Poet Lloyd Jones
I wanted to announce the publication of a book of poetry by Lloyd Jones, The Secret Life of a Postman. I have read many of them and enjoyed them greatly. Lloyd Jones is an award-winning novelist in English and Welsh. He lives on the North Wales coast near Bangor. His first novel, Mr Vogel, (Seren 2005) won the McKitterick first novel award and was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction. His second novel, Mr Cassini (Seren 2006) won the Wales Book of the Year prize. In 2009, he published his first collection of short stories, My First Colouring Book (Seren). He was chosen to contribute to Seren Books’ acclaimed series reimagining the Mabinogion, the original source of the legendary King Arthur story cycle, with See How They Run (New Stories from the Mabinogion Seren 2012), a retelling Read more…
Ynys Mon (Anglesey) in the Dark and Middle Ages
Of all the places in north Wales/Gwynedd, the name for Ynys Mon was deliberately changed by the English/Norman invaders to Anglesey, but it belies the fact that Ynys Mon remains resolutely Welsh, with 7 out of 10 residents speaking Welsh. Because of its location, the populace suffered greatly over the millenia from foreign invaders, culminating with the wars of 1277 and 1282, when it was conquered as a stepping stone to Eryri, the stronghold of the Welsh princes. After this last war, Edward deliberately razed much that was Welsh to the ground, including Llanfaes Abbey, the gravesite of Princesses Joanna and Elinor and built Beaumaris over the top of it. In the process, hundreds of Welsh were ‘resettled’ elsewhere and English people brought in. “Ethnic cleansing is not a new concept. When Edward I reached Llanfaes, he forced all the Welsh Read more…
The Welsh Longbow
The Welsh employed the longbow long before any of their conquerors and used to great effect against their enemies for centuries. https://www.edinformatics.com/inventions_inventors/longbow.htm Bows and arrows have been around since Paleolithic times, with evidence of them as early as 8000-9000 BC in Germany. http://www.newarchaeology.com/articles/history_bow_and_arrows.php Kennewick man, the controversial skeleton found in the banks of the Columbia River inKennewick,Washington dates to roughly 7500 BC. A CT scan revealed a stone, projectile point embedded in his hip. Oetzi the Iceman was found with a quiver of arrows with flint heads and an unfinished yew longbow–taller than he was–in his pack. He dates to 3300 BC. A new find in Norway revealed 4500 year old bows and arrows that are very similar in form and function to those found in the Yukon dating to the same time period. The confirmed first use of the longbow was in 633 AD, in Read more…
The Wool Trade
Edward I was the first English monarch to tax the wool trade–to help pay, as always, for his wars. Sheep have been herded in Wales since possibly the Celts, though it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when sheep first came to Wales. “Excavations show that in about 6000 BC, during the Neolithic period of prehistory, the Castelnovien people, living around Chateauneuf-les-Martigues near present-day Marseille in the south of France, were among the first in Europe to keep domestic sheep. Practically from its inception, ancient Greek civilization relied on sheep as primary livestock, and were even said to name individual animals. Scandinavian sheep of a type seen today — with short tails and multi-colored fleece — were also present early on. Later, the Roman Empire kept sheep on a wide scale, and the Romans were an important agent in the spread Read more…
Historiography of the Welsh Conquest
Thank you to Brynne Haug for the next installment of her essay on the conquest of Wales. While there has been some measure of historical debate on the benefits and detriments of the English conquest of Wales on the country itself, the majority of scholars have agreed that in terms of identity and culture, the conquest had a negative impact. Wales prior to 1282 was fiercely independent, its people pastoral and very much devoted to the land on which they lived. In the years that followed the conquest, however, Edward I, in an attempt to “civilize” the Welsh, built walled towns throughout Wales and brought English settlers to live in them. Thus, by the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Welsh—who were in theory entirely excluded from these English towns of privilege—were, in the words of R.R. Davies, “outsiders in Read more…
Bwlch y Ddeufaen
Bwlch y Ddeufaen is a pass along the ancient road from Caerhun to Aber. The topography of North Wales is such that no significant road could run along the coastline due to the cliffs that come right down to the Irish Sea. Thus, from ancient times, the people of Wales used a road that crossed the Conwy River at Caerhun and headed into the hills, reaching a pass marked by two standing stones on either side of the road. The road then descended out of the hills, arriving at Aber and was then able to follow the road west towards Bangor and Caernarvon. Even the Romans found the topography impossible and chose to improve the ancient British/Celtic road rather than build an entirely new one closer to the coast. 1000 years later, the Normans faced the same difficulties. It was Read more…
Gwynedd after 1282
