DATING EVIDENCE:
CAUTION: A number of the following source citations are slightly corrupt, so our confidence
in our birthdate estimates has some limitations.
(a) Dwnn ii, 307 cites the marriage of Rhys Sais II
to Efa (1130) ferch Gruffudd (1085) ap Rhys (1051), but inserts an extra generation and calls its Rhys "Lord Rhys" instead
of Rhys ap Tewdwr.
(b) Pen 128, 307b cites the marriage of Elidyr ap Rhys Sais II to Nest (1155) ferch
Lles (1120) ap Idnerth Benfras (1085) ap Uchdryd (1055) ap Edwin. There was a "Lles ap Idnerth Benfras" born c. 995,
but the later Idnerth Benfras ap Uchdryd actually called his son "Llewelyn".
(c) Pen 131, 46 & 55 cite the marriage of Llewelyn ap Griffri ap Cadwgan to
Angharad (1230) ferch Maredudd (1195) ap Madog (1160) ap Gruffudd Maelor (1130).
(d) Pen 128, 565a cites the marriage of Cadwgan ap Meilyr Eyton to Myfanwy (1220)
ferch Einudd (1180) ap Llowarch (1120) ap Bran. The citation omits Llowarch Fychan (1150) between Einudd and Llowarch.
(e) He had a daughter, Alis, born c. 1295 who is cited in Pen 128, 492a as married
to Iorwerth (1285) ap Dafydd Hen (1250) ap Gronwy (1215) descended from Sandde Hardd.
(f) He had a sister, Clementia. born c. 1245, who is cited in Pen 128, 139a as
married to Ithel (1230) ap Hywel (1195) ap Moreiddig (1125) ap Sandde Hardd (1095). The citation omits one generation
between Hywel and Sandde Hardd, who we would label as "Moreiddig II" (1165).
(g) Pen 128, 141a cites the marriage of this man to a daughter (1310) of Badi
(1280) ap Llewelyn (1250) ap Bleddyn (1220) ap Ednyfed (1190) ap Peredur (1160) ap Bradwen, this Peredur being a brother of
Ednowain ap Bradwen.
(h) Pen 128, 614b cites the marriage of this Llewelyn to a daughter (1285) ferch
Llewelyn (1255) ap Einion Goch (1225) ap Ieuaf (1195) ap Llywarch (1160) ap Ieuaf (1130) ap Ninniaw (1095) descended from
Dyngad ap Tudor Trefor.
(j) Pen 128, 141a cites the marriage of this Iorwerth to Marged (1320) ferch Ieuan
(1280) ap Iorwerth (1245) ap Dafydd (1215) ap Iorwerth (1185) ap Hywel (1155) ap Moreiddig (1125) ap Sandde Hardd.
(k) Pen 128, 155a cites the marriage of this Gwenllian to Madog (1375) ap Ieuan
(1345) ap Einion (1315) ap Madog (1280) descended from Gwyn ap Ednowain Bendew.
(m) This Einion was the only son of the Iolyn born c. 1340. Pen 129, 132 cites
Einion's marriage to Angharad (1390) ferch Ieuan Llwyd (1355) ap Llewelyn (1320) ap Gruffudd Llwyd (1290) ap Maredudd (1255)
ap Llewelyn (1225) ap Ynyr of Ial, descended from Sandde Hardd.
OUR ANALYSIS:
In most Welsh families where
we find long same-named strings of men, the repeated names are usually just one generation apart AND both families descended
from a recent common male ancestor. When the repeated names are two generations apart (as in the case we present here),
this indicates the possibility that the families did NOT share a recent common male ancestor. Instead, it was a daughter
of the earliest man in the repeated string who gave her father's name to her son, and that son began the duplicated string
by naming his son the same as his mother's brother. [1] Accordingly, we suggest the two families in our chart are connected
by a non-cited marriage: a daughter of the c. 1160 Cadwgan probably married Meilyr Eyton and named their son Cadwgan, who
in turn, named his son Griffri.
