MEDIÆVAL WALES

 CHIEFLY IN THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES

 Six Popular Lectures

 BY

 A. G. LITTLE, M. A. , F. R. Hist. S. 

 PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SOUTH WALES AND MONMOUTHSHIRE AUTHOR OF "THE GREY FRIARS IN OXFORD, " ETC. 

 WITH MAPS AND PLANS

 LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1902

[_All rights reserved. _]

PREFACE

This volume contains the substance of a course of popular Lecturesdelivered at Cardiff in 1901. The work does not claim in any way tobe an original contribution to knowledge, and is published on therecommendation of some friends in whose literary judgment I haveconfidence. In a popular book of this kind I have not thought itnecessary to give detailed references to authorities, but a list ofa few of the books which I used in the preparation of the Lectures, and which are likely to be interesting to readers of Welsh history, may be useful. Among mediæval works I may mention the two Welshchronicles--the Annales Cambriæ and the Brut y Tywysogion, bothpublished in the Rolls Series; Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History ofthe Kings of Britain" (translated in Bohn's "Six Old EnglishChronicles"); Giraldus Cambrensis, "The Itinerary and Description ofWales" (translated in Bohn's library); the prefaces, especially thoseby Brewer, in the Rolls Series edition of Giraldus, will be foundinteresting. Of the English chroniclers, Ordericus Vitalis, Roger ofWendover, and Matthew Paris are perhaps the most valuable for thehistory of Wales and the Marches during the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies. Among modern books, the reader may be referred to Rhys andJones, "The Welsh People"; Freeman, "William Rufus"; Thomas Stephens, "Literature of the Kymry"; Henry Owen, "Gerald the Welshman"; Clark, "Mediæval Military Architecture, " and "The Land of Morgan"; Newell, "History of the Welsh Church"; Tout, "Edward I. "; and the "Dictionaryof National Biography. " Since these Lectures were delivered at leastthree books on Welsh history have appeared which deserve mention: Mr. Bradley's "Owen Glyndwr, " with a summary of earlier Welsh history;Mr. Owen Edwards's charmingly written volume in the Story of theNations Series; and Mr. Morris's valuable work on "The Welsh Wars ofEdward I. "

The maps are taken from large wall maps which I used when lecturing. In drawing up the map of Wales and the Marches at the beginning of thethirteenth century, I had the assistance of my friend and formerpupil, Mr. Morgan Jones, M. A. , of Ferndale, who generously placed atmy disposal the results of his researches into the history of theWelsh Marches. 

 A. G. LITTLE. 

CONTENTS

 PAGE

 I. INTRODUCTORY 1

 II. GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH 27

 III. GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS 51

 IV. CASTLES 77

 V. RELIGIOUS HOUSES 99

 VI. LLYWELYN AP GRUFFYDD AND THE BARONS' WAR 125

MAPS AND PLANS

 PAGE

 WALES AND THE MARCHES, c. A. D. 1200-1210 2

 CASTLES AND RELIGIOUS HOUSES 78

 CARDIFF AND CAERPHILLY CASTLES 88

[Illustration: WALES & THE MARCHES, c. A. D. 1200-1210. ]

I

INTRODUCTORY

In the following lectures no attempt will be made to give a systematicaccount of a political development, which is the ordinary theme ofhistory. History is "past politics" in the wide sense of the word. Ithas to do with the growth and decay of states and institutions, andtheir relations to each other. The history of Wales in the MiddleAges, viewed from the political standpoint, is a failure; its interestis negative; and in this introductory lecture I intend to discuss "thefailure of the nation" (to use the words of Professor Rhys and Mr. Brynmor Jones) "to effect any stable and lasting politicalcombination. " Wales failed to produce or develope politicalinstitutions of an enduring character--failed to become a state. Itshistory does not possess the unity nor the kind of interest which thehistory of England possesses, and which makes the study of Englishhistory so peculiarly instructive to the student of politics. InEnglish history we study primarily the growth of the principle ofRepresentative Government, which we can trace for centuries through along series of authoritative records. That is the great gift ofEngland to the world. Not only has Wales entered on this inheritance;it helped to create it. It was Llywelyn ap Iorwerth who began therevolt against John which led to the Great Charter, and the clauses ofthe Great Charter itself show that it was the joint work of Englishand Welsh. Wales again exerted a decisive influence on the Barons'War--the troubles in which the House of Commons first emerged. AndWales--half of it for more than six hundred years--half of it fornearly four hundred--has lived under the public law and administrativesystem which the Norman and Angevin kings of England built up onAnglo-Saxon foundations. This public law and this administrativesystem have become part and parcel of the life and history of Wales. The constitutional history of England is one of the elements which goto make up the complex history of Wales. 

The history of Wales, taken by itself, is constitutionally weak; andits interest is social or personal, archæological, artistic, literary--anything but political. And the fact--which isindisputable--that Wales failed to establish any permanent or unitedpolitical system needs explanation. 

The ultimate explanation will perhaps be found in the geography of thecountry. The mountains have done much to preserve the independence andthe language of Wales, but they have kept her people disunited; andthe Welsh needed a long drilling under institutions, which could onlygrow up in a land less divided by nature, before they could developetheir political genius. 

Wales, owing largely to its geography, had the misfortune never to beconquered at one fell swoop by an alien race of conquerors. Such aconquest may not at first sight strike one as a blessing, but it is, if it takes place when a people is in an early, fluid, andimpressionable stage, as may be seen from a comparison of countrieswhich have undergone it with countries which have not--a comparison, for instance, of England with Ireland or Germany. Perhaps the nearestparallel in the history of Wales to the Norman Conquest of England isthe conquest of Wales by Cunedda, the founder of the Cymric kingdom, in the dark and troublous times which followed the withdrawal of theRoman troops from Britain. But though an invader and a conqueror, Cunedda was not an alien; he spoke the same language as the people heconquered and belonged to the same race to which the most importantpart of them belonged. And this militated against his chances ofbecoming a founder of Welsh unity. A race of conquerors distinct fromthe conquered in blood and language and civilisation, must holdtogether for a time; they form an official governing class, enforcingthe same principles of government, and establishing a uniformadministration throughout the country. And the uniform pressure reactson the conquered, turning them from a loose group of tribes into anation. This is what the Norman Conquest did for England. But if theconquerors are of the same race and language as the conquered, theyreadily mix with them; instead of holding together they identifythemselves with local jealousies and tribal aspirations. This happenedagain and again in Germany. A Saxon emperor sends a Saxon to governBavaria as its duke and hold it loyal to the central government; theSaxon duke almost instantaneously becomes a Bavarian--the champion oftribal independence against the central government; and so the Germansremained a loose group of tribes and states--a divided people. Thisillustration suggests one of the reasons why Cunedda's conquest failedto unite Wales. 

Again the custom of sharing landed property among all the sons tendedto prevent the growth of Welsh unity. Socially it appears far morejust and reasonable than the custom of primogeniture. It is with thegrowth of feudalism (already apparent in the Welsh laws of the tenthcentury) that its political dangers become evident. The essence offeudalism is the confusion of political power and landed property; theruler is lord of the land, the landlord is the ruler. If landedproperty is divided, political power is divided. When the Lord Rhysdied in 1197 leaving four sons, Deheubarth had four rulers and formedfour states instead of one; and civil war ensued. 

The unity of Welsh history is not to be found in the growth of a stateor a political system. But may we regard the history of Wales as along and heroic struggle inspired by the idea of nationality? Acaution is necessary here. It is one of the besetting sins ofhistorians to read the ideas of the present into the past; and to thegeneral public historical study is dull unless they can do so. It isvery difficult to avoid doing so; it needs a severe training, a longimmersion in the past, and a steady passion for truth above allthings. In no case perhaps is this warning so necessary as in mattersinvolving the idea of nationality. This is characteristic of thepresent age, but it has not been characteristic of any other toanything like the same extent. We live in an atmosphere ofnationality; we have seen it create the German Empire and the kingdomof Italy, and the Welsh University; we see it now labouring to breakup the Austrian Empire, and perhaps changing the unchanging East. Butthe whole history of Europe shows that it is an idea of slow andcomparatively late growth. The first appearance of nationality as aconscious principle of political action is found in England--andpossibly in France--at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and inWales about the same time; in the other countries of Europe muchlater. And it was very rarely till the very end of the eighteenthcentury that it became a dominant factor in politics. Of course ourancestors always hated a foreigner--but they did not love theirfellow-countrymen. The one thing a man hated more than being drivenout of house and home by a foreign invader, was being driven out byhis next-door neighbour; and, as his neighbour was more likely to doit, and when he did it, to stay, he hated his neighbour most. Acertain degree of order and settled government was necessary beforethe national idea could become effective. 

In mediæval Wales it never succeeded in uniting the people; the pettypatriotism of the family stood in the way of the larger patriotism ofthe nation; local rivalries and jealousies were always stronger thanthe sense of national unity. The attempt of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth tocreate a National Council, like the Great Council of England, diedwith him. In the final struggle with Edward I. , when for a few monthsthe idea of Welsh unity was nearest realisation in action, the men ofGlamorgan fought on the winning side. Read the "Brut y Tywysogion" andconsider how far the actions there related can have been inspired bythe feeling of nationality. Here is the account in the "Brut" of whatwas happening in Wales in 1200 and the following years, the periodrepresented by our map. 

 "1200. One thousand and two hundred was the year of Christ when Gruffudd, son of Cynan, son of Owain, died, after taking upon him the religious habit, at Aberconway, --the man who was known by all in the isle of Britain for the extent of his gifts, and his kindness and goodness; and no wonder, for as long as the men who are now shall live, they will remember his renown, and his praise and his deeds. In that year, Maelgwn, son of Rhys, sold Aberteivi, the key of all Wales, for a trifling value, to the English, for fear of and out of hatred to his brother Gruffudd. The same year, Madog, son of Gruffudd Maelor, founded the monastery of Llanegwestl, near the old cross, in Yale. 

 "1201. The ensuing year, Llywelyn, son of Iorwerth, subdued the cantrev of Lleyn, having expelled Maredudd, son of Cynan, on account of his treachery. That year on the eve of Whitsunday, the monks of Strata Florida came to the new church; which had been erected of splendid workmanship. A little while afterwards, about the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, Maredudd, son of Rhys, an extremely courteous young man, the terror of his enemies, the love of his friends, being like a lightning of fire between armed hosts, the hope of the South Wales men, the dread of England, the honour of the cities, and the ornament of the world, was slain at Carnwyllon; and Gruffudd, his brother, took possession of his castle at Llanymddyvri. And the cantrev, in which it was situated, was taken possession of by Gruffudd, his brother. And immediately afterwards, on the feast of St. James the Apostle, Gruffudd, son of Rhys, died at Strata Florida, having taken upon him the religious habit; and there he was buried. That year there was an earthquake at Jerusalem. 

 "1202. The ensuing year, Maredudd, son of Cynan, was expelled from Meirionydd, by Howel, son of Gruffudd, his nephew, son of his brother, and was despoiled of everything but his horse. That year the eighth day after the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Welsh fought against the castle of Gwerthrynion, which was the property of Roger Mortimer, and compelled the garrison to deliver up the castle, before the end of a fortnight, and they burned it to the ground. That year about the first feast of St. Mary in the autumn, Llywelyn, son of Iorwerth, raised an army from Powys, to bring Gwenwynwyn under his subjection, and to possess the country. For though Gwenwynwyn was near to him as to kindred, he was a foe to him as to deeds. And on his march he called to him all the other princes, who were related to him, to combine in making war together against Gwenwynwyn. And when Elise, son of Madog, son of Maredudd, became acquainted therewith, he refused to combine in the presence of all; and with all his energy he endeavoured to bring about a peace with Gwenwynwyn. And therefore, after the clergy and the religious had concluded a peace between Gwenwynwyn and Llywelyn, the territory of Elise, son of Madog, his uncle, was taken from him. And ultimately there was given him for maintenance, in charity, the castle of Crogen, with seven small townships. And thus, after conquering the castle of Bala, Llywelyn returned back happily. That year about the feast of St. Michael, the family of young Rhys, son of Gruffudd, son of the lord Rhys, obtained possession of the castle of Llanymddyvri. "

One may almost say that Wales is Wales to-day in spite of herpolitical history. Wales owes far more to her poets and men of lettersthan to her princes and their politics. 

Giraldus Cambrensis laid his finger on the spot, when he said: "Happywould Wales be if it had one prince, and that a good one. " A necessarypreliminary to the union of Welshmen was the wiping out of allindependent Welsh princes except one. Till that happened local feelingwould always remain stronger than national feeling; the disintegratingforces of family feuds and personal ambitions and clannish loyaltywould always outweigh the sense of national unity. 

The Lords of the Marches were slowly doing this for Wales; they werewiping out all the independent Welsh princes except one. We may seethe process going on in the accompanying map, which gives the chiefpolitical divisions of Wales at the beginning of the thirteenthcentury, and we will turn for a few minutes to consider the fortunesof some of these petty states and the manner of the men who ruledthem. 

The great Palatine Earldom of Chester, a kingdom within the kingdom, was ruled before 1100 by Hugh the Wolf, of Avranches, who conqueredfor a time the north coast of Wales. In Anglesey he built a castle, and kennelled the hounds he loved so well in a church, to find themall mad the next morning. The stories of his savage mutilation of hisWelsh prisoners show that he merited the name of "the Wolf. " Yet hewas the friend of the holy Anselm, and died a monk. The strugglebetween Chester and Gwynedd for the possession of the Four Cantreds, the lands between the Conway and the Dee, was almost perpetual duringthe twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the fortune of warcontinually changing. With the extinction of the old line of the Earlsof Chester (1237) and the grant of the earldom to Prince Edward(1254), a new era opened for Wales. 

Further south, in the Middle March, along the upper valleys of theSevern and the Wye, the great power of the Mortimers was growing. Theyhad already stretched out a long arm to grasp Gwerthrynion. But thegreatest expansion of their power came later, under Roger Mortimer, grandson of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, friend of Edward I. In the wild daysof his youth, persistent foe of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd; and soon theMortimer lands embraced all Mid-Wales and reached the sea, and aMortimer was strong enough to depose and murder a king and ruleEngland as paramour of the queen. Savage as the Mortimers were, theywere mild compared with one of their predecessors. Robert Count ofBellesme and Ponthieu, the great castle builder of his time, becameEarl of Shrewsbury and Arundel in 1098. Men had heard tales of hisferocity on the Continent--how he starved his prisoners to deathrather than hold them to ransom; how, when besieging a castle, hethrew in the horses to fill up the moat, and when these were notenough he gave orders to seize the villeins and throw them in, thathis battering rams might go forward on a writhing mass of living humanbodies. These tales seemed incredible in England, but the men of theMiddle March believed them when they were "flayed alive by the ironclaws" of the devil of Bellesme. In his rebellion against Henry I. Theprinces of Gwynedd supported him, till their army was bought over bythe lying promises of the king; but the day when the Earl ofShrewsbury surrendered to King Henry and the whole force of Englandwas a day of deliverance alike to England and to Wales. 

