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 Lectures delivered at Cardiff in 1901. The work does not claim in any way to be an original contribution to knowledge, and is published on the recommendation of some friends in whose literary judgment I have confidence. In a popular book of this kind I have not thought it necessary to give detailed references to authorities, but a list of a 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 Welsh chronicles—the Annales Cambriæ and the Brut y Tywysogion, both published in the Rolls Series; Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “History of the Kings of Britain” (translated in Bohn’s “Six Old English Chronicles”); Giraldus Cambrensis, “The Itinerary and Description of Wales” (translated in Bohn’s library); the prefaces, especially those by Brewer, in the Rolls Series edition of Giraldus, will be found interesting. Of the English chroniclers, Ordericus Vitalis, Roger of Wendover, and Matthew Paris are perhaps the most valuable for the history of Wales and the Marches during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Among modern books, the reader may be referred to Rhys and Jones, “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 “Dictionary of National Biography.” Since these Lectures were delivered at least three 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 the Nations Series; and Mr. Morris’s valuable work on “The Welsh Wars of Edward 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 the thirteenth century, I had the assistance of my friend and former pupil, Mr. Morgan Jones, M.A., of Ferndale, who generously placed at my disposal the results of his researches into the history of the Welsh Marches.

A. G. LITTLE.

CONTENTS

MAPS AND PLANS

See larger image

WALES & THE MARCHES, c. A.D. 1200-1210.

I

INTRODUCTORY

IN the following lectures no attempt will be made to give a systematic account of a political development, which is the ordinary theme of history. History is “past politics” in the wide sense of the word. It has to do with the growth and decay of states and institutions, and their relations to each other. The history of Wales in the Middle Ages, viewed from the political standpoint, is a failure; its interest is negative; and in this introductory lecture I intend to discuss “the failure of the nation” (to use the words of Professor Rhys and Mr. Brynmor Jones) “to effect any stable and lasting political combination.” Wales failed to produce or develope political institutions of an enduring character—failed to become a state. Its history does not possess the unity nor the kind of interest which the history of England possesses, and which makes the study of English history so peculiarly instructive to the student of politics. In English history we study primarily the growth of the principle of Representative Government, which we can trace for centuries through a long series of authoritative records. That