Gwenllian verch Gruffydd

Welsh hereditary royalty

• Born: c. 1085
• Birthplace: Aberffraw Castle, Anglesey, Wales
• Died: 1136
• Place of death: Cydweli (now Kidwelly), Carmarthenshire, Wales

Gwenllian verch Gruffydd fought against Norman expansion and domination of medieval Wales. She is a legendary figure in Welsh history and is argued by some to be the compiler of the Mabinogion, a group of medieval Welsh tales relating four loosely related adventures.

Early Life

Gwenllian verch Gruffydd (ga-wen-lil-yun vurk GRIHF-ihth) was one of fourteen children born to Gruffydd ap Cynan, king of Gwynedd and lord of North Wales. She was sister to the great Owain Gwynedd, prince of North Wales (1137 to 1170). At eighteen Gwenllian eloped and married the prince of South Wales, Gruffydd ap Rhys ap Tewdwr, later king of Deheubarth in Dyfed, and son of her father’s close ally and covictor of the Battle of Mynydd Carn in 1081. Gwenllian and Gruffydd had ten children.

Life’s Work

Few details of Gwenllian’s life are known, other than that she fought in the Battle of Maes in 1136 in an attempt to stave off a Norman incursion into South Wales. The background to this battle provides some insight into her life.

In 1095, when Gwenllian was about ten years old, the Anglo-Normans began a campaign to regain control of Wales. A core of Welsh resistance lay in the resurgent kingdom of Gwynedd, and the Normans directed their efforts in that area. The Welsh responded to Norman invasion by using guerrilla warfare, which had frustrated efforts of previous Norman expeditionary forces since the initial Norman invasion of Britain in 1066.

The Norman military machine was made up predominantly of professional, specialized, full-time mounted soldiers. This type of military was a rapid-response force adapted to fighting in open flat lands and was employed to seize and hold large tracts of land and bases of power. The military organization of the Welsh was very different. Welsh society consisted of tribes and clans that prized their autonomy and lived in mostly forested and mountainous terrain. The Welsh military was a loosely organized, part-time, volunteer infantry force designed to pursue feuds and conduct raiding and looting expeditions. The capture of loot and booty, especially cattle and agricultural goods, was a major focus of Welsh society. The Welsh were not an agrarian people; raiding and looting were means of survival and social advancement. The long series of Welsh revolts against Anglo-Norman rule was motivated less by feelings of nationalism and cultural pride and more by the loss of rich hereditary lands as sources of goods.

Previously, the Normans had attempted conquest of Wales through devastation and destruction of Welsh forces. This was ineffective, because Welsh clans had little property to destroy and their armies were not organized into a mass field force that could be defeated in outright combat. The Normans, on the other hand, were not able to fight the irregular warfare necessary to meet the Welsh on their own fighting terms. To assert their power, the Normans began a strategy of building castles in Wales. By using this construction gambit, they altered the way warfare was conducted in Wales, shifting military objectives from open combat to positional warfare. A strategically positioned castle could control vast areas of land. It could protect and hold conquered fertile lands to its rear and guard exits and entrances to safe havens of the Welsh uplands. Welsh raiders did not wish to risk slaughter by quick hitting Norman cavalry, so they began to stay in isolated Welsh-held territories.

However, the Normans became militarily complacent as a result of castle building. The Norman culture was based on mounted knights and massive landed estates. Mountainous and wooded hills were environments in which the horse brought no military power and the estates no profits. Unwilling to change their cultural strategy, the Normans did not produce a new military capable of waging successful mountain warfare. By not meeting this challenge, the Normans allowed the isolated forested and mountainous regions of Wales to become bastions for Welsh clans and traditional society. In these areas, Welsh clans and tribes began to expand their culture in the face of Anglo-Norman rule. Eventually, calls for rebellion were raised against the invaders who controlled the rich grazing lands and fertile lowlands and coasts.

After the death of Henry I in 1135 precipitated civil war in England, the Welsh once more revolted against outside Anglo-Norman rule. A Welsh army was raised in West Brycheiniog (Breconshire) and attacked Anglo-Norman settlements in Glower. A battle fought between Loughor and Swansea resulted in a victory for the Welsh and the loss of more than five hundred Norman knights.

Gruffydd ap Rhys, Gwenllian’s husband, was inspired by this Welsh victory with the prospect of expelling all foreigners from his hereditary lands in South Wales. Determined to reestablish the integrity of his hereditary kingdom and end Anglo-Norman advances into southern and western Wales, Gruffydd ap Rhys and Gwenllian began fighting a guerrilla-style campaign from their base in the forest of Ystrad Tywi. In 1136, Gruffydd ap Rhys traveled north with one of his sons, seeking reinforcements from his father-in-law, to stop a rumored invasion of his home in Cardigan. In his absence, a fresh advance of Norman forces around Cydweli led Gwenllian to try to protect her husband’s kingdom.