We next come to the group of lordships held about this time by Williamde Braose, lord of Bramber in Sussex. They stretched from Radnor toGower, from the Monnow to the Llwchwr, and included the castles ofBuilth, Brecon, Abergavenny. But he held these lands by differenttitles, and they were never welded together. William de Braose beganhis public career by calling the princes of Gwent to a conference atAbergavenny, and massacring them. He was on intimate terms with KingJohn, who gave Prince Arthur into his keeping; but this was a piece ofwork which even De Braose recoiled from, and he refused to burden hissoul with Arthur's murder. A few years later John suddenly turnedagainst him, and demanded his sons as hostages. His wife, Maud de St. Valérie, who lived long in the popular memory as a witch, sent backthe answer: she would not entrust her children to a man who hadmurdered his nephew. The king chased Braose from his lands, caught hiswife and eldest son, and starved them to death in Windsor Castle. TheBraose family continued to hold Gower, but the rest of theirpossessions passed to other houses--Brecon to the Bohuns of Hereford, Elvael to Mortimer, Abergavenny to Hastings, Builth first to Mortimerand then to the Crown. 

Glamorgan, during our period, was attached to the earldom ofGloucester. From Fitzhamon the Conqueror it passed, through hisdaughter, to Robert of Gloucester, and early in the thirteenthcentury to the great house of Clare, Earls of Gloucester and Hertford, who held the balance between parties in the Barons' War. With theorganisation of Glamorgan and with its great rulers we shall deallater. At the time represented by our map, it was in the hands of KingJohn, who obtained it by marriage. John divorced his wife in 1200, butmanaged to keep her inheritance till nearly the end of his reign; andFawkes de Bréauté, the most infamous of his mercenary captains, lordedit in Cardiff Castle. 

Further west, between the Llwchwr and the Towy, lay the lordship ofKidweli, held by the De Londres family, who had accompanied Fitzhamonin the conquest of Glamorgan, and were lords of Ogmore and founders ofEwenny. One episode in the history of this family may bementioned--the battle in the Vale of Towy in 1136, when Gwenllian, theheroic wife of Rhys ap Gruffydd, led her husband's forces againstMaurice and De Londres, and was defeated and slain by the Lord ofKidweli. Her death was soon avenged by the slaughter of the Normansat Cardigan. The present castle of Kidweli dates from the laterthirteenth century, before the war of 1277, after the lordship hadpassed to the Chaworths. 

In the extreme west, in Dyfed, the land of fiords, Arnulf ofMontgomery had early founded the Norman power, but he was involved inthe fall of his brother, Robert of Bellesme, and Henry I. Tried toform the land into an English shire, and planted a colony of Flemingsin "Little England beyond Wales. " But it was too far off for the royalpower to be effectively exercised there, and the Earldom of Pembrokewas granted to a branch of the De Clares, who had already conqueredCeredigion, and built castles at Cardigan and Aberystwyth. The DeClares also held Chepstow and lands in Lower Gwent. The Earldom itselfwas smaller than the present shire of Pembroke, and William Marshall, who succeeded the De Clares through his marriage with the daughter ofRichard Strongbow (1189), owed his commanding position in Englishhistory of the thirteenth century far more to his personal qualities, his courage and wisdom and patriotism, than to his territorialpossessions. 

It was by driving the De Clares out of Ceredigion in Stephen's reignthat Rhys ap Gruffydd laid the foundation of his power, and raisedDeheubarth to be the foremost of the native principalities. The LordRhys was clever and farseeing enough to win the confidence of HenryII. , and received from him the title of Justiciar--or King'sDeputy--in South Wales. As long as Owain Gwynedd lived the unusualspectacle was seen of a prince of South Wales and a prince of NorthWales working harmoniously together. But after Owain's death (1170)Rhys fought with his successors over the possession of Merioneth, while Owain Cyfeiliog, the poet-prince of Powys, did all he could tothwart him. In 1197 the death of Rhys, "the head and the shield andthe strength of the South and of all Wales, " and the civil wars amonghis sons, opened his principality again to the encroachment of foes onall sides, and removed one danger from Powys. Powys, however, wasbeing steadily squeezed by the pressure of Gwynedd on one side, andthe growing power of Mortimer on the other, and its princes resortedto a shifty diplomacy and a general adherence--open or secret ascircumstances dictated--to the English Crown, till they sank at lengthinto the position of petty feudatories of the English king. 

The Prince of Gwynedd alone upheld the standard of Welsh nationality, the dragon of Welsh independence; only in Gwynedd and its dependenciesdid the Welsh public law prevail over feudal custom. And what was theresult? Exactly what Giraldus Cambrensis had foreseen and longed for. The eyes of Welshmen everywhere began to turn to the Lord of Eryri, the one hope of Wales. It was an alluring--an inspiring prospect, which opened before the princes of Gwynedd--to head a nationalmovement, drive out the foreigners, and unite all Wales under theirsway. Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, at the end of his long reign, deliberatelyrejected the dream. That is the meaning of his emphatic declarationof fidelity and submission to Henry III. In 1237. "Llywelyn, Prince ofWales, by special messengers sent word to the king that, as his timeof life required that he should thenceforth abandon all strife andtumult of war, and should for the future enjoy peace, he haddetermined to place himself and his possessions under the authorityand protection of him, the English king, and would hold his lands fromhim in all fealty and friendship, and enter into an indissolubletreaty; and if the king should go on any expedition he would, to thebest of his power, as his liege subject, promote it, by assisting himwith troops, arms, horses, and money. " Llywelyn the Great refused todispute the suzerainty of England. This may appear pusillanimous tothe enthusiastic patriot, but subsequent events proved the oldstatesman's wisdom and clearsightedness. His successors were lesscautious, were carried away by the patriotism round them and the syrenvoices of the bards. And to Llywelyn ap Gruffydd the prospect was evenmore tempting than to Llywelyn ap Iorwerth. The Barons' War weakenedthe power of England, and the necessities of Simon de Montfort ledhim to enter into an alliance with Llywelyn. The expansion of Gwyneddwas great and rapid. Llywelyn's rule extended as far south as Merthyr, and made itself felt on the shores of Carmarthen Bay. The Earl ofGloucester found it necessary to build Caerphilly Castle to uphold hisinfluence in Glamorgan. But it was just the expansion of Llywelyn'spower which forced Edward I. To overthrow him once for all. "We holdit better"--so ran Edward's proclamation in 1282--"that, for thecommon weal, we and the inhabitants of our land should be wearied bylabours and expenses this once, although the burden seem heavy, inorder to destroy their wickedness altogether, than that we should infuture times, as so often in the past, be tormented by rebellions ofthis kind at their good pleasure. "

The "Principality" now became shire land--under English laws andEnglish administration. The rest of Wales remained divided up intoMarcher Lordships for another two hundred and fifty years, underfeudal laws--a continual source of disturbance and scene of disorder. These were the lands in which the King's Writ did not run, where (tosummarise the description in the Statute of 1536) "murders andhouse-burnings, robberies and riots are committed with impunity, andfelons are received, and escape from justice by going from onelordship to another. "

Yet the Marcher Lords did something for Welsh civilisation in theirearlier centuries. Guided by enlightened self-interest, they oftenfounded towns, granting considerable privileges to them in order toattract burgesses--such as low rents, and freedom from arbitraryfines. Fairs, too, were established and protected by the LordsMarchers. The early lords of Glamorgan seem to have been speciallysuccessful in this respect; in the twelfth century immigrants fromother parts of Wales are said to have come to reside in Glamorgan, owing to the privileges and comparative security which were to befound there. Nor perhaps has it been sufficiently recognised how soonthe Lords of the Marches began drilling their Welsh subjects inAnglo-Norman methods of local self-government. Most of the greaterMarcher Lords possessed estates in England; not a few of them, such asWilliam de Braose, served as sheriffs in English shires; some, such asJohn de Hastings, were judges in the royal courts. They introducedinto Wales methods of government which they learnt in England, andinstitutions with a great future before them, like the Franco-Roman"inquest by sworn recognitors, " from which trial by jury wasdeveloped, were soon acclimatised in the Marches of Wales. 

II

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH

When Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote, Norman influence in Wales was at itsheight. In the old days we used to begin English history with Williamthe Conqueror; since Freeman wrote his five thick volumes andproved--not that the Norman Conquest was unimportant--but that it didnot involve a breach of continuity, a new start in national life, thependulum has swung too much the other way, and the tendency of lateyears has been to underestimate the importance of the Norman Conquest. 

The Norman wherever he went brought little that was new; he was but aNorseman--a Viking--with a French polish. He had no law of his own; hehad forgotten his own language, he had no literature. But he had theold Norse energy; which not only drove him or his ancestors to settleand conquer in lands so distant and diverse as Russia and Sicily, Syria and North America, but enabled him to infuse new life into thecountries he conquered. Further, he still retained that adaptabilityand power of assimilation which is characteristic of peoples in aprimitive stage of civilisation. With a wonderful instinct he fastenedon to the most characteristic and strongest features of the differentnations he was brought in contact with, developed them, gave thempermanent form, and often a world-wide importance. 

The Norman conquerors were not always fortunate in their selection. Ireland has little to thank them for. The most striking characteristicwhich they found in Ireland was anarchy, and they brought it to a highpitch of perfection. To quote Sir J. Davies's luminous discourse onIreland, in 1612: "Finding the Irish exactions to be more profitablethan the English rents and services, and loving the Irish tyrannywhich was tied to no rules of law and honour better than a just andlawful seigniory, they did reject the English law and government, received the Irish laws and customs, took Irish surnames, asMacWilliam, MacFeris, refused to come to Parliaments, and scorned toobey those English knights who were sent to command and govern thiskingdom. "

One extortionate Irish custom, called "coigny, " they speciallyaffected, of which it was said "that though it were first invented inhell, yet if it had been used and practised there as it hath been inIreland, it had long since destroyed the very kingdom of Beelzebub. "

England and Wales were more fortunate. In England--while the oldEnglish literature was crushed out by the heel of the oppressor, theNorman instinct seized on the latent possibilities of the old Englishpolitical institutions, welded them into a great system, developed outof them representative government, and created a united nation. 

In Wales, the Normans paid little or no heed to Welsh laws andpolitical institutions; the law of the Marches was the feudal law ofFrance, the charters of liberties of the towns were imported fromNormandy; the Welsh Marches and border shires were the most thoroughlyNormanised part of the whole kingdom. But with a fine instinct for thereally great things, in Wales the Normans seized on the literaryside--the poetic traditions of the people--giving them permanent form, adding to them, making them for ever part of the intellectual heritageof the whole world. 

It may very likely be a mere accident that the earliest Welshmanuscripts date from the twelfth-century--Norman times; it may alsoimply an increased literary productiveness. It may be due toaccidental causes that the first accounts of Eisteddfodau extant datefrom the twelfth century; it may also be that the institution excitednew interest, received new attention and honour, under the influenceof the open-minded and keen-sighted invaders. Take, for instance, theaccount of the great Eisteddfod in 1176, from the Brut y Tywysogion:"The lord Rhys held a grand festival at the castle of Aberteivi, wherein he appointed two sorts of competitions--one between the bardsand poets, and the other between harpers, fiddlers, pipers, andvarious performers of instrumental music; and he assigned two chairsfor the victors in the competitions; and these he enriched with vastgifts. A young man of his own court, son to Cibon the fiddler, obtained the victory in instrumental music, and the men of Gwyneddobtained the victory in vocal song; and all the other minstrelsobtained from the lord Rhys as much as they asked for, so that therewas no one excluded. " An Eisteddfod where every one obtained prizes, and every one was satisfied, suggests the enthusiasm natural to a newrevival. It was now--when Wales was brought in contact with the greatworld through the Normans--that modern Welsh poetry had its beginning. The new intellectual impetus is clearly illustrated by the changewhich takes place in the Welsh chronicles about 1100. Before that timethey are generally thin and dreary: they suddenly become full, lively, and romantic. Wales was not exceptional in this renaissance; somethingof the same sort occurred in most parts of Europe; and therenaissance is no doubt to be connected with the Crusade, the reformof the Church, in a word, with the Hildebrandine movement, and soultimately with the Burgundian monastery of Clugny. But it was theNormans who brought this new life to England and Wales; the Normanswere the hands and feet of the great Hildebrandine movement of whichthe Clugniac popes were the head. 

Among the Norman magnates who encouraged the intellectual movement inWales--one stands out pre-eminent--Robert Earl of Gloucester and Lordof Glamorgan, a splendid combination of statesman, soldier, patron ofletters. Robert was a natural son of Henry I. --born before 1100--thereis no evidence that his mother was the beautiful and famous Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Tudor. He acquired the Lordship of Glamorgantogether with the Honour of Gloucester and other lands in England andNormandy, by marriage with Mabel, daughter and heiress of Fitzhamon, conqueror of Glamorgan. An account of the wooing is preserved in oldrhymed chronicle: the king conducts negotiations; the lady remarksthat it was not herself but her possessions he was after--and shewould prefer to marry a man who had a surname. The account is nothistorical, as surnames had not come in: in the early twelfth centurythe lady would have expressed her meaning differently. However, thereis evidence that she was a good wife: William of Malmesbury says, "Shewas a noble and excellent woman, devoted to her husband, and blestwith a numerous and beautiful family. " Robert was a great builder ofcastles; Bristol and Cardiff Castles were his work, and many others inGlamorgan; he organised Glamorgan, giving it the constitution of anEnglish shire--with Cardiff Castle as centre and meeting-place. AfterHenry I. 's death, he was the most important man in England, and wasthe only prominent man who played an honourable part in the civil warswhich are known as the reign of Stephen; he died in 1147. Hisrelations with the Welsh appear to have been good; large bodies ofWelsh troops fought under him at the battle of Lincoln, 1141--he wasprobably the first Norman lord of Glamorgan who could thus rely ontheir loyalty. And it is significant that in the earliest inquisitionsextant for Glamorgan--or inquests by sworn recognitors--Welshmen werefreely employed in the work of local government. 

Robert of Gloucester was a magnificent patron of letters; to his ageGiraldus Cambrensis looked back with longing regret as to the good oldtimes in which learning was recognised and received its due reward. ToRobert of Gloucester, William of Malmesbury, the greatest historian ofthe time, dedicated his history, attributing to him the magnanimity ofhis grandfather the Conqueror, the generosity of his uncle, the wisdomof his father, Henry I. He was the founder of Margam Abbey, whosechronicle is one of the authorities for Welsh history; Tewkesbury, another abbey whose chronicle is preserved, counted him among itschief benefactors; Robert de Monte, Abbot of Mont St. Michel, theBreton and lover of Breton legends, was a native of his Norman estatesat Torigny, and wrote a valuable history of his times. Among thebrilliant circle of men of letters who frequented his court atGloucester and Bristol and Cardiff were Caradoc of Llancarven, whosechronicle (if he ever wrote one) has been lost, and greatest of allGeoffrey of Monmouth. 

