Cardiganshire County History Volume 2 , livre ebook

CARDIGANSHIRE
COUNTY HISTORY
VOLUME 2
The famous west doorway at Strata Florida Abbey.
CARDIGANSHIRE
COUNTY HISTORY
General Editor: Geraint H. Jenkins
VOLUME 2
Medieval and Early Modern Cardiganshire
Edited by
Geraint H. Jenkins, Richard Suggett and Eryn M. White
© Cymdeithas Hanes Ceredigion Historical Society, 2019
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78683-452-2
eISBN: 978-1-78683-454-6
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without clearance from the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF10 3NS.
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Front cover illustration:
top left: the west doorway of Strata Florida Abbey (© Crown copyright: RCAHMW).
top right: John Speed’s bird’s eye view of Cardigan published in 1611 (Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / National Library of Wales).
bottom left: the north-west gate-tower of Aberystwyth Castle (© Crown copyright: RCAHMW).
bottom right: a reconstruction drawing by Jane Dunn of Y Neuadd, Llan-non (Amgueddfa Ceredigion Museum).
PREFACE
It is with a mixture of joy and relief that we present the second, and final, volume of the Cardiganshire County History series to members of the Ceredigion Historical Society and the public at large. It represents a major achievement in the history of the Society and we hope that it provides an authoritative and accessible guide to our understanding of the history of the county. This particular volume has had a longer gestation than had been hoped. Not least of our problems was an unexpected turnover in editors. None of us figured among the original editors and we are grateful to those authors who contributed their chapters in good time and gave us their full support. Paradoxically, the unforeseen difficulties which caused the lapse in time enabled us to revise some of the chapters fully, to make use of additional information which had come to light, to take advantage of advances in the fields of aerial photography and dendrochronology and, most of all, to capitalize on the digital revolution which is currently transforming our lives. Critically, we have seized the opportunity to include many more colour illustrations than had previously been thought possible. We are confident that this has greatly enhanced the content and appearance of the volume. Our framing dates are 1091 and 1714, a span of around 600 years, and, although there are some omissions and some knots left untied, the major events in the formation of Cardiganshire are fully covered in the fifteen chapters which follow.
One of our most distinguished historians, doubtless with his tongue firmly in cheek, once claimed that Cardiganshire in this period ‘sounds like a backwater’. There is no doubt that the relative isolation and poverty of the county placed severe restraints on what people were able to accomplish, but equally there is abundant evidence here that our story does not lack colour, drama and excitement. Although Cardiganshire was a thinly-populated county of pastures, moorland and woodland, it was nonetheless, as Gerald of Wales shrewdly observed, ‘the heartland of Wales’, a place where historic landscapes offered a pattern of ‘deep antiquity and continuity’. Over several centuries, war and rebellion disrupted daily life. Common people, already deprived of many basic necessities and living very close to the margins of subsistence, suffered at the hands of military conquerors and also found themselves having to respond to the efforts of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and especially Owain Glyndŵr to express and establish Welsh statehood. These were years of conflict and military service, extortions and oppressions, disputes and revolts. Aberystwyth castle became the most prominent symbol of the armed might of Anglo-Norman invaders and of their determination to bring the populace to heel by establishing castles, garrisons, lordships and boroughs. Equally, by rallying to the banner of Glyndŵr, fighting like lions at the famous battle of Hyddgen in 1401 and playing their part in destroying large parts of Aberystwyth castle, local warriors expressed their pent-up grievances. But there were also striking places of prayer and piety to offer solace. The massive parish and church of Llanbadarn was a dominant influence in sustaining medieval worship and traditions, the collegiate church at Llanddewibrefi was a significant centre of clerical learning, while Strata Florida, founded in 1164 in the most captivating setting at the foot of the Cambrian mountains, ushered in a new chapter in the history of monasticism, played a key role in sustaining the expectations of Welsh princes and became a vibrant centre of manuscript production where Welsh scribes were determined to ensure that people should not lose their grasp on the past. At parish level, too, by the mid-fifteenth century there were unmistakable signs of religious renewal. The cult of the saints and the influence of shrines like Our Lady of the Taper at Cardigan, the popularity of roods and rood-screens, wall paintings and stained-glass windows indicate that Catholicism meant more to the general populace than is often admitted.