After the Treaty of Aberconwy in 1277 AD, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was reduced to lordship over a small area of land in Gwynedd, mostly west of the Conwy River. Over the course of the 1282 war, he took back much of what he’d lost. He was killed, however, on 11 December 1282, and all of Wales ultimately fell the forces of Edward I. The map at right shows: Green: Gwynedd, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd’s principality Blue: Territories of Dafydd ap Gruffydd Pink: Territories ceded forever to the English Crown This defeat of the native Welsh forces led by Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and then briefly after Llywelyn’s death by his brother, Dafydd, resulted in a much divided Wales. On the top of the hierarchy, instead of native rulers, were English (mostly) absentee landowners. Within the Marche and portions of southern Read more…
First pictures from the Wales trip 2014
So far, we’ve seen Cilmeri, Tintern Abbey, Chepstow Castle, and Caerphilly Castle. This is the main shot of Cilmeri, the place where Llywelyn ap Gruffydd is said to have been ambushed and murdered by the English. That event–and averting that event–is also the basis for my After Cilmeri series. I’m pleased to report that the site has been spruced up since I was last here, including the placement of a new stone marker at Llywelyn’s well. For tons of information about the life and death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, see https://sarahwoodbury.com/llywelyn-ap-gruffydd/. Tintern Abbey was founded by Normans and is an early Cistercian house in Wales. See my post on Medieval Monks for more. Chepstow Castle was built by the same Norman lords who endowed Tintern Abbey, including William Marshal and Roger Bigod. When we were here two years ago, it was during the Queen’s jubilee, so Read more…
Did Europeans smoke in the Middle Ages?
The short answer to that question is ‘no’. Tobacco is a New World good, and thus, not available to Europe until after 1492. The native peoples of the Americas used tobacco primarily for ritual purposes. The longer answer is that ‘smoking’, though not as we understand it today (with tobacco), was a factor in cultures other than Europe, though even those never caught on much in Europe, even after the Crusades. From Wikipedia: The history of smoking dates back to as early as 5000 BC in shamanistic rituals.[2] Many ancient civilizations, such as the Babylonians, Indians and Chinese, burnt incense as a part of religious rituals, as did the Israelites and the later Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches. Smoking in the Americas probably had its origins in the incense-burning ceremonies of shamans but was later adopted for pleasure, or as a social tool.[3] The Read more…
The Sidhe
The Sidhe (pronounced shee), are the god-like beings of Celtic society. Sometimes conflated with the Tuatha de Danaan, this site (http://www.shee-eire.com/magic&mythology/fairylore/Sidhe/page%201.htm) posits that they were a real people that were descended from the Tuatha de Danann. “The people known as “The Sidhe” or people of the mounds, or “The Lordly Ones” or “The Good People” were descended from the “Tuatha de Danann” who settled in Ireland millennia ago .” “Clearly the belief in the sidhe is part of the pre-Christian religion which survived for thousands of years and which has never been completely wiped out from the minds of the people. . . .The sons of Mil fought them in battle and defeated them, driving them ‘underground’ where it is said they remain to this day in the hollow hills or sidhe mounds . . . The sidhe of the Read more…
Medieval Cursing
Contrary to what how we curse today, bodily functions were not the worst of the worst for medieval people when it came to swearing. Here is what Melissa Mohr, author of “Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing,” has to say: “generally, people of medieval England did not share our modern concept of obscenity, in which words for taboo functions possess a power in excess of their literal meaning and must be fenced off from polite conversation…Medieval people were, to us, strikingly unconcerned with the Shit.” People back then “did not have much of an issue with describing bodily functions in ways that we might find less appropriate. Going into a city you might find a street called ‘Shitwell Way’ or ‘Pissing Alley’. Open a school textbook for teaching children how to read and you might find the words arse, shit Read more…
6 Myths about the Middle Ages
I found a great article about 6 myths of the Middle Ages. It’s particularly great to see someone writing about this in the general media. I encounter these assumptions every day and it complicates writing about these times (especially when someone writes to tell me I’m wrong 🙂 But that’s another story). From: http://www.cracked.com/article_20186_6-ridiculous-myths-about-middle-ages-everyone-believes.html You can click on the link above for the full article, but the myths are as follows: 1. Scientific Progress Was Dead 2. Everyone Smelled Like Complete Sh*t (for my post on this, see: https://sarahwoodbury.com/did-medieval-people-bathe/) 3. Knights Were Honorable, Chivalrous Warriors 4. Everyone Was a Prude 5. Women Were Treated as Cattle 6. Life Was Horrible and Everyone Died Young (for one my posts on this see: https://sarahwoodbury.com/life-expectancy-in-the-middle-ages/)
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