Geoffrey dedicated his History of the Kings of Britain to Robert: "Toyou, therefore, Robert Earl of Gloucester, this work humbly sues forthe favour of being so corrected by your advice that it may beconsidered not the poor offspring of Geoffrey of Monmouth, but, whenpolished by your refined wit and judgment, the production of him whohad Henry, the glorious King of England, for his father, and whom wesee an accomplished scholar and philosopher, as well as a bravesoldier and tried commander. "

Not very much is known about Geoffrey. The so-called "Gwentian Brut, "attributed to Caradoc of Llancarven, on which his biographers haverelied for a few details of his life, is very untrustworthy, and, according to the late Mr. Thomas Stephens, was written about themiddle of the sixteenth century, though containing earlier matter. The sixteenth century was a great age for historical forgeries. Wefind a Franciscan interpolating passages in a Greek manuscript of theNew Testament in order to refute Erasmus; a learned Oxonian forging apassage in the manuscript of Asser's "Life of Alfred" to prove thatAlfred founded the University of Oxford; and Welsh genealogiesinvented by the dozen and the yard--reaching back to "son of Adam, sonof God. " The "Gwentian Brut" or "Book of Aberpergwm" is in doubtfulcompany. The following seem to be the facts known about Geoffrey. In1129 he was at Oxford, in company with Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford(not Walter Mapes). His father's name was Arthur; and he was connectedwith the Welsh lords of Caerleon. He calls himself "of Monmouth, "either as being born there, or as having a connection with theBenedictine monastery at Monmouth, which was founded by a Breton, andkept up connections with Brittany and Anjou. He may have beenarchdeacon--but not of Monmouth. The first version of his history wasfinished in or before April, 1139, and the final edition of theHistory was completed by 1147. In his later years he resided atLlandaff. He was ordained priest in February, 1152, and consecratedbishop of St. Asaph in the same month. In 1153 he was one of thewitnesses to the compact between King Stephen and Henry of Anjou, which ended the civil wars. He died at Llandaff in 1153. 

We will now turn to consider the sources of his History of the Kingsof Britain. Geoffrey says: "In the course of many and various studiesI happened to light on the history of the Kings of Britain, andwondered that, in the account which Gildas and Bede, in their eleganttreatises, had given of them, I found nothing said of those kings wholived here before Christ, nor of Arthur, and many others; though theiractions were celebrated by many people in a pleasant manner, and byheart, as if they had been written. Whilst I was thinking of thesethings, Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, a man learned in foreignhistories, offered me a very ancient book in the Britannic tongue, which, in a continued regular story and elegant style, related theactions of them all, from Brutus down to Cadwallader. At his request, therefore, I undertook the translation of that book into Latin. " Atthe end of his history he adds: "I leave the history of the laterkings of Wales to Caradoc of Llancarven, my contemporary, as I do alsothe kings of the Saxons to William of Malmesbury and Henry ofHuntingdon. But I advise them to be silent concerning the kings of theBritons, since they have not that book written in the Britannictongue, which Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, brought out of Britannia. "

There has been a good deal of controversy as to whether this veryancient book was in Welsh or Breton, but the first question is, Did itever exist? Was Geoffrey a translator, or an inventor, or a collectorof oral traditions current in Wales or Brittany during his time?

There can be little doubt that the conclusion of Thomas Stephens, inthe "Literature of the Kymry, " is correct--that "Geoffrey was less atranslator than an original author. " It is very doubtful whether theBritannic book ever existed, whether it was not a mere ruse, such aswas often resorted to by mediæval romancers, and is still a favouritemethod with modern historical novelists--to give their works anappearance of genuineness. It has been argued against this, that inthat case, Archdeacon Walter must have been a party to thefraud--which is incredible. Such an argument implies a large ignoranceof the archdeacons of the twelfth century--when it was a questionsolemnly discussed among the learned--whether an archdeacon couldpossibly be saved. It would be well if there were nothing worse tobring against them than such an innocent fraud on the public as this. But the strongest argument against the existence of the Britannic bookis (not that it is not extant now, but) that the historians of thenext generation never saw it. Geoffrey's History at once created atremendous stir in the literary world--nor was it accepted ontrust--but received with suspicion and incredulity. Thus William ofNewburgh, in the latter part of the twelfth century, calls Geoffreyroundly, "a saucy and shameless liar. " William, of course, did notknow Welsh, and could not have made anything out of the Britannicbook, even if he had seen it. This objection does not apply toGiraldus Cambrensis; his knowledge of Welsh was indeed slight--but hehad plenty of Welsh-speaking relatives and friends, and he was himselfa collector of manuscripts. Gerald refers to "the lying statements ofGeoffrey's fabulous history, " and implies in a much-quoted passagethat he regarded Geoffrey's history as a pack of lies. Speaking of aWelshman at Caerleon who had dealings with evil spirits, and wasenabled by their assistance to foretell future events, he goes on: "Heknew when any one told a lie in his presence, for he saw the devildancing on the tongue of the liar. If the evil spirits oppressed himtoo much, the Gospel of St. John was placed on his bosom, when likebirds they immediately vanished; but when the Gospel was removed, andthe History of the Britons by Geoffrey Arthur was substituted in itsplace, the devils instantly came back in greater numbers, and remaineda longer time than usual on his body and on the book. " Geoffrey mayvery probably have used some Britannic manuscript, but it could nothave been very ancient; and he certainly did not translate it, butused it as he used Gildas and Bede and Nennius--sometimes quotingtheir statements, more generally amplifying them almost beyondrecognition. 

Was Geoffrey merely an inventor? Sometimes--undoubtedly. The longstrings of names of purely fictitious princes whom the Roman Consulsummoned to fight against King Arthur, at a time when in sober historyJustinian was Roman Emperor, are invented by Geoffrey. And considertoo his parodies of the practice of historians of referring tocontemporary events: an instance of the genuine article is given inGerald's Itinerary. "In 1188, Urban III. Being pope, Frederick, Emperor of the Romans, Isaac, Emperor of Constantinople, Philip, Kingof France, " &c. , &c. Now take Geoffrey's parodies: "At this time, Samuel the prophet governed in Judæa, Æneas was living, and Homer wasesteemed a famous orator and poet. " Or again: "At the building ofShaftesbury an eagle spoke while the wall of the town was being built:and indeed I should have transmitted the speech to posterity, had Ithought it true, like the rest of the history. At this time Haggai, Amos, Joel, and Azariah were prophets of Israel. " One may be quitesure that passages like these are not derived from the writings of theancients, or from oral traditions. One can in some cases trace backhis statements and see how much he added to his predecessors. A goodinstance is his account of the conversion of the Britons under KingLucius, in Bk. IV. , cap. 19 and 20, and V. , cap. 1 (A. D. 161). Geoffrey's account is circumstantial: King Lucius sent to the Popeasking for instruction in the Christian religion. The Pope sent twoteachers (whose names are given), who almost extinguished paganismover the whole island, dedicated the heathen temples to the true God, and substituted three archbishops for the three heathen archflamensat London, York, and Caerleon-on-Usk, and twenty-eight bishops for thetwenty-eight heathen flamens. Now all this is based on a short passagein Bede: "Lucius King of the Britains sent to the Pope asking that hemight be made a Christian; he soon obtained his desire, and theBritons kept the faith pure till the Diocletian persecution, " whichitself is amplified from an entry in the _Liber Pontificalis_: "LuciusKing of the Britains sent to the Pope asking that he might be made aChristian. " This last does not occur in the early version of the_Liber Pontificalis_, and is irreconcilable with the history andposition of the papacy in the second century; but is a forgery, inserted at the end of the seventh century by the Romanising party inthe Welsh Church--the party desiring to bring the Welsh Church intocommunion with the Roman, and so interested in proving that BritishChristianity came direct from the Pope; and all the talk about thearchflamens and archbishops, &c. , is pure invention. Notice too whatan important part the places with which Geoffrey is speciallyconnected play in his history: Caerleon is the seat of anarchbishopric and favourite residence of Arthur; Oxford is frequentlymentioned though it did not exist until the end of the ninth century;the Consul of Gloucester (predecessor of Geoffrey's patron, Robert, Consul of Gloucester) makes the decisive move in Arthur's battle withthe Romans. 

A parallel case is Geoffrey's account of Brutus and the descent of theBritons from the Trojans. The tradition is found in Nennius, andperhaps dates from the classical revival at the court of Charlemagne. It is clearly not a popular tradition, but an artificial tradition ofthe learned; but whilst Geoffrey did not invent the legend, heinvented all the details--letters and speeches, and hairbreadthescapes and tales of love and war. 

Probably his detailed accounts of King Arthur's Europeanconquests--extending over nearly all Western Europe, from Iceland andNorway to Gaul and Italy--are still more the work of Geoffrey'sinventive genius, though it is possible they may rest on early Celticmyths about the voyage of Arthur to Hades, as Professor Rhys suggests, or on late Breton traditions which mixed up Arthur with Charles theGreat. 

Now let us consider Geoffrey as a gatherer and transmitter of thegenuine oral traditions of the Welsh and Breton people. Genuinetraditions are true history in the sense that they preserve mannersand customs and modes of thought prevalent at the time when theybecame current. Thus they are on quite a different level fromGeoffrey's inventions, though they cannot be taken as containing thehistory of any of the individuals to whom they profess to relate. Hetells us in his preface that the actions of Arthur and many others, though not mentioned by historians, "were celebrated by many people ina pleasant manner and by heart, " were sung by poets and handed downfrom generation to generation, like the poetical traditions of everypeople in primitive times. There can be no doubt that Geoffreycollected a number of these old stories and wove them into hisnarrative. Thus, the story of King Lear and his daughters has thering of a genuine popular tradition about it, though the dates andpseudo-historical setting were probably supplied by Geoffrey. Again, there were certainly prophecies attributed to Merlin current inGeoffrey's time. But one may suspect Geoffrey of doing a good dealmore than translate the prophecies of Merlin; he adapted them; one mayeven suspect him of parodying them. "After him shall succeed the boarof Totness, and oppress the people with grievous tyranny. Gloucestershall send forth a lion and shall disturb him in his cruelty inseveral battles. The lion shall trample him under his feet . .. And atlast get upon the backs of the nobility. A bull shall come into thequarrel and strike the lion . .. But shall break his horns against thewalls of Oxford. " "Then shall two successively sway the sceptre, whoma horned dragon shall serve. One shall come in armour and ride upon aflying serpent. He shall sit upon its back with his naked body, andcast his right hand upon its tail. .. . The second shall ally with thelion; but a quarrel happening they shall encounter one another . .. But the courage of the beast shall prevail. Then shall one come with adrum, and appease the rage of the lion. Therefore shall the people ofthe kingdom be at peace, and provoke the lion to a dose of physic!"

Then as to Arthur. In Geoffrey's history he appears mainly as a greatcontinental conqueror--a kind of Welsh Charlemagne. "Many of the mostpicturesque and significant features of the full-grown legend (asProfessor Lewis Jones points out)[1] are not even faintly suggested byGeoffrey. The Round Table, Lancelot, the Grail were unknown to him, and were grafted on the legend from other sources. " But he made theArthurian legends fashionable; he opened for all Europe the hithertounknown and inexhaustible well of Celtic romance; and it may be saidwithout exaggeration that "no mediæval work has left behind it soprolific a literary offspring as the History of the Kings of Britain. "

The value of Geoffrey is not in his fictions about past history, butin his influence on the literature and ideas of the future. He standsat the beginning of a new age: he is the first spokesman of the Age ofthe new Chivalry. Read his glowing account of Arthur's court, where"the knights were famous for feats of chivalry, and the women esteemednone worthy of their love but such as had given proof of their valourin three several battles. Thus was the valour of the men anencouragement for the women's chastity, and the love of the women aspur to the knight's bravery. " Or, as an old French version has it, "Love which made the women more chaste made the knights more valorousand famous. " We have here a new conception of love which hasprofoundly influenced life and thought ever since--love no longer aweakness as in the ancient world, or a sin as it seemed to the asceticspirit of the Church, but a conscious source of strength, an avowedmotive of heroism. And it was round Arthur and his court that theFrench poets of the next generation wove their romances inspired bythis conception--the offspring of the union of Norman strength andCeltic gentleness. 

FOOTNOTE:

[1] See his paper on Geoffrey of Monmouth (Transactions of theCymmrodorion Society, 1899), to which I am much indebted. 

III

GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS

Gerald the Welshman was certainly one of the most remarkable men ofletters that the Middle Ages produced--remarkable not merely for thegreat range of his knowledge, or the voluminousness of his writings, but for the originality of his views and variety of his interests. 

In this lecture I intend to give first a general account of his life, and then deal in more detail with his Itinerary through Wales. 

We know a great deal about Gerald; he was interested in many things, and not least in himself; he was not troubled by that shrinking senseof his own worthlessness--with the feeling of being not an individual, but a part of a community--which is so characteristic of mediævalwriters, and led them often to omit to mention their own names. 

Gerald was born about 1146, at Manorbier, in Pembroke--"the mostdelightful spot in Wales. " His ancestry is interesting. His father wasa Norman noble, holding of Glamorgan, William de Barri by name; hismother was the daughter of another Norman noble, Gerald de Windsor ofPembroke, and the famous Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, the Helen ofWales. He was cousin of the Fitzgeralds who played so important a partin the conquest of Ireland, and connected with Richard Strongbow andthe great house of Clare. He thus "moved in the highest circles, " andlived in an atmosphere of great deeds and great traditions. 

