an outer wall). Wiston Castle first appears in documents in 1147 when it was attacked by the Welsh, in an attempt to evict the Flemish from Wales. Flemish settlers and fighting men had been brought in by Henry I, actually to counter one of his own barons, Arnaulf de Montgomery. They stayed to be a countering force to the Welsh in the region. Wizo seems to have chosen an existing Iron Age settlement as the basis for his castle. The motte was thrown up across the bank Read more…
Halloween in Wales
As I sit here munching candy corn (which my son at one point declared ‘the best candy’–even better than chocolate–though he can’t have any because he’s allergic to corn), I’m thinking about the Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mystery, The Fallen Princess, which takes place at Halloween. Except that during the Middle Ages, it was called ‘All Hallow’s Eve’, the day before All Saint’s Day, and it was less about candy and more about a belief in actual spirits. All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween, has its roots in an older, pagan tradition, called Nos Calan Gaeaf , Welsh for Samhain, a Gaelic word meaning ‘Summer’s End’. This is the most well-known Halloween tradition in Wales. http://www.controverscial.com/Samhain.htm The Welsh translation, interestingly, is ‘the first of winter’. From the National Museum of Wales: “A pagan holiday dating back to the Iron Age Celts, Samhain was Read more…
St. Cybi’s Well
St. Cybi’s Well is one of many sacred wells in Wales. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this period of time in Wales is known as the Age of Saints. I also talked a little bit about how the church in the 6th century wasn’t organized in the same way as it is today. While there was officially only one ‘Church’, what we know today as the Catholic Church, the way people practiced Christianity in these early centuries after the death of Christ was different depending upon where they lived. Celtic Christianity, meaning Christianity in Cornwall, Brittainy, Wales, and Ireland specifically, developed its own, somewhat isolated, trajectory with small groups of people following the teachings of a ‘saint’, and the common people, who were Christian, worshipping in parish churches with possibly little connection to any other church. Even though Read more…
Medieval Planned Communities
When Edward I conquered Wales, he did more than build castles. He also built townships. These were villages associated with one of his castles. In most cases, he imported English people to live in them, ousting the native Welsh. Caernarfon, Rhuddlan, Conwy, Flint, Harlech and Beaumaris were among these combined castles/villages. “The strategy of building Welsh Medieval Castles was combined with King Edward’s ambition to build and integrate fortified towns with the great castles. These purpose-built townships were designed to predominantly house the English conquerors. The towns were defended by the city walls and, of course, the castles. The Constable of the castle would often perform a dual role as Mayor of the town. Not only did the English have control over the local Welsh population they also had control of commerce and finance. The townships were established as trading Read more…
The Celts in Wales
The Celts are an overarching term to refer to the ethnic group that spread through Europe in the pre-Roman era. The Irish, Welsh, and Scots all have a Celtic ancestry, but they settled their respective regions before the Roman conquest of Britain. There is an amazing amount of debate as to the origin of the Celts: were they Phoenician? stocky and dark? tall and blonde? as culturally cohesive as the label suggests? The standard theory is that the Celts were an Indo-European group that gradually migrated across Europe and Asia, with an identifiable, distinct culture by 750 BC. As a group, they were well-known to the Greeks and Romans. The map to the right shows the migrations of the celtic (or proto-celtic) groups around 1000 BC. Note the expansion of the Celts in particular between 500 and 200 BC into the Read more…
Introduction to a new video series
All about medieval Britain in bite-sized pieces! With the help of my husband, I’m starting a new series of videos about the history of Britain as background to my books. Medieval Wales and Britain in general is my thing (obviously!), and since I can’t get enough, I kind of assume everyone around me can’t either 🙂 The videos will be put up weekly, starting with this first one, which is an introduction to the series. Next week … Making Sense of Medieval Britain. If you want to see the videos as soon as they go up, you can subscribe to my channel! Click on the link to get started!
Welsh Lesson Two
Taken from Basic Welsh: A Grammar and Workbook by Gareth King Welsh Lesson Two: Nouns and noun plurals Nouns are sorted by whether the word denotes man or woman Tad – father mam – mother When the two vowels in a word are a/e: feminine When the two vowels in a word are o/y: masculine Masculine endings: Feminine endings: -ad -iad -aeth -as -der -did -dod -en -es -dra -fa -eb -edd -had -I -iant -ni -rwydd -wch -wr -ydd -yn Plural endings: -au -iau -on -ion -i -od -ed -edd -oedd -ydd -ys (English loanwords) Exceptions: Words that change internal vowels: Corff/cyrff pabell/pebyll Words that change internal vowels and endings: Braich/breichiau Total exceptions: Dail – leaves/foliage deilen – leaf Moch – pigs mochyn – pig Exercise 1: Plural or Singular Read more…
Welsh Lesson One
Taken from Basic Welsh: A Grammar and Workbook by Gareth King Welsh Lesson One: Identification Sentences hwn this hwnna that y rhain these y rheina those e/o he hi she hwn this person (m) hon this person (f) hwnna that person (m) honna that person (f) hwnnw that person who honno that person who is out of sight (m) is out of sight (f) Read more…
Owain Gwynedd’s birthday
When was Owain Gwynedd born? Here’s the truth: no idea. Okay, that’s not entirely true. Like Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, nobody seems to have recorded the date Owain Gwynedd was born, or even the year. This is fine as far as it goes, because we can make some general estimates. The problem arises when the birthdays for his many, many children haven’t been recorded either. Nor his siblings. Nor the dates of his marriages. My go-to-guide, John Davies History of Wales doesn’t discuss birthdays or ages, probably because he knows it’s fraught with difficulties, but many web sources try. For example, here’s one huge root of the problem, the Wikipedia entry, citing a book by John Edward Lloyd A history of Wales from the earliest times to the Edwardian conquest (Longmans, Green & Co.) written in 1911. This has Owain born c. 1100, Read more…
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