Gwenllian became aware of a combined force of Norman and allied troops landing on the Galmorgan coast in an effort to reinforce Baron Maurice de Londre’s forces at Kidwelly Castle. Kidwelly Castle dominates a prominent ridge overlooking the junction of two rivers, Gwendraeth Fawr and Gwendraeth Fach, and the flat sea marshes of Carmarthen Bay. It was one of several twelfth century Norman castles built during the reign of Henry I to reinforce Norman power along the southern coast of Wales and command passage of rivers across which the road to the west passed. The first defensive structure at the site was a semicircular earthwork built in 1106 by Roger de Caen, bishop of Salisbury. That earthwork was expanded with masonry work by William de Londres, a companion of Fitz Hamon and his conquering Norman knights and the father of Maurice de Londres.

Gruffydd had left no contingency plans for military action in his absence, but Gwenllian, sensing an imminent threat, gathered her available forces and marched to intercept the Normans and their allies. She brought with her two of her young sons, Maelgwn and Morgan. Gwenllian marched from Ystrad Tywi to Cydweli and set an ambush at Mynydd y Garreg (Mount of Rocks), about one mile north of Kidwelly Castle. Her scouts reported the recently landed combined Norman force marching toward her position, so she ordered a large detachment to intercept them while the rest of her force remained in reserve. The Norman reinforcements, led by a Welsh traitor, Gruffudd ap Llewelyn, evaded the Welsh interception force and approached Mynydd y Garreg under cover of surrounding forest. There the Normans waited to attack. Two days after taking up position near Mynydd y Garreg, the full complement of Norman troops charged over the top of the hill in a surprise attack. Maurice de Londres and Geoffrey, constable of the bishop, simultaneously led mounted Norman knights from Kidwelly Castle, trapping Gwenllian’s force in the field below Mynydd y Garreg. The field is still known as Maes Gwenllian, or Gwenllian’s Field.

Gwenllian personally rallied and led her Welsh forces against the two-pronged, overwhelming Norman onslaught. Her force was overrun and quickly slaughtered around her. Her son, Maelgwn, died fighting at her side. Only a small number of prisoners were taken, including Gwenllian and her young son, Morgan. Though Gwenllian was wounded, Maurice de Londres, already carrying with him a reputation for brutality, showed no mercy and ordered Gwenllian’s immediate battlefield execution. While the victorious Normans cheered, Gwenllian was beheaded in front of her son Morgan. Morgan was taken prisoner and died nine years later in prison.

Significance

Folk legend depicts Gwenllian in a heroic light: a beautiful, Boudicca-like British warrior, hair flowing from beneath a gleaming helmet, bloody sword in hand, exhorting her fighters on by her own gallant example. To whatever extent this image of Gwenllian is true, the reality is that she remains a footnote to history, about whom very little of substance is known. Nevertheless, her heroism and the very fact that legends grew around her is some indication of the esteem in which she is held for her role in the Battle of Maes, the history of Wales in general, and for influencing the Celtic attitudes toward the Norman invaders.

A legend persists that Gwenllian’s headless ghost wandered Maes Gwenllian for centuries until someone finally searched the ancient battlefield, found her skull, and reunited it with her grave. A carved circular stone memorial to Gwenllian bearing an inscription and a Celtic knot presently rests outside the main entrance to Kidwelly Castle, Wales.

Another legend concerning Gwenllian verch Gruffydd suggests that she is the possible author or compiler of the Mabinogion , a group of medieval Welsh tales relating four loosely related adventures. The Mabinogion is in four parts, or branches, and draws on myths and the history of Celtic Britain with settings largely within Wales and the otherworld. While some researchers notably Andrew Breeze have suggested, based on textual evidence, that Gwenllian may have been instrumental in the construction of this medieval work, most scholars argue that the work evolved over centuries and passed from storyteller to storyteller, until being collected and compiled sometime during the late twelfth century.

Bibliography

Breeze, Andrew. Subverting Patriarchy: Princess Gwenllian and “The Mabinogi.” Proceedings of the Eleventh International Congress of Celtic Studies, Cork, Ireland, 1999. A scholarly argument suggesting Gwenllian’s part in the composition or constructing of the Mabinogion.

Davies, John. A History of Wales. New York: Penguin Books, 1994. A comprehensive history of Wales and the Welsh peoples.

Ford, Patrick K. The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. A modern translation of the Mabinogion with accompanying references and interpretations.

Jones, Thomas. Brut y Tywysogyon: Or, The Chronicle of the Princes. 2d ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1973. The translated text of the Brut y Tywysogyon, which chronicles the lives of the hereditary Welsh rulers.

Morris, Jan. The Matter of Wales: Epic Views of a Small Country. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. A good general history of Wales with many photographs and maps.

Nelson, L. H. The Normans in South Wales, 1070-1171. Austin: University of Texas, 1966. An exploration of the Norman conquest of England and Southern Wales with a good accounting of the cultural differences between the native Welsh and invading continental Europeans.

Walker, David. The Normans in Britain. Oxford, England: Blackwell, 1995. An overview of the Anglo-Norman period in Wales, England, Scotland, and Ireland.