He was from the first marked out by his own inclinations for anecclesiastical career. He tells us that when he and his elder brothersused to play as children on the sands of Manorbier his brothers builtcastles but he always built churches. He received an elementaryeducation from the chaplains of his uncle, the Bishop of St. David's;he seems to have been slow at learning when a child, and his tutorsgoaded him on not by the birch rod, but by sarcasm--by declining"_Stultus_, _stultior_, _stultissimus_. " His higher education was notobtained in Wales, and it is singular that he does not notice anyplace of learning in Wales in all his writings. He studied atGloucester, and then at Paris, the greatest mediæval university. Wehave it on his own authority that he was a model student. "So entirelydevoted was he to study, having in his acts and in his mind, no sortof levity or coarseness, that whenever the Masters of Arts wished toselect a pattern from among the good scholars, they would name Geraldbefore all others. " Later he lectured at Paris on canon law andtheology; his lectures, he tells us, were very popular. He returnedthence in 1172, two years after the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, whoseexample and struggle for the rights of the Church made a deep andlasting impression on him. Gerald soon obtained preferment: he heldthree livings in Pembroke, one in Oxfordshire, and canonries atHereford and St. David's. His energy soon made itself felt. Heexcommunicated the Welshmen and Flemings who would not pay tithes; andthen attacked the sins of the clergy. Most of the Welsh clergy weremarried, contrary to the laws of the Church. Gerald hated a marriedpriest even more than he hated a monk. The Welsh priest, he says, waswont to keep in his house a female (_focaria_) "to light his fire butextinguish his virtue. " "How can such a man practice frugality andself-denial with a house full of brawling brats, and a woman for everextracting money to buy costly robes with long skirts trailing in thedust?" Gerald hated women--the origin of all evil since the worldbegan: observing that in birds of prey the females are stronger thanthe males, he remarks that this signifies "the female sex is moreresolute in all evil than the male. " Among the married clergy heattacked was the Archdeacon of Brecon; and the old man, being forcedto choose between his wife and his archdeaconry, preferred his wife. Gerald was made Archdeacon of Brecon. In later years he had qualms ofconscience about the part he took in this business. 

Between 1180 and 1194 he was often at Court and employed in theking's affairs. Henry II. Selected him as a suitable person toaccompany the young prince John to Ireland in 1185, and the result washis two great works--"The Topography, " and "The Conquest of Ireland, "which are the chief and almost the only authorities for Irish historyin the Middle Ages. The former work he read publicly at Oxford on hisreturn; it was a great occasion: we must tell it in his own words. "When the work was finished, not wishing to hide his candle under abushel, but wishing to place it in a candlestick, so that it mightgive light, he resolved to read it before a vast audience at Oxford, where scholars in England chiefly flourished and excelled inscholarship. And as there were three divisions in the work, and eachdivision occupied a day, the readings lasted three successive days. Onthe first day, he received and entertained at his lodgings all thepoor people of the town; on the second, all the doctors of thedifferent faculties and their best students; and on the third, therest of the students and the chief men of the town. It was a costlyand noble act; and neither present nor past time can furnish anyrecord of such a solemnity having ever taken place in England. "

In 1188 he accompanied the Archbishop of Canterbury in his tourthrough Wales to preach the Third Crusade. With this we shall deallater. 

He was abroad with Henry II. At the time of the old king's death, andhas left a valuable account of his later years in the book "On theInstruction of Princes. " His connection with the Court gave himopportunities for studying the great characters of the time at closequarters, and we have from his pen graphic sketches of many of them. Take this description of Henry II. : "He had a reddish complexion, rather dark, and a large round head. His eyes were gray, bloodshot, and flashed in anger. He had a fiery face; his voice was shaky; he hada deep chest, and long muscular arms, his great round head hangingsomewhat forward. He had an enormous belly--though not from grossfeeding. Indeed he was temperate in all things, for a prince. To keepdown his corpulency, he took immoderate exercise. Even in times ofpeace he took no rest--hunting furiously all day, and on his returnhome in the evening seldom sitting down either before or after supper;for in spite of his own fatigue, he would weary out the Court by beingconstantly on his legs. "

The whole is very interesting and full of life. It occurs in the"Conquest of Ireland, " and is quoted in several of his other works. Gerald's favourite author was Gerald of Barry, Archdeacon of Brecon. 

The next important episode in his life was the struggle for St. David's (1198-1203). It was really a fight for the independence of theWelsh Church from England and its direct dependence on the Pope. Gerald was elected bishop by the canons of St. David's, in oppositionto the will of King John (whose consent was necessary) and of HubertWalter, Archbishop of Canterbury (whose rights as metropolitan wereattacked). Gerald hastened off to Rome to get the Pope's support, taking with him the most precious offering that he could think of--sixof his own books; for Rome had a bad name for bribery--and who couldresist such a bribe? But he found it advisable to supplement his booksby other promises, especially by the offer to the Pope of tithes fromWales. 

The Pope at this time was Innocent III. --the greatest of all thePopes--who brought kings and nations under his feet and held despoticsway over the Universal Church, and stamped out heresy in blood. Inthe references to him in Gerald's works he appears in much more humanguise. We see him after supper unbending and laughing at Gerald'sanecdotes and cracking jokes of a somewhat risky character with thearchdeacon. It is clear that the Pope thoroughly enjoyed theWelshman's company, but also that he did not take him very seriouslyas an ecclesiastical statesman. "Let us have some more stories aboutyour archbishop's bad Latin, " he would say, when Gerald was gettingtoo urgent on the independence of the Welsh Church or his own right tothe see of St. David's. 

This archbishop was Hubert Walter, who was much more of a secularadministrator than an ecclesiastic, and whose Latin though clear andready might show a fine contempt for all rules of grammar. Gerald wasa stickler for correct Latin grammar; he is great on "howlers. " Thereis one of his stories, illustrating both the avarice of the Normanprelates and the ignorance of the Welsh clergy: A Welsh priest came tohis bishop and said, "I have brought your lordship a present of twohundred _oves_. " He meant "_ova_"; but the bishop insisted on thesheep; and the priest probably rubbed up his Latin grammar. Gerald hadalso other patriotic reasons for his hostility to the archbishop, whoas chief justiciary--_i. E. _, chief minister of the king--had recentlyattacked and defeated the Welsh between the Wye and the Severn. "Blessed be God, " writes Gerald sarcastically to him, "who has taughtyour hands to war and your fingers to fight, for since the days whenHarold almost exterminated the nation, no prince has destroyed so manyWelshmen in one battle as your Grace. "

Gerald continued the struggle till 1203, though deserted by the Welshclergy. "The laity of Wales, " he said, "stood by me; but of theclergy whose battle I was fighting, scarce one. " He was proclaimed asa rebel, and had some narrow escapes of imprisonment or worse--escapeswhich he owed to his ready wit and which he delights to tell. At lasthe gave way, and during the remainder of his life we find him at Rome, Lincoln, St. David's, revising his works and writing new ones, modifying some of his judgments (especially that on Hubert Walter), and encouraging Stephen Langton in the great struggle against John. Hewas buried at St. David's, probably in 1223. 

We will now return to the "Itinerary through Wales" and the"Description of Wales. " Jerusalem was taken by Saladin in 1187, andthe Third Crusade--the Crusade of Richard Coeur de Lion--was preachedthroughout Europe. In 1188 Archbishop Baldwin made a preaching tourthrough Wales accompanied by Glanville, the great justiciary of HenryII. , and Gerald of Barry. While the primary object was the preachingof the Crusade, the king had an eye to business and saw that the HolyCause could be utilised for other purposes; it gave an opportunity forthe assertion of the metropolitan rights of Canterbury over the WelshChurch, and for a survey of the country by the royal officials, whichwas not possible under other circumstances. That is why the archbishopand the justiciar accompanied the expedition. It is remarkable thatGerald, the champion of the Welsh Church, should have given hissupport to it; but he had not fully adopted the patriotic attitude ofhis later years; and, with him as with most people of the time, therescue of the Holy Sepulchre was, in theory at any rate, the greatestobject in the world; while further, we must not forget that thejourney had many attractions for him as an author; it gave him "copy"for a new book, and the chance of reading his Irish Topography to thearchbishop. Every day during the journey the archbishop listened to aportion of this book, and at the end took it home to finish. As thejourney lasted at least fifty days, one may calculate that it took atmost an average of three pages a day to send the archbishop to sleep. 

The Itinerary (which was later dedicated to Stephen Langton) containsin the author's words an account of "the difficult places throughwhich we passed, the names of springs and torrents, the witty sayings, the toils and incidents of the journey, the memorable events ofancient and modern times, and the natural history and description ofthe country. "

The route pursued was as follows: From Hereford to Radnor, Brecon, Abergavenny, Caerleon, Newport, Cardiff, Llandaff, Ewenny, Margam, Swansea, Kidweli, Carmarthen, Haverford, St. David's, Cardigan, StrataFlorida, thence keeping close to the coast, through Bangor andChester; and then south by Oswestry, Shrewsbury, Ludlow, to Hereford. 

The travellers were well received and entertained both by the LordsMarcher and the Welsh princes. It was especially to the Welsh thattheir attention was directed, and Welsh princes accompanied themthrough their territories. The chief was Rhys ap Gruffydd (Gerald'suncle), prince of South Wales, who was then at the height of hispower, and had been made chief justice of South Wales by Henry II. , towhom he faithfully adhered. Gwynedd and Powys were then divided amongseveral heirs. One of the princes of Powys, Owain Cyfeiliog, the poet, was distinguished as being the only prince who did not come to meetthe archbishop with his people; for which he was excommunicated. Gerald notes that he was an adherent of Henry II. , and was"conspicuous for the good management of his territory. " Perhaps thatis why he would not have anything to do with the Crusade. 

How far was the expedition successful in its primary object in gainingcrusaders? The archbishop and justiciar had already taken the cross;they remained true to their vows and went to the Holy Land, thearchbishop dying at the siege of Acre, heartbroken at the wickednessof the army. Gerald himself was the first to take the cross in Wales, not acting under the influence of religious enthusiasm, but (as hesays himself) "impelled by the urgent requests and promises of theking and persuasions of the archbishop, " who wanted him to act ashistorian; but Gerald, after setting the example, bought adispensation and did not go. A number of the lesser Welsh princes soontook the cross. The Lord Rhys himself was eager to do so, but "hiswife by female artifices diverted him wholly from his noble purpose. "The wives were all dead against the whole affair. At Hay the wivescaught hold of their husbands, and the would-be Crusaders hadliterally to run away from them to the castle, leaving their cloaksbehind them. A nobler spirit of self-sacrifice was shown by the oldwoman of Cardigan, who, when her only son took the cross, said: "Omost beloved Lord Jesus Christ, I give Thee hearty thanks for havingconferred on me the blessing of bringing forth a son worthy of Thyservice. " This son was probably worth more than the twelve archers ofthe castle of St. Clears who were forcibly signed with the cross forcommitting a murder; and one may reasonably look with suspicion on thesudden conversion of "many of the most notorious murderers and robbersof the neighbourhood" at Usk. It was this kind of thing that turnedthe Holy Land into a sort of convict settlement. 

The preachers clearly worked hard and had some trying experiences, andkept up their spirits by little jokes, which Gerald retails. Theynearly came to grief in quicksands at the mouth of the river Neath. "Terrible hard country this, " said one of the monks next day in thecastle at Swansea. "Some people are never satisfied, " retorted hiscompanion; "you were complaining of its being too soft in thequicksand yesterday. " The mountains were trying to men no longer intheir youth; after toiling up one the archbishop sank exhausted on afallen tree and said to his panting companions, "Can any one enliventhe company by whistling a tune?" "Which, " adds Gerald, "is not veryeasily done by people out of breath. " From whistling the conversationpassed to nightingales, which some one said were never found in Wales. "Wise bird, the nightingale, " remarked the archbishop. 

One serious difficulty they had was that none of them, not evenGerald, knew Welsh sufficiently well to preach in it, though theygenerally had interpreters. The archbishop, who would sometimes preachaway for hours without result, felt this much more than Gerald. Hedeclares he moved crowds to tears though they did not understand aword of what he was saying. But one may take the words of PrinceRhys's fool as evidence (if any were needed) that ignorance of Welshweakened the effect. "You owe a great debt, Rhys, to your kinsman thearchdeacon, who has taken a hundred or so of your men to serve theLord; if he had only spoken in Welsh, you wouldn't have had a soulleft. "

In all about three thousand took the cross; but the Crusade wasdelayed, zeal cooled, and it is probable that comparatively few went. The _Itinerarium Regis Ricardi_ mentions, I think, only one exploit bya Welshman in the Third Crusade; he was an archer, and so a SouthWalian. 

This brings me to one of the incidental notes of great value scatteredabout the Itinerary. Speaking of the siege of Abergavenny (1182), Gerald tells us that the men of Gwent and Glamorgan excelled allothers in the use of the bow, and gives curious evidence of thestrength of their shooting. Thus the arrows pierced an oak door fourinches thick; they had been left there as a curiosity, and Gerald sawthem with their iron points coming through on the inner side. Hedescribes these bows as "made of elm--ugly, unfinished-lookingweapons, but astonishingly stiff, large, and strong, and equallyuseful for long and short shooting. " Add to this that the longbow wasnot a characteristic English weapon till the latter part of thethirteenth century, that the first battle in which an English kingmade effective use of archery (at Falkirk, 1298), his infantryconsisted mainly of Welshmen; and there can be little doubt that thefamous longbow of England, which won the victories of Creçy andPoitiers and Agincourt, and indirectly did much to destroy feudalismand villenage, had its home in South Wales. 

Gerald was also a keen observer of nature, and his knowledge of theways of animals is extensive and peculiar. Perhaps even more markedis his love of the supernatural; he could believe anything, if it wasonly wonderful enough--except Geoffrey of Monmouth's History. But Imust confine myself to one story--the story of the boy in Gower who(as the root of learning is bitter) played truant and found two littlemen of pigmy stature, and went with them to their country under theearth, and played games with golden balls with the fairy prince. Theselittle folk were very small--of fair complexion, and long luxurianthair; and they had horses and dogs to suit their size. They hatednothing so much as lies; "they had no form of public worship, beinglovers and reverers, it seemed, of truth. " The boy often went, till hetried to steal a golden ball, and then he could never find fairylandagain. But he learnt some of the fairy language, which was like Greek. And then Gerald compares words in different languages, and notes how, for instance, the same word for _salt_ runs through Greek and Britishand Irish and Latin and French and English and German, and the fairylanguage, which suggests a close relation between all these peoplesin past ages. It is very modern; and it is not without reason thatGerald has been called "the father of comparative philology. "

In his "Description of Wales" Gerald describes the manner of life andcharacteristics of the people. All are trained to arms, and when thetrumpet sounds the alarm, the husbandman rushes as eagerly from hisplough as the courtier from his court. Agricultural work takes uplittle of their time, as they are still mainly in a pastoral stage, living on the produce of their herds, and eating more meat than bread. They fight and undergo hardships and willingly sacrifice their livesfor their country and for liberty. They wear little defensive armour, and depend mainly on their mobility; they are not much good at a closeengagement, but generally victors in a running fight, relying more ontheir activity than on their strength. 