The coming of the Tudors brought about changes of fortune. Horizons expanded for the affluent and the literate. The Acts of Union (1536–43) bound the county, at least in theory, more closely to central government. In practice, however, gentry families with the greatest rent-rolls, led by those at Gogerddan, Trawsgoed and, later, Nanteos, were well aware of the advantages union offered, especially as local governors and administrators, but also as representatives in parliament. No strangers to bribery and extortion, they knew how to make nuisances of themselves and how to exercise control in their determination to exploit the land market and better themselves. Unsurprisingly, they were ready to support the royalist cause in its hour of need in the civil wars and also to set their face against republicans and ministers who spread the puritan gospel. Common people, too, had little good to say of Protestant and especially puritan reformers who mocked the ancient faith as well as well as folk traditions and superstitions. Middling sorts, however, were increasingly seeking books to read and in 1718 the hamlet of Trerhedyn in the southernmost quarter of the Vale of Teifi was the first community in Wales to open a licensed Welsh-language printing press. Yet, only a small minority of people received any kind of formal schooling and not until Griffith Jones, Llanddowror, established his remarkably successful circulating schools from the 1730s onwards did Cardiganshire begin to nurture a substantial reading public. Until then, this was very much an oral society.
The Welsh language, of course, was deeply woven into the fabric of life, and our tale encompasses the work of poets, scribes and scholars as well as warlords, soldiers and administrators. Gerald of Wales was forcibly struck by the purity of spoken Welsh in the county and, even by the end of our period, Lewis Morris was able to claim that there were many parishes ‘where there is not a word of English spoken’. Poets, whether sponsored by noblemen or the gentry, were local patriots who often dwelt on the glories of the past in displaying their creative talents. Although it would be an exaggeration to claim that the assembly of poets and minstrels in lively competition at Cardigan castle in 1176 was the ancestor of the modern eisteddfod, it was nonetheless a significant cultural rallying-cry. Thanks to the hospitality of Cistercian monks, critically important Welsh texts like the Hendregadredd Manuscript (a sizeable collection of the poetry of the court poets), the White Book of Rhydderch (the earliest complete text of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi) and Brut y Tywysogyon (a Welsh translation of the chronicles which J. E. Lloyd described as ‘the greatest monument of Welsh historiography’) were produced by gifted scribes at Strata Florida. That Dafydd ap Gwilym, the greatest of all Welsh poets, was born, bred and buried in Cardiganshire, is something of which we are justly proud and the most recent critical study of his work, in digital and printed form, confirms his extraordinary talent.
Other gifted, idiosyncratic and even sinister figures peep out from the following pages. Ieuan ap Rhydderch of Parcrhydderch in the Aeron valley was a remarkable fifteenth-century polymath and patron. Medieval poets were noted for their gallows humour, but even by their standards Dafydd ap Maredudd Glais of Aberystwyth, cleric, poet and convicted murderer, was a particularly mottled figure. Thomas Jones of Porthyffynnon, a gentleman herald who produced lavish pedigree rolls, became better known in later folklore as the colourful scamp ‘Twm Siôn Cati’. John Lewis of Glasgrug, a Cardiganshire gentleman, was the first to call, in 1646, for a ‘national’ college for Wales, while no Welshman rose to such dizzy heights in the legal profession as Sir John Vaughan of Trawsgoed, who became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1668. That enigmatic woman of letters, Katherine Philips of Cardigan, achieved fame far beyond the county as ‘the Matchless Orinda’, while the shadowy Elsbeth Ifan composed popular halsingod in the late Stuart period which mark her out as the first female Welsh-language poet in Cardiganshire. More could be added to this roll-call, including the splendidly-named Englishman, John Cherrylickhum, happily noted by Dr Stephen Roberts