It was the fashion to keep open house for all comers. "Those whoarrive in the morning are entertained till evening with theconversation of young women and the music of the harp; for each househas its young women and harps allotted for the purpose. In eachfamily the art of playing on the harp is held preferable to any otherlearning; and no nation is so free from jealousy as the Welsh. " Aftera simple supper (for the people are not addicted to gluttony ordrunkenness), "a bed of rushes is placed along the side of the hall, and all in common lie down to sleep with their feet towards the fire. They sleep in the thin cloak and tunic they wear by day. They receivemuch comfort from the natural heat of the persons lying near them; butwhen the underside begins to be tired with the hardness of the bed, orthe upper one to suffer from the cold, they get up and go to the fire;and then returning to the couch they expose their sides alternately tothe cold and to the hardness of the bed. "

Gifted with an acute and rich intellect they excel in whatever studiesthey pursue, notably in music. They are especially famous for theirpart-singing, "so that in a company of singers, which one very oftenmeets with in Wales, you will hear as many different parts and voicesas there are performers, "(!) and this gift has by long habit becomenatural to the nation. 

"They show a greater respect than other nations to churches andecclesiastics, to the relics of saints, bells, holy books, and thecross; and hence their churches enjoy more than common tranquillity. "

He then goes on to the other side of the picture: "for history withouttruth becomes undeserving of its name. " "These people are no lesslight in mind than in body, and by no means to be relied on. They areeasily urged to undertake any action, and as easily checked fromprosecuting it. .. . They never scruple at taking a false oath for thesake of any temporary advantage. .. . Above all other peoples they aregiven to removing their neighbours' landmarks. Hence arise quarrels, murders, conflagrations, and frequent fratricides. It is remarkablethat brothers show more affection to each other when dead than whenliving; for they persecute the living even unto death, but avenge thedead with all their power. "

Finally, as a scientific observer of politics, he discusses how Walesmay be conquered and governed, and how the Welsh may resist. 

A prince who would subdue this people must give his whole energies tothe task for at least a whole year. He must divide their strength, andby bribes and promises endeavour to stir up one against the other, knowing the spirit of hatred and envy which generally prevails amongthem. He must cut off supplies, build castles, and use light-armedtroops and plenty of them; for though many English mercenaries perishin a battle, money will procure as many more; but to the Welsh theloss is for the time irreparable. He recommends that all the Englishinhabitants of the Marches should be trained to arms; for the Welshfight for liberty and only a free people can subdue them. His adviceto the Welsh is: Unite. "If they would be inseparable, they would beinsuperable, being assisted by these three circumstances--a countrywell defended by nature, a people contented to live upon little, acommunity whose nobles and commoners alike are trained in the use ofarms; and especially as the English fight for power, the Welsh forliberty; the English hirelings for money, the Welsh patriots for theircountry. "

I hope I may persuade some who do not yet know Gerald to make hisacquaintance, and to read either his works on Ireland and Wales, translated in Bohn's library, or Mr. Henry Owen's brilliant anddelightful volume, "Gerald the Welshman, " my indebtedness to which Iwish to acknowledge. Gerald tells us many miracles; but he has himselfperformed a miracle as wonderful as any he relates; he has kept allthe charm and freshness of youth for more than seven hundred years. 

[Illustration: CASTLES & RELIGIOUS HOUSES. (12th & 13th Centuries)]

IV

CASTLES

Wales is pre-eminently the land of castles. There are between thirtyand forty in Glamorgan alone. The accompanying map, though it is by nomeans exhaustive, shows the general lie of the castles, which may bedivided into three groups, having as their respective bases Chester, Shrewsbury, and Gloucester. But though there is some evidence of anorganised plan for the conquest of Wales in the time of William Rufus, it is useless to look for any great and general system of offence ordefence, because most of the castles were not built by a centralisedgovernment with any such object in view, but by individuals to guardtheir own territories and protect their independence against eithertheir neighbours or the English king. The great age of castle-buildingwas between 1100 and 1300. Castles play a very small part in thefighting in Wales till the end of the eleventh century. Before thattime indeed there were few stone castles anywhere; the usual type, evenof the early Norman castles, was a moated mound surrounded by woodenpalisades. One hears for instance of a castle being built by Williamthe Conqueror in eight days. An example of this early type of fortresswas Pembroke Castle at the end of the eleventh century, "a slenderfortress of stakes and turf, " which had the good fortune to be incharge of Gerald of Windsor, grandfather of Giraldus Cambrensis. Itstood several sieges, which shows that the siege engines of the Welshwere of a very poor and primitive type. One of these sieges was turnedinto a blockade, and the garrison was nearly reduced by starvation. Theconstable had recourse to a time-honoured ruse. "With great prudence hecaused four hogs which still remained to be cut into small pieces andthrown down among the enemy. The next day he had recourse to a morerefined stratagem: he contrived that a letter from him should fallinto the hands of the enemy stating that there was no need forassistance for the next four months. " The besiegers were taken in anddispersed to their homes. 

The characteristic types of castles in the twelfth century were therectangular keep and the shell keep; in the thirteenth the concentriccastle. Of the two last we have splendid examples in Cardiff andCaerphilly. Of rectangular keeps there are very few in Wales--Chepstowis the only important one--though there are several on the borders, notably Ludlow. The square keep seems to us most characteristic ofNorman military architecture; the Tower of London, Rochester, Newcastle, Castle Rising, are well-known examples, and there are manymore in a good state of preservation; there are many more solid squarekeeps than shell keeps well preserved, but this is simply due to thegreater solidity of the former; the shell keeps were far more numerousin the twelfth century; and the reasons for this are obvious--therectangular keep was much more expensive to build, and it was tooheavy to erect on the artificial mounds on which the Normanarchitects generally founded their castles. 

The keep of Cardiff Castle is one of the most perfect shell keeps inexistence. It is built on a round artificial mound, surrounded by awide and deep moat--the mound and moat being, of course, complementsof each other. Such mounds and moats are common in all parts ofEngland, and in Normandy. They are not Roman, nor British, nor arethey, as Mr. G. T. Clark maintained, characteristic of Anglo-Saxonwork. They are essentially Norman, and a good representation of themaking of such a mound may be seen in the Bayeux Tapestry, under theheading--'He orders them to dig a castle. ' When was the Cardiff moundmade? Perhaps the short entry in the Brut gives the answer: "1080, thebuilding of Cardiff began. " It would then be surrounded by woodenpalisades, and surmounted by a timber structure, as a newly made moundwould not stand the masonry. The shell keep was probably built byRobert of Gloucester, and it was probably in the gate-house of thiskeep, that Robert of Normandy was imprisoned. A shell keep was a ringwall eight or ten feet thick, about thirty feet high, not covered in, and enclosing an open courtyard, round which were placed thebuildings--light structures, often wooden sheds, abutting on the ringwall--such as one may see now in the courtyard of Castell Coch. Theshell keep was the centre of Robert's castle, but not the whole. Fromthis time dated the great outer walls on the south and west--wallsforty feet high and ten feet thick and solid throughout. The north andeast and part of the south sides of the castle precincts are enclosedby banks of earth, beneath which, the walls of a Roman camp haverecently been discovered. These banks were capped by a slightembattled wall. Outside along the north, south and east fronts was amoat, formerly fed by the Taff through the Mill leat stream which ranalong the west front. The present lodgings, or habitable part of thecastle built on either side of the great west wall, date mostly fromthe fifteenth century. The earlier lodgings were, perhaps, on the samesite--though only inside the wall; a great lord did not as a rulelive in the keep, except in times of danger. 

The area of the enclosure is about ten acres--more suited to a Romangarrison than to a lord marcher of the twelfth century. That thecastle was difficult to guard is shown by the success of Ivor Bach'sbold dash, _c. _ 1153-1158. Ivor ap Meyric was Lord of Senghenydd, holding it of William of Gloucester, the Lord of Glamorgan, and, perhaps, had his headquarters in the fortress above the presentCastell Coch. "He was, " says Giraldus Cambrensis, "after the manner ofthe Welsh, owner of a tract of mountain land, of which the earl wastrying to deprive him. At that time the Castle of Cardiff wassurrounded with high walls, guarded by 120 men at arms, a numerousbody of archers and a strong watch. Yet in defiance of all this, Ivor, in the dead of night secretly scaled the walls, seized the earl andcountess and their only son, and carried them off to the woods; anddid not release them till he had recovered all that had been unjustlytaken from him, " and a goodly ransom in addition. Perhaps the mostpermanent result of this episode was the building of a wall 30 feethigh between the keep and the Black Tower--dividing the castleenclosure into two parts and forming an inner or middle ward of lessextent, and less liable to danger from such sudden raids. 

Cardiff Castle was much more than a place of defence; it was the seatof government. The bailiff of the Castle was _ex officio_ mayor of thetown in the Middle Ages. The Castle was also the head and centre ofthe Lordship of Glamorgan. This was divided into two parts--the shirefee or body, and the members. The shire fee was the southern part;under a sheriff appointed by the chief Lord: the chief landowners owedsuit and service--_i. E. _, they attended and were under thejurisdiction of the shire court held monthly in the castle enclosure, and each owed a fixed amount of military service--especially the dutyof "castle-guard"--supplying the garrison and keeping the castle inrepair. There are indications of the work of the shire court in someof the castle accounts published in the Cardiff Records, _e. G. _, in1316, an official accounts for 1d. , the price of "a cord bought forthe hanging of thieves adjudged in the county court: stipend of oneman hanging those thieves 4d. " The "members" consisted of tenlordships (several of which were in the hands of Welsh nobles): thesewere much more independent; each had its own court (with powers oflife and death), from which an appeal lay to the Lord's court atCardiff: generally they owed no definite service to the Lord (excepthomage, and sometimes a heriot at death), but on failure of heirs theestate lapsed to the chief Lord. At Cardiff Castle the Lord had hischancery, like the royal chancery on a small scale--issuing writs, recording services and grants of privileges, and legal decisions:practically the whole of these records have been lost--and ourknowledge of the organisation of the Lordship is mainly derived fromthe royal records at times, when owing to minority or escheat, theLordship was under royal administration. The Lord of Glamorgan owedhomage, but no service to the king; and (though this was sometimesdisputed by his tenants and the royal lawyers), no appeal lay from hiscourts to the king's court. The machinery of government was probablymore complete and elaborate in Glamorgan than in any other MarcherLordship. 

Caerphilly Castle had not the political importance of Cardiff, but farsurpasses it as a fortress. By the strength and position ofCaerphilly, one may measure the power of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd afterthe Barons' War and before the accession of Edward I. The Prince ofWales had extended his sway down as far as Brecon, and Welshmeneverywhere were looking to him as the restorer of their country'sindependence. Among them was the Welsh Lord of Senghenydd, one of thechief "members" of Glamorgan, and his overlord probably saw reason tosuspect his loyalty. An alliance between him and Llywelyn would openthe lower Taff Valley to the Welsh prince and give him command of thehill country north of Cardiff. It was on the lands of the lord ofSenghenydd that Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, built CastellCoch and Caerphilly. 

[Illustration: CARDIFF CASTLE. (12th Century)]

[Illustration: CAERPHILLY CASTLE. (13th Century)]

Caerphilly is described by the latest historian of the Art of War asthe grandest specimen of its class; it represents the high-water markof mediæval military architecture in this country, and was the modelof Edward I. 's great castles in the north. It illustrates theinfluence of the Crusades on Western Europe, being an instance of the"concentric" system of defences, of which the walls of Constantinopleafford the most magnificent example, and which the Crusaders adoptedin many of their great fortresses in the East. 

Caerphilly Castle consists of three lines of defences, and the way inwhich these supplement each other shows that the work in allessentials was designed as a great whole; it did not grow up bit bybit. There are of course many evidences of alterations and rebuildingat later times; the buildings in the middle ward, on the south side, seem to be later additions; the hall appears to have been enlarged, and the tracery of the windows suggests the fourteenth century; thestate-rooms to the west of the hall have been much altered; but suchalterations as appear are confined to the habitable part of thecastle, and do not affect it as a military work. It has been suggestedthat the castle may have been greatly enlarged in the latter years ofEdward II. , when it played an important part in connection with thedivision of the Gloucester inheritance and the younger Despenser'sambitions. There are a number of notices of the castle in thechronicles and public records of that time, but apparently noreferences to any building operations. And the unity of plan isevidence that the whole dated from the same time. 

The castle is built on a tongue of gravel nearly surrounded by low, marshy land, forming a sort of peninsula; a stream on the southrunning eastwards to the Rhymny; and two springs on the north. Bydamming these waters and cutting through the tongue of gravel anartificial island was secured for the site of the castle. The innerward, or central part of the castle, consists of a quadrangle with alarge round tower at each corner: in the centre of the east and westside are massive gate-houses defended by portcullises; from theprojecting corner towers all the intervening wall was commanded. Thegateways communicate with the second line of defence or middle ward. This completely encircles the inner ward, on a much lower level; it isa narrow space bounded by a wall, with low, semi-circular bastions atthe corners; it is commanded at every point from the inner ward; thenarrowness of the space would prevent the concentration of largebodies of assailants or the use of battering-rams, and communicationis at several points stopped by walls or buildings jutting out fromthe inner ward. The middle ward had strong gate-houses at the east andwest ends, and was completely surrounded by water--east and west by amoat, north and south the moat widens into lakes: note how on thenorth a narrow ridge of gravel has been used to ensure a water moat onthat side, in case there was not enough water to flood the whole lake. These lakes form part of the third line of defence or outer ward, which includes also on the west the "horn-work" and on the east thegrand front. The horn-work is about three acres in extent, surroundedby a wall 15 feet high, which is of the nature of an escarpment, theground rising above it. It is entirely surrounded by a moat, andconnected with the middle ward on one side and the mainland on theother by drawbridges. It would probably be used for grazing purposes, and thus would be of great value to the garrison; but so far as theactual defences of the castle are concerned, a lake would have beenmuch more effective; the nature of the ground would however haveprevented this. The horn-work was intended to cover the only side uponwhich the castle was open to an attack from level ground, and tooccupy what would otherwise have been a dangerous platform. 

The eastern side of the outer ward--the grand front--is a mostimposing structure. It is a wall about 250 yards long, and in someparts 60 feet high, furnished with buttresses and projecting towersfrom which the intervening spaces are easily commanded, culminatingin the great gate-house near the centre, and terminating at both endsin clusters of towers which protect the sally-ports. On the outside isa moat spanned by a double drawbridge. The northern part of thisfront, which was probably occupied by stables, would in dry weather bethe least defensible part of the castle; but it was cut off from therest by an embattled wall running from the gate-house to the innermoat and pierced only by one small and portcullised gate. The southernhalf was more important and stronger. It crossed the stream at thedam, the walls being 15 feet thick where subjected to the pressure ofthe water, and the strong group of towers at the end--on the otherside of the stream--guarded the dam on which the safety of the castlelargely depended; the wall and towers here form a semicircle, curvingback into the edge of the lake, so as to avoid the danger of beingoutflanked. 

On the inside of the grand front were various buildings, such as themill. This eastern line was divided from the middle ward by a moat 45feet wide--a space which is too wide to be spanned by a singledrawbridge, and as there are no signs of the foundations of a centralpier, it seems probable that the bridge rested on a wooden support, which could be removed when necessary, and the assailants plunged intothe moat below. 

There are a large number of interesting details connected with boththe military functions of the castle and its domestic economy. Therewere at least four exits (not counting the two water-gates); thiswould give the garrison opportunities of harassing assailants bysallies, and would make a much larger army necessary in order toblockade the castle; contrast the single narrow entrance to the Normankeep--high up in the wall and visible to all outside. The water-gatesare worth studying, especially the methods of protecting the easternwater-gate--two grates with a shoot above and between them. One shouldnotice, too, the "splaying" of the outer wall, by which missiles fromthe top would be projected outwards; and also the use of themill-stream to carry away the refuse of the garderobe tower. And thereare many other points, to which one would like to call attention, iftime allowed. 

The history of Caerphilly in the Middle Ages need not detain us long. It was besieged by Llywelyn in 1271, while it was being built. Llywelyn declared he could have taken it in three days if he had notbeen persuaded to submit the dispute to the arbitration of the king. It is clear that the castle was not finished; shortly after thisGilbert de Clare obtained license from the king to "enditch" thecastle: such license was not, as a rule, required in the Marches (asit was in England) and was only necessary now because the king wasacting as arbitrator. The Earl of Gloucester kept possession. We nexthear of it in 1315, when it resisted the attack of Llywelyn Bren. Itwas then in the hands of the king, pending the division of theGloucester inheritance among the three co-heiresses. In 1318Caerphilly, with the rest of Glamorgan, was granted to the youngerDespenser, who perhaps enlarged the hall and made the otheralterations referred to above. Edward II. Was there for a few dayswhen flying for his life; had he trusted to Caerphilly, instead offleeing further through South Wales, he might have saved his head andhis crown; at any rate, there would have been a great siege to add tothe history of mediæval warfare. The king's adherents held out inCaerphilly for months, and only surrendered when, the king being dead, there was nothing more to fight for, and they were allowed to go free. Happy is the castle which has no history. The perfection of Caerphillyas a fortress saved it from serious attacks. 

In conclusion, I will give two illustrations of the relations betweenthe garrison of a castle and those outside. The first refers toSwansea. There is a curious Charter of King John to the good men ofSwansea, in which he releases them from the "custom of eating" forcedon them by the men of the castle. This would be a solid variation ofthe liquid scot-ales or free drinks which officials and garrisons werein the habit of exacting from their neighbours, and which were amongthe most persistent grievances in the Middle Ages. 

The second concerns Builth, and is taken from the Patent Rolls ofEdward II. In 1315. Builth was then in the hands of the king, to whomthe townsfolk appeal for redress of grievances. The community complainthat, though they are only bound to carry timber to the castle twice aweek, they are often forced to carry it three times a week and more, and victuals too; and the men of the castle compel them to ploughtheir lands and cut their corn, and hold them to ransom if theyrefuse; and they carry away from the houses of the said complainantsdivers kind of victuals--lambs, geese, hens, &c. --and pay only onequarter of their value, or nothing at all; and though the complainantsgave the keeper of the castle £120 that they might be free from suchoppressions, he took the money and oppresses them just the same. Further, the courts which the people have to attend are multiplied;and recently the court was held at a time when so great a flood hadhappened that neither horsemen nor footmen could approach the court, and so thirty-six men and women, fearing the cruelty of the bailiffs, entered a boat and were overwhelmed in the rush of the river. And onenight men of the castle, maliciously seeking occasion against thecommonalty of the town, went out of the castle and pretended tobesiege it and shot arrows at it; and then secretly re-entered thecastle and declared the townsfolk had been attacking the castle. Andon this account many burgesses were imprisoned in the castle andill-treated, and their swine maliciously killed. And things are sointolerable that many of the greater burgesses have left the country, and the residue, without speedy remedy, cannot remain. 

Life was evidently dull in a castle: one had to play practical jokesto relieve the monotony; and life was anything but pleasant outside acastle. The castles of Wales are much more attractive to us to-daythan they were to those who lived in them or round them six or sevenhundred years ago. 

V

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

In speaking of the Religious Houses in Wales I shall deal with thosewhich flourished in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries--the periodwe have hitherto been studying--though it is tempting to go back tothe glories of the old Welsh monasteries of the sixth century, such asLlantwit Major and Bangor Iscoed, whose dim memories must alwaysexercise a strong fascination. The monasteries of this early type hadfallen on evil days in Wales, as in Ireland and elsewhere, before thetwelfth century, many had been wiped out by the Danes; and those thatremained seem to have lost the spirit of life (save in a few distantislands or inaccessible mountains), and made no struggle for existenceagainst the vigorous invasion of the new monasticism. 

We shall be concerned with two kinds of religious houses--namely, thehouses of monks and the houses of friars. And, first, let us consider inbriefest outline the main course of development of the religious ordersin the Roman Church. The Rule of St. Benedict (+541) was adopted by allmonks: the essential features of it were prayer, labour, silence, acommon life and common property. But among the early Benedictines eachmonastery was independent and self-governing, though an abbey might havepriories in some measure connected with it. The result was that in thecourse of time the discipline and life of monasteries varied infinitely;and there was no co-operation for self-defence among the variousmonasteries. Hence in the tenth century arose the Cluniac order--thefirst attempt at organisation--the Abbot of Clugny became head of a vastnumber of monasteries in different countries of Europe; the priors ofthese owed allegiance to the Abbot of Clugny, were appointed by him, andpaid revenues to the head abbey and the general fund of the Order. Thisorganisation was thus monarchical--despotic; the Abbot of Clugny was apope of monasticism. The movement acquired enormous influence on theChurch as a whole, getting control of the papacy, insisting that theChurch should be independent of the State, and that celibacy of theclergy should be practically enforced. But the Cluniacs instead ofwithdrawing from the world began to dominate it, losing many of theessential features of monasticism. Hence another reform movement aroseabout 1100, that of the Cistercian Order, which is associated with thename of St. Bernard. This aimed at reviving the Benedictine rule in allits strictness, insisting especially on manual labour. Cistercian houseswere founded in desolate places, as far removed from populous centres aspossible. But the Order differed from the early Benedictines inorganisation. Each Cistercian house was independent and self-governing, electing its own abbot; but all the abbots were bound to come togetherat stated times for general assemblies or chapters, and these generalassemblies were the supreme governing body in the Order. Thus unity wasestablished; the organisation was close, but not monarchical; the Orderwas a great federation. This is the highest point reached in monasticdevelopment. 

But about the time of the Crusades another ideal made itself felt. Hitherto the religious man withdrew from the world: but, as an oldchronicler put it, "God found out the Crusades as a way to reconcilereligion and the world"--was it not possible to serve God _in_ theworld? The knight did it; he went on fighting, but he fought for theHoly Sepulchre. The Military Orders (Templars and Hospitallers)combined the life of a monk with the life of a soldier. The Regular orAugustinian Canons combined the life of a monk with the life of aparish priest. And this ideal--new to the Middle Ages--received itshighest realisation in the Dominican and Franciscan friars. The monkleft the world in order to become religious; the friar aimed at makingthe world religious. The monk's main object was to save his own soul;the friar's, to save the souls of others. 

We will now turn to the monasteries in Wales. Of the olderBenedictine houses there were about fifteen, almost all in SouthWales, and all except one were not abbeys but priories, or cells, _i. E. _, they were dependent on some abbey elsewhere. A number of thembelonged to some foreign abbey, especially the earliest. This was thecase with the Priory of Monmouth, founded by the Breton Wihenoc, whichbelonged to the Abbey of St. Florence of Saumur (Anjou); and this wasthe case too with the priories of Abergavenny and Pembroke. These"alien priories" were simply used by the abbeys abroad as sources ofrevenue; they were foreign, unpopular, and during the French war inthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries most of them were suppressedand their revenues appropriated by the Crown. The same applies to thethree Cluniac cells established in Wales, such as St. Clears, whichseems only to have contained the prior and one monk, who did not livewith much strictness, though Gerald of Barry says the Cluniacs herewere better than they were abroad, and not nearly so bad as theCistercians. The life of monks in these outlying cells, where theywere not under any supervision, and where there was no "publicopinion" of the monastery to keep them straight, was generally verylax; they lived liked laymen, looking after the estates (generallywasting them), and without much regard to their vows: "they lived likebeasts, " says Gerald. Thus the Lord Rhys had to eject the monks fromone cell, because of the charges brought against them by the fathersand husbands of the surrounding district, who declared that they wouldleave and go to England if the evil was not stopped. 

Another class of houses were those founded as priories or cells ofEnglish abbeys. Thus the Priory at Brecon was a cell of Battle Abbey, founded by Bernard of Newmarch, and largely endowed by the Braoses;Ewenny, founded by Maurice de Londres, was a cell to St. Peter's, Gloucester. All these of course, like the alien priories, were foundedby the Norman conquerors, and for two purposes: Firstly, for the soulsof the founder and his family, a very necessary provision; the Normanswere in their way a devout people and made sacrifices to win thefavour of heaven. William de Braose used to give his clerks "somethingextra" for inserting pious expressions in his legal documents. Secondly, these houses also served as castles and stations forgarrisons. Take, for instance, Ewenny; it is much more like a castlethan a religious house, with its great embattled walls and towers, andmagnificent gate-house furnished with a triple portcullis and"shoots, " or holes in the roof above for pouring molten lead on theassailants' heads. The De Londres family were businesslike as well aspious; Ewenny's prime object was to help them to gain heaven, it alsohelped them to gain the earth. The close and constant connection whichthese houses maintained with their mother abbeys in England and abroadalways kept them Anglo-Norman in sympathies--foreign garrisons. Butwhile recognising this aspect of the monastic houses in Wales, onemust avoid exaggerating it, as, _e. G. _, Mr. Willis Bund does. Heregards all the monasteries as founded solely with this politicalobject: "to represent, " he says, "a Welsh prince as founder of areligious house in South Wales after 1066 is representing him as theworst of traitors. Bad as the Welsh chieftains were, even they wouldhave hesitated to introduce into their country what were really Normangarrisons;" and he rejects the idea of a Welsh prince founding StrataFlorida. Now these remarks are only applicable to those religioushouses which were dependencies on some English or foreign abbey; theydo not apply to the Cistercian monasteries, all of which werepractically equal and self-governing; each elected its own head andwas not under foreign dictation. While the whole Cistercian Orderformed an united body for purposes of monastic life and discipline, each abbey identified itself in a very remarkable way with the localor national aspirations of the people round, from whom its monks weredrawn. Some of the Cistercian monasteries in Ireland refused to admitany Englishman. Some of the Cistercian abbeys in Wales were thewarmest supporters of Welsh independence. 

The Welsh princes felt the need of providing for the safety of theirsouls just as the Norman barons did, and the souls of both partiesneeded a great deal of saving. Further, the Welsh were not cut offfrom the great movements of the world; they felt like every othercountry in Europe the waves of religious enthusiasm, which resulted inthe twelfth century in the spread of the Cistercians, in thethirteenth century in the spread of the friars. In the twelfth centurythe acts most pleasing to God were generally thought to be taking theCross and endowing a Cistercian monastery. Again, though many of theWelsh chiefs were mere creatures of impulse, there were others wholooked to the future. The Lord Rhys was an acute man of the world, whowas not averse to improving his property. He possessed great tracts ofmountain land, which was practically worthless; he saw Cistercianmonks elsewhere, not exactly making such tracts blossom like the rose, but, at any rate, utilising them for pasture land, keeping flocks ofsheep, becoming the great wool-growers for all Europe; why should henot hand over his worthless property to Cistercians, and by so doinglay up for himself treasure in heaven and on earth? Mr. Willis Bundsays, "How unnatural for any Welsh prince to found a Cistercianabbey!" Surely it was the most natural thing in the world. 

The Cistercians had far greater influence in Wales than any othermonastic order. The Cistercian abbeys were Aberconway, Basingwerk, Valle Crucis, Strata Marcella, Cymer, Strata Florida, Cwm Hir, Whitland, Neath, Margam, Llantarnam, Tintern, Grace Dieu, Dore. Wehave in Gerald a very unfavourable and prejudiced witness on theCistercians. He tells with pious horror and human satisfaction thestory of the abbot of Strata Marcella, who was a great founder ofnunneries, and at length eloped with a nun (he soon repented and cameback to his abbey, preferring the bread and water of affliction to thenun). Gerald had a personal grudge against the Cistercians; wanting toraise money he had pawned his library to the monks of Strata Florida, and when he tried to redeem the books they declared they had boughtthem, and would not give them up. 

The Cistercians certainly drove hard bargains, and insisted on theirrights to the uttermost farthing. In reading the history of any ofthese Cistercian houses--the history, say, of Margam by Mr. TriceMartin--one's first feeling is one of disappointment: it is nearly allabout property. When one looks through to find evidences of spiritualinfluence one finds instead prosecutions for poaching. Did they haveschools and teach the youth of the country round? I have found noevidence of it. Why should they? Monks never professed to be learnedmen or to be teachers. Many were both, but it was a disputed questionwhether they were not in this contravening their rule. At any rate, itwas going outside their duty. Their business was to serve God--toperform divine services--and in the intervals to keep out of mischiefby manual labour, and to perform works of charity. Margam wasspecially famous for this last. 

Margam Abbey was founded by Robert of Gloucester, in 1147, and thebrother of St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, the most important man inEurope in his time, came over to arrange about the establishment ofthe house. It was endowed with lands by both English and Welsh, suchas the Earl of Gloucester and the Lord of Senghenydd. WilliamMarshall, Earl of Pembroke, granted the monks freedom from toll in allhis boroughs in Wales and Ireland. The Braoses gave them the privilegeof "buying and selling freely all manner of merchandise without toll"in Gower, and they had the right to all wrecks along the coast nearKenfig. We find the abbot asserting his fishing rights sometimes byexcommunicating poachers, sometimes by the more effective method ofhaling them before the Shire Court at Cardiff and getting them fined3d. A head. The monks of Margam obtained also a footing in Bristolthrough the Earls of Gloucester, a great commercial advantage to themfor the sale of their wool both in England and abroad. 

Their lands and privileges were not always, of course, free gifts. Thus in the twelfth century Gilbert Burdin grants land to Margam, andin return the abbot gives 20s. To the grantor, a gold coin to hiswife, and red shoes to each of his children. In 1325 John Nichol, ofKenfig, gave his property to the abbey in return for a life annuity. He was to receive daily one loaf, two cakes, and a gallon of beer;also 6s. 8d. For wages, four pairs of shoes (price 12d. ), a quarter ofoats, and pasture for two beasts. 

The annual revenue of Margam was returned as 500 marks in 1383, butbefore that time the abbey had suffered severely from inundations, seaand sand covering whole villages and much of the best property of thehouse; and the finances were in a bad way. These were improved bygrants of the tithes of parish churches--a favourite form of gift to amonastery, but a great scandal. The rectorial tithes were paid to amonastery, while the monks at best put in some under-paid vicar tolook after the parish. Generally, wherever there is a vicar instead ofa rector in England or Wales the explanation is the appropriation ofthe tithes by a monastery. 

What did Margam do with its income? The first charge was the supportof about forty monks and forty lay brethren. Next there were theconstruction and keeping in repair of the church and other monasticbuildings; and, thirdly, the expense of charity and hospitality. Themonasteries were the hotels of the Middle Ages, except that they madeno charges, and Margam was celebrated for its hospitality forcenturies. Gerald, the enemy of monks, says: "This noble abbey wasmore celebrated for its charitable deeds than any other of that orderin Wales. And as a reward for that abundant charity which themonastery had always, in times of need, exercised towards strangersand the poor, in a season of approaching famine their corn andprovisions were divinely increased, like the widow's cruse of oil. "Two centuries later we find the Pope bearing witness to the well-knownand universal hospitality of the Abbey of Margam. It was placed on themain road between Bristol and Ireland, at a distance from other placesof refuge, and so was continually overrun by rich and poor strangers, the poor evidently preponderating. In this connection I will give oneinstance of wise charity on the part of these monks from the end ofthe twelfth century. Hugh, son of Robert of Llancarven, gives theabbey some land in return for "four marks of silver and a young ox, given to him in his great need by the Abbot. " The monastery performedsome of the services of the modern bank. 

Strata Florida presents some different characteristics. Like mostCistercian houses, it lay off the beaten track. It was founded in 1164by the Lord Rhys, near the site of an older monastery. It was endowedwith large expanse of lands, mostly mountain pastures, and the monkssoon began building their church and refectory and cloister. Themonastery was completed in 1201, when "the monks came to the newchurch, which had been erected of splendid workmanship. " Thearchitectural details of this church are peculiar and almost unique. Mr. S. W. Williams notices especially the large amount of interlacingwork in the carving, which one sees in the old Celtic crosses, andwhich is so characteristic of Celtic art. The convent seems to havebecome very soon essentially Welsh. Nearly all the abbots have Welshnames. It was the burial-place of the princes of South Wales; but asthey were, after the Lord Rhys, quite unimportant, its politicalinterest is connected with the princes of Gwynedd. When in thethirteenth century the princes of North Wales were attracting theallegiance of the South Welsh also they found Strata Florida aconvenient place for important political assemblies. It was here thatLlywelyn ap Iorwerth summoned all the Welsh chiefs to do homage to hisson David. The monastery suffered damage during the wars of Edward I. , who in 1284 granted it £78 for repairs. But it suffered the worstinjuries during the rebellion of Owen Glyndwr, when the English troopsused it as a barracks, and stabled their horses in church and choir. 

The patriotic tone of Strata Florida is expressed in the Welshchronicles written there. The later part of the _Annales Cambriæ_ waswritten there, and the Brut y Tywysogion. At Margam also a chroniclewas composed which has been preserved. When an abbey decided to begina chronicle, the first step was to borrow a chronicle from some otherhouse; thus Margam, founded by Robert of Gloucester, copied out theChronicle of William of Malmesbury, which was dedicated to Robert ofGloucester. The monks of Strata Florida copied out the earlier portionof the _Annales Cambriæ_. These chronicles of course only became ofhistorical value when they become independent and contemporary. Theydo not confine themselves to the monastery or local history, butrelate events of general interest--to the whole of Britain and to allEurope--intermixed with notices of the burning of a monastic barn orthe death of the local abbot. Knowledge of the great world came to anabbey through the travellers who stayed there; through political orecclesiastical assemblies held there; and through public documentssent to the monks for safekeeping or to be copied. We generally do notknow who wrote these chronicles; they were rather the work of thecommunity than of the individual monks. "Every year (so runs aregulation on the subject) the volume is placed in the _scriptorium_, with loose sheets of paper or parchment attached to it, in which anymonk may enter notes of events which seem to him important. At the endof the year, not any one who likes, but he to whom it is commanded, shall write in the volume as briefly as he can what he thinks of allthese loose notes is truest and best to be handed down to posterity. ""Thus it was that a monastic chronicle grew, like a monastic house, bythe labour of different hands and at different times; but of the headsthat planned it, of the hands that executed it, no satisfactory recordwas preserved. The individual is lost in the community. "

Coming now to the Friaries in Wales, we find ourselves in a differentatmosphere. The friars were not troubled with questions of property:they had none; they depended for their livelihood on the alms of thefaithful. Again, speaking generally, one may say that while theBenedictine priory is found under the shadow of a castle, and theCistercian abbey in the heart of the country, the friaries were builtin the slums of the towns. As there were few towns in Wales, thehouses of the Mendicant Orders were not numerous or important. TheDominicans (or Black Friars) had houses at Bangor, Rhuddlan, Brecon, Haverfordwest, and Cardiff; the Franciscans (or Grey Friars) atCardiff, Carmarthen, and Llanfaes; the Carmelites (or White Friars) atDenbigh; and the Austin Friars at Newport in Monmouthshire. It isremarkable that the Dominicans had more houses in Wales than theFranciscans; though the Franciscans--the mystic apostles of love--weremore in sympathy with the Celtic spirit than the Dominicans, the sternchampions of orthodoxy. Francis of Assisi strove to reproduce again onearth the life of Christ--in the letter and in the spirit; and thereligious poetry of Wales in the thirteenth century is saturated withFranciscan feeling--full of intense realisation of the childhood andsuffering of Christ, the humanity of God. This may be illustrated bythe following poem by a Welsh friar of the thirteenth century, Madawcap Gwallter:--

 "A Son is given us, A kind Son is born . .. A Son to save us, The best of Sons. 

 A God, a man, And the God a man With the same faculties. A great little giant, A strong puny potentate Of pale cheeks. 

 Richly poor Our father and brother, Exalted, lowly, Honey of minds; With the ox and ass, The Lord of life Lies in a manger; And a heap of straw As a chair, Clothed in tatters;

 Velvet He wants not, Nor white ermine-- To cover Him; Around His couch Rags were seen Instead of fine linen. "

I do not know the dates of the foundations of the Welsh Franciscanhouses; the dates given in Mr. Newell's scholarly "History of theChurch in Wales" are impossible. Llanfaes is said to have beenestablished by Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, and Franciscan influence wouldcome to Wales through Thomas the Welshman, Bishop of St. David's(1247), who had been lecturer to the Franciscans at Oxford, and wasfamous for his piety and learning. Another Franciscan I wish tomention is Friar John the Welshman, who in his old age was employed tonegotiate with the Welsh in 1282. He had studied and taught at Oxfordand Paris, and made a creditable show beside such intellectual giantsas Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon, his contemporaries. The widespreadand lasting popularity of his works is shown by the large number ofmanuscripts and early printed editions which have come down to us. Buthis chief interest and life-work was the popularisation of knowledgein the service of morality. He devoted his energies to training uplecturers who should go to the Franciscan friaries in the chief townsin England and Wales and teach friars and clergy the art of popularpreaching. Friar John of Wales was one of the chief inspirers of the"University Extension" movement of the Middle Ages. These popularpreachers or lecturers did not do much for the advancement of soundlearning, because they did not study any science for its own sake, but only for the moral lessons they could find in it. But, to rousesome intellectual interest in the people at large, and stimulate theirmoral sense, was a work not unworthy of the universities; and this aimwas to some degree attained. One of the favourite ways of spending aholiday in the Middle Ages was to go and hear a friar preach. Here isa summary of a friar's sermon constructed after the method of FriarJohn of Wales, on the relative merits of the Ass and the Pig. 

"The pig and the ass live not the same life: for the pig during hislife does no good, but eats and swills and sleeps; but when he isdead, then do men make much of him. The ass is hard at work all hisdays and does good service to many; but when he dies, there is noprofit. And that is the way of the world. Some do no good thing whilethey live, but eat and drink and wax fat, and then they are draggedoff to the larder of hell, and others enrich themselves with theirgoods. Whereby I know that those, who for God's sake live the life ofholy poverty, shall never lack substance, because their heavenlyFather has pigs to kill. For as the good man before the season willkill a pig or two to give puddings to his children, so will our Lordkill those hardened sinners before their time, and give their goods tothe children of God. So the psalmist says: 'The bloodthirsty anddeceitful men shall not live out half their days, ' because they do nowork to keep their bodies healthy. Nothing is so healthful for bodyand soul as honest work. Work is the life of man, the guardian ofhealth; work drives away sin, and makes people sleep well at night. Work is the strength of feebleness, the health of sickness, thesalvation of men, --quickener of the senses, foe of sloth, nurse ofhappiness, a duty in the young and in the old a merit. Therefore it isbetter to be an ass than a pig. "

One of the most able of these "extension lecturers" was anotherWelshman--probably a native of Cardiff--Friar John David, whoselectures at Hereford were so successful that after a year both thefriars and the clergy of the city declared he was indispensable, andpetitioned for his reappointment. He became the head of theFranciscan province of England, and lies buried among the ruins of thechurch of the Grey Friars in Cardiff. 

VI

LLYWELYN AP GRUFFYDD AND THE BARONS' WAR

Throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the history of Englandand the history of Wales are so closely bound up together that it isimpossible to study either apart from the other. In illustration ofthis general statement I will ask you to consider briefly the historyof twelve years, from 1255 to 1267--a period of special interest tous, because these are the years in which Llywelyn's power was foundedand built up. 

In 1255 occurred three events of great importance to Wales: (1)Llywelyn overthrew his brothers in battle; (2) Edward Longshanks tookpossession of his Chester estates; (3) Edmund Crouchback was formallyproclaimed king of Sicily. 

1. David, younger son of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, died in 1246, leavingno descendants, and the Principality was seized by the three sons ofhis elder brother Gruffydd--Owain the Red, Llywelyn, and David. Forsome years they held together, because Henry III. Opposed theaccession of any of them, claiming the Principality as a lapsed fiefunder a treaty made with the last prince, David ap Llywelyn. But aftera time the king accepted the homage and recognised the rights of thesons of Gruffydd. Being thus freed from direct hostility of theEnglish king, the joint rulers soon quarrelled, and came to open warin 1255. "By the instigation of the devil, " says the Brut yTywysogion, "a great dissension arose between the sons ofGruffydd--namely, Owain the Red and David on the one side, andLlywelyn on the other. And thereupon Llywelyn and his men awaitedwithout fear, trusting in God, at Bryn Derwin the cruel coming of hisbrother accompanied by a vast army, and before the end of one hourOwain was taken and David fled, after many of the army were killed andothers captured, and the rest had taken to flight. And then Owain theRed was imprisoned; and Llywelyn took possession of the territory ofOwain and David without any opposition. " Thus Gwynedd was united underone ruler. 

2. It was the policy of Henry III. To collect the earldoms into thehands of his relations. Thus the great palatine earldom of Chester, having lapsed to the Crown through failure of heirs, was granted in1254 to the king's eldest son, Edward. Besides Chester and itsdependencies Edward received Montgomery and the royal lands in SouthWales (Cardigan and Carmarthen), Ireland and Gascony--in fact all theterritory outside England over which the king had rights. Thesepossessions were calculated to give the heir to the throne a variedexperience and splendid training in the art of government. Edward wasin need of such training, as the story of his early years shows. Hewas only sixteen years of age in 1255, but in the Middle Ages menlived short lives and matured very early. Edward was married in 1254, and had much experience in war and statesmanship before he wastwenty. It was a wild time, and young Edward was among the wildestspirits; as he rode through the country, accompanied by his twohundred followers--mostly rollicking and arrogant foreignadventurers--who robbed and devastated the land, and thrashed and evenmutilated passers-by for fun, people looked forward with great fear tothe accession of such a ruffian. A few years of responsibility, andfailure, soon changed him into the noblest and most law-abiding of thePlantagenets. It was Wales which gave him his first lesson. He firsttried his hand at the reorganisation of the "Middle Country, " makingit "shire-land, " introducing the English law and administrativesystem; the same policy was put in force in Cardigan and Carmarthen, which formed one shire with a Shiremoot and the usual institutions ofan English county. Some Welshmen had already petitioned the king forthe introduction of English law into Wales, complaining that by Welshlaw the crime of the guilty is visited on the innocent relations. Atbest it was a task which required very careful management, and Edwardand his advisers were as yet quite unfitted for it, prone as they wereto violent methods, having an insolent contempt for all customs andhabits which differed from those to which they were used, and allclasses except their own. The result is thus expressed by the Welshchronicler: After Edward returned to England, "the nobles of Walescame to Llywelyn, having been robbed of their liberties and madecaptives, and declared they would rather be killed in war for theirliberty than suffer themselves to be trampled on by strangers. AndLlywelyn was moved at their tears, and invaded the Middle Country andsubdued it all before the end of the week. " In this work Llywelyn wasassisted by descendants of Rhys, the princes of South Wales, who inCardigan suffered from Prince Edward's policy in the same way as themen of the Middle Country or Four Cantreds. This union of North andSouth Wales is one of the special characteristics of the struggleunder Llywelyn ap Gruffydd. That the Welsh of the North should jointhose of the South was, notes Matthew Paris, "a circumstance neverknown before. " And Llywelyn was statesman enough to see the importanceof this union and take steps to strengthen it. After recovering theMiddle Country, he marched south, took possession of Cardigan andBuilth--then a possession of the Crown, though in the custody ofMortimer--and gave these districts to Meredydd, grandson of the LordRhys, to hold as vassal--a wise measure, intended to bind the South tohim by common interests. Matthew Paris, who holds up the Welshresistance to tyranny as an example to the English, puts in Llywelyn'smouth a striking speech in favour of unity: "Let us then stand firmtogether; for if we remain inseparable we shall be insuperable"--thevery words of Gerald of Barry, whose advice had borne some fruit. ButMeredydd soon proved a traitor, and the failure of Henry III. 'scampaign in 1257 was less due to the union of the Welsh than to thedisunion of the English. 

3. This brings us to the third event referred to above--theproclamation of Edmund as King of Sicily. The Pope was trying toconquer Sicily, but wanted some one else to pay the war budget. Aftertrying various people he induced Henry III. To accept the crown ofSicily for Edmund and promise enormous sums for the payment of thepapal armies, and pledge his whole kingdom as security for thepayment. This, coming on the top of many years of misgovernment and along series of extortions, led directly to the crisis of thereign--the revolution known as the Provisions of Oxford in 1258, bywhich the powers of government were taken away from the Crown andgiven to committees of barons. 

The disaffection against Henry III. At once made itself felt in theWelsh war. "Those who had promised the king assistance did not come;"and when the whole knighthood of England were called out to meet atChester, only "manifold complaints and murmurs were heard. " We mighthave expected the Marcher Lords at any rate to rally round the king;but they were not disposed to assist in building up a royal power inWales which would endanger their independence, and were glad enough tostand by and see the scheme thwarted. Some of them even went so far asto send secret information to the Welsh prince. The king had toretreat ingloriously, pursued by Llywelyn, and followed by thederisive sneers of the enemy. It may interest some of us to note thatin this war the English army fought, as often, under the Dragonstandard; probably the Dragon made in 1244 by Edward Fitz Odo, theKing's goldsmith, who was commanded to make it "in the manner of astandard or ensign, of red samit, to be embroidered with gold, and histongue to appear as though continually moving, and his eyes ofsapphire or other stones agreeable to him. " This was in 1257; the kingwas still less able to attack Llywelyn in 1258 and the followingyears, and had to agree to an ignominious truce. 

Almost the whole English baronage under the leadership of Simon deMontfort, Earl of Leicester, and Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, combined against the king, who was only supported by the royal familyand those of his foreign relations to whom he had given earldoms andbaronies and bishoprics in England or Wales. If Llywelyn had contentedhimself with occupying the royal lands in Wales--the territoriesgranted to Edward--and with seizing Powys, which held to the Englishking, he would have had nothing to fear at this time from the Englishbaronage, and the Crown was powerless to resist. It is clear from theEnglish chroniclers that there was a genuine admiration for the Welshresistance on the part of the English people. "Their cause, " saysMatthew Paris, "seemed a just one even to their enemies. " But Llywelynattacked the great Marcher Lords; it was difficult for a champion ofWelsh patriotism to avoid doing so--it may be also that Llywelynfailed to grasp thoroughly the political situation in England, as hecertainly failed to grasp it after the accession of Edward I. Thefirst to suffer severely from him was Roger Mortimer, lord of theMiddle March; thus Llywelyn drove him out of Gwerthrynion andMaelienydd, and added these territories to his own. Successes likethese roused great enthusiasm among the Welsh gentry, though theyexcited the alarm and jealousy of some of the princes (such asMeredydd, and Llywelyn's brother David, who "by the instigation of thedevil" deserted the cause and went over to the English). But the goodmen of Brecon revolted from their lord, the Earl of Hereford, andadhered to Llywelyn, who came down and received their homage in 1262. 

The general situation was altered by these events. It became clear tothe Lords Marchers that their power was endangered by Llywelyn'ssuccess, and that they must make common cause with Prince Edward. TheLords Marchers began to form the royalist party. Thus Mortimer, who in1258 was among the leaders of the baronial opposition to the Crown, was in 1260 acting with the king against the barons. The Mortimerswere the most directly affected of all the Marchers by the successesof Llywelyn, not only because their territories lay near Gwynedd, butbecause nearly all their lands lay in or close to the Marches; theyhad all their eggs in the same basket, while the other leading LordsMarchers had large possessions elsewhere, from which they drew thebulk of their revenues, using their March lands as a recruiting-groundfor their troops. Thus to the De Clares their estates in Kent wereprobably worth more as a source of income than the whole of Glamorgan;and they also had estates in Hertford and Suffolk and Hampshire, andelsewhere; the Fitzalans were great landowners in Sussex; the Bohunsof Hereford had broad acres in Huntingdon, Essex, and Hertford. Tothese men the limitation of the royal powers--especially of the powerof taxing, and the king's right to employ foreigners in places oftrust--was more important than the checking of Llywelyn's advance, which certainly weakened the king and made it easier to enforceconstitutional rights against him. 

Still we have here one of the causes which broke the unity of thebaronage, which created a royalist party, and led to open war. Thishas hardly been enough emphasised. It is generally said that thequestion on which the barons split was the question of the recognitionof popular representation in the government of the country--thequestion, in a word, of a House of Commons--Simon de Montfort beingthe leader of the popular cause, Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester(till his death in July, 1262), the leader of the oligarchic party, which aimed merely at transferring the royal power to a committee ofbarons. This was undoubtedly the most important cause of the quarrel, because it was a question of principle big with results for thefuture, affecting the whole course of English history, while theattitude which the barons ought to take towards Llywelyn was merelyfor the barons a matter of political tactics. But it is probable thatthe latter loomed larger in the eyes of contemporaries--certainly inthe eyes of most of the Lords Marchers. 

Hence it came about that, when war actually broke out in the spring of1263, the elder of the Lords Marchers fought on the side of theking--such as Roger Mortimer and Humphrey de Bohun--though the youngermen--young Gilbert of Gloucester and Humphrey de Bohun, the son ofHereford--remained under the spell of Simon de Montfort's fascinationand high-minded enthusiasm. The war began in the Welsh Marches, Simonattacking the forces of Edward of Chester and Roger Mortimer--theprincipal royalists. As these were also the most formidable enemies ofthe Welsh, Llywelyn at the same time attacked them from the otherside, the baronial party and Welsh co-operating, though without anyformal alliance or friendly feelings. Thus in 1263 the baronial armybesieged Shrewsbury, which defended itself till "a countless host" ofWelshmen, came up and began to attack it from the other side; the townthen surrendered to the barons lest it should fall into the hands ofthe Welsh. 

This campaign led to a very great defection from the baronial side:the Lord Marchers generally--such as Clifford and Fitzalan--desertedSimon, who appeared as a traitor to the country. How great thedefection is shown by Simon's words: "Though all should leave me, yetwith my four sons I will stand true to the just cause, which I havesworn to uphold for the honour of the Church and the good of thekingdom; I have been in many lands, pagan and Christian, but in nonehave I found such faithlessness as in England. "

The royalists were now the strongest party in the Marches, and in 1264Edward and Mortimer gained a number of successes over the troops ofSimon and Llywelyn (who seem to have been acting together) andcaptured Brecon. But they were called off to the main seat of war inthe Midlands, and Simon inflicted a crushing defeat on the royalistsat Lewes, in Sussex, 1264. It appears that Welsh archers fought inSimon's army, but these would be South Welsh, not North Welsh, thetroops of Gilbert de Clare, not those of Llywelyn. The Marchers whoescaped from Lewes were followed up by Simon, and being encircled byhis forces and those of Llywelyn, submitted in December, 1264. 

But Simon in the hour of triumph was now near his fall, which was madeinevitable by the defection of Gilbert de Clare and whole of theGloucester interest. The causes of the quarrel as given in thechronicles are mainly personal. Simon, with all his greatness, wasquick-tempered and overbearing, inclined to seize power for himself, and perhaps even avaricious; one may infer this from the statement ofa friendly chronicler, William Rishanger: "his habitual prayer to Godwas that he would save him from avarice and covetousness of worldlygoods. " But, apart from merely personal questions, it is to be noticedthat the closer the relations between Simon and Llywelyn became, theless cordial became his relations to Gilbert de Clare. Thus when Simonco-operated with Llywelyn in bringing Mortimer and the Marchers tosubmission in December, 1264, Gilbert began to intrigue with them; andsoon after the famous parliament of 1265 had transferred to Simon theearldom of Chester--thus relieving Llywelyn of his most dangerousneighbour, Prince Edward--Gilbert definitely joined Mortimer andEdward. The meeting between the three at Ludlow is very important;for Prince Edward now, at the instance of Gloucester, definitelypledged himself to the cause of reform and good government. It may besaid for the Red Earl of Gloucester that in deserting Simon he did notdesert his cause. To ensure the future of English liberties it was nolonger necessary to support De Montfort: "henceforth it was not Simonbut Edward who best represents the cause of orderly nationalprogress. "

A few days after the desertion of Gloucester Simon made his firstformal treaty with Llywelyn, ceding to him Hawarden, Ellesmere, Montgomery, Maud's Castle, a line of fortresses along the easternborder, recognising his right to the title of Prince of Wales, and tothe homage of all the Welsh barons, while Llywelyn engaged to supplySimon with five thousand spearmen and raid the estates of Mortimer andDe Clare. The first part of the campaign of Evesham was carried out inGwent. Prince Edward held the line of the Severn, separating Simon atHereford from his English partisans. Simon, while waiting for hisEnglish supporters to concentrate, entered Monmouthshire, whereLlywelyn's spearmen joined him and ravaged the Gloucester estates, trying to entice the royalists into Wales. Edward followed; but--hispupil in war as in politics--the young prince outgeneralled him atevery point, and Simon only escaped at Newport by hurried flightacross the river, burning the bridge behind him. He kept the Uskbetween him and his enemy, but this involved a long march north, through mountains and barren country, and he got back to Hereford witha half-starved army, only to find the line of the Severn held morestrongly than ever. We cannot follow out the rest of the campaign, marked as it was by brilliant strategy on the part of the youngEdward, which proved him a born master of the art of war. In the finalbattle all the advantages were on his side, and one cannot blame thespearmen of Gwynedd for trying to save themselves by flight at the"murder of Evesham. " The body of the great Earl of Leicester wasshamefully mutilated by the conquerors, and his head sent as afitting present to Matilda de Braose, wife of Roger Mortimer. 

The struggle continued for two years both in England and Wales. InEngland Simon's adherents held out owing to the severity of the termswhich the victorious party insisted on. They are known as "TheDisinherited, " and their cause was championed by the twoenemies--Llywelyn and Gilbert de Clare. The "Brut" states that in1267, "Llywelyn confederated with Earl Clare; and then the earlmarched with an immense army to London; and through the treachery ofthe citizens he got possession of the Tower. And when King Henry andhis son Edward heard of this they collected an immense army andmarched to London and attacked it, and upon conditions they compelledthe earl and citizens to submit. " "The Annals of Winchester, " acontemporary English chronicle, relate the same event, but omit anymention of Llywelyn: "Earl Gilbert took London, and the Disinheritedflocked to him as to their saviour; peace was settled in June, andmany of the Disinherited were pacified at the instance of the Earl ofGloucester. " It is clear that each of these rivals posed as championof the Disinherited, but for opposite reasons. Llywelyn's object wasto encourage their resistance and keep England divided by civil war;Gilbert's to insist on better terms in order to induce them to yield. Gilbert was successful in bringing about peace and reform. TheDisinherited were allowed to pay a fine instead of losing all theirproperty, and many of the legal reforms demanded by the baronial partyat the beginning of the struggle were embodied in the Statute ofMarlborough. And now the Earl of Gloucester employed his resources instrengthening his Glamorgan lordship to resist the threatened invasionof Llywelyn by building Castell Coch and Caerphilly. 

Llywelyn continued his victorious career as long as war lasted. In1266 he inflicted a crushing defeat on Mortimer at Brecon. In theautumn of next year, when peace had been established in England, hecame to terms, through the mediation of the papal legate, in theTreaty of Montgomery. Llywelyn kept the four cantreds of the MiddleCountry; also Cydewain, Ceri, Gwerthrynion, Builth, and Brecon. ButMaelienydd was restored to Roger Mortimer, though Llywelyn reservedhis right to appeal to the law against this article. Further, thePrince of Gwynedd received the hereditary title of Prince of Wales, and was recognised as overlord of all the Welsh barons in Wales, except Meredydd ap Rhys, who remained immediate vassal of the King ofEngland: his territories therefore in the Vale of Towy were withdrawnfrom the power of Llywelyn. The Prince of Wales in return did homageand agreed to pay him 25, 000 marks by instalments. The treaty is lessfavourable to Llywelyn than that of 1265. His rights in Deheubarthwere curtailed, and he gave up his claims to Ellesmere and Montgomery, and possession of Maelienydd. 

The papal legate who arranged the treaty is not to be congratulated onhis draftsmanship. Many things were left undecided, and a series ofdisputes arose. Thus Llywelyn seems to have claimed suzerainty overthe Lord of Senghenydd as one of the "Welsh barons, " though that termwas surely only meant to include the Welsh barons who held directly ofthe king, not the vassals of the Lord of Glamorgan. But it is evidentthat Llywelyn did not try to abide by the treaty. He continued tointrigue with the English barons, posing as the successor of Simon deMontfort, and failing to see that Edward I. Was the political heir ofthe great earl. He tried to throw off the suzerainty of England, withthe result that he lost the independence of his country. He lived inan atmosphere of enthusiasm and flattery, and failed to realise thelimits of his power. The bards by whom he was surrounded exercised a"highly pernicious influence in practical concerns, " and ill-repaidhis generosity by urging him to attempt the impossible. 

 "His bards are comely about his tables, I have seen him generously distributing his wealth, And his meadhorns filled with generous liquors. I never returned empty-handed from the North. The bards prophesy that he shall have the government and sovereign power; Every prediction is at last to be fulfilled. "

But if Llywelyn lacked the hard head of the practical statesman, ifhe did not, like his grandfather, merit the title of "the Great, " hewill always remain an attractive and striking figure in history; hepossessed qualities which made him an ideal representative of theCymric race in the Middle Ages:--

 "A bold and bounteous lion--the most reckless of givers, Man whose anger was destructive; most courteous prince; A man sincere in grief, true in loving, Perfect in knowledge. "

UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON. 

 =SOME WELSH BOOKS. =

 =WALES. = By OWEN M. EDWARDS. Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s. ("The Story of the Nations" Series. )

 =THE WELSH PEOPLE. = By JOHN RHYS, M. A. , and DAVID BRYNMOR-JONES, Q. C. , M. P. Third Edition, revised. Demy 8vo, cloth, 16s. 

 =THE WELSH LIBRARY. =

 Edited by OWEN M. EDWARDS, Author of "Wales. " Each volume Foolscap 8vo. 2s. Cloth, 1s. Paper. 

 =Vols. 1-3. THE MABINOGION. = (_In Preparation. _)

 LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN. 

Transcriber's Note

Minor typographic errors in punctuation and variations in hyphenationhave been corrected without note. 

The following amendments have been made:

 Page vi--Cymry amended to Kymry--". .. Thomas Stephens, "Literature of the Kymry"; . .. "

 Page 21--harminously amended to harmoniously--". .. And a prince of North Wales working harmoniously together. "

 Page 34--FitzHamon amended to Fitzhamon--". .. Daughter and heiress of Fitzhamon, conqueror of Glamorgan. "

 Page 37--Caradog amended to Caradoc--". .. Attributed to Caradoc of Llancarven, on which his biographers . .. "

 Page 80--omitted word 'the' added--". .. Fighting in Wales till the end of . .. "

 Page 84--Senghennydd amended to Senghenydd--"Ivor ap Meyric was Lord of Senghenydd, . .. "

The single oe ligature (in Coeur), and superscripts within centurynumbers have not been retained in this version. The single dagger symbolis indicated using a + symbol. 

The illustration on page 88 (Cardiff and Caerphilly Castles) has beenmoved so that it is not in the middle of a paragraph. 

Repeated headings at the start of each essay have been deleted sothere is only one instance left for each. 

Advertising material has been moved to the end of the text. Bold inthat material is indicated =like this=.