The first Cadwgan in our charts named
a son "Griffri" (not the standard version "Gruffudd"), we think, to honor someone of that name who was close to the family
and who performed some unknown laudable act. The two families remained close friends for another 150 years, with the
naming string finally ending when the c. 1340 Iolyn chose not to name a son "Gronwy".
Since virtually all the medieval genealogists
conflated the two families in pedigrees they drew up, we do not know the ancestry of the family on the left in our chart.
In our search for his likely identity, we took note of some same-name strings found in the families who descended from
Uchdryd ap Edwin of Tegeingl:
1055 Uchdryd ap Edwin
____________l_____________
l
l
1085 Uchdryd Cyfeiliog
1090 Owain
l
l
1115 Owain
1125 Gronwy
l
__________l_________
l
l
l
1145 Gronwy 1162 Griffri (a)
?
___________l_________
l
l
1175 Cadwgan (b)
1180 Griffri (c)
(a) The name-string "Griffri ap Gronwy ap Owain" is
cited by Pen 131, 131; Pen 129, 80; Pen 127, 179; and Pen 128, 169b, which Peter Bartrum acknowledged. He includes the
family in his index [2] as well as the name "Gronwy ap Owain ap Uchdryd" (where he gives entirely different sources). However, he does not chart such a family among the descendants
of Edwin, nor anywhere else.
(b) Pen 128, 282b cites "Cadwgan ap Gronwy ap Owain ap Uchdryd" but Bartrum alters
this to "Cadwgan ap Gronwy ap Owain ap Edwin", probably because he did not believe that Uchdryd even had a son named Owain.
His resulting chart dates that Cadwgan as born c. 1170 (very near our estimate) and makes him the son of his c. 1070 Gronwy.
Either Bartrum is wrong, or we have a miracle baby delivered some 45 years after his father was killed. [3] While our
citation did err in making its Uchdryd "ap Edwin", virtually no genealogists prior to the 21st century acknowledged that there
was a "Uchdryd ap Uchdryd ap Edwin".
(c) A Heilyn ap Ieuaf ap Griffri ap Gronwy ap Owain ap Uchdryd" is cited in Pen
128, 169b and Pen 127, 179 as the ancestor of a Gwenllian ferch Madog Goch.
The same Heilyn is, alternately, cited in Pen 176, 251 as Heilyn ap Ieuaf ap Gruffudd ap Llewelyn ap Owain ap Uchdryd. Heilyn
was born c. 1250, so either ancestry for him "works" chronologically, so long as you identify the "Uchdryd" in the citations
as Uchdryd ap Uchdryd ap Edwin. In fact, Bartrum decided both sets of citations were incorrect. He attached Heilyn
ap Ieuaf to a Gruffudd ap Llewelyn ap Owain ap Aldud ap Owain ap Edwin, although there are no sources which say that this
Llewelyn ap Owain ever had a son named Gruffudd. See our Appendix for this analysis.
After reviewing our chart, we
wondered if our unnamed potential brother of the c. 1162 Grfiffri ap Gronwy might have been named Cadwgan. This is almost
certainly the exact same family whose child-naming choices were duplicated by their cousin branch a generation later.
Since the later Gronwy named sons Griffri and Cadwgan, this might have been exactly copied from the earlier family branch.
Our unidentified Cadwgan of c.
1160 fits chronologically with the "unknown" in our chart and we know he named his son "Griffri". This family was
seated in Tegeingl, not very far from the lands held by the clan of Tudor Trefor, and there were numerous marriages between
residents of Tegeingl and folks descended from Tudor Trefor.
A chart which includes the marriage
we earlier posited between a daughter of Cadwgan and Meilyr Eyton, appears below:
1125 Gronwy ap Owain ap Uchdryd
ap Edwin
__________l____
l
l
1162 Griffri 1160 Cadwgan
________l_________
l l
1180
1192 Griffri
1192 Clementia==== Meilyr Eyton
l
1210 Cadwgan
____________________l___
l
l
1240 Griffri
1245 Clementia
l
1270
Llewelyn
The family
in the first column (which ends with the c. 1192 Griffri) is cited in Pen 131, 131 and Pen 129, 80. The family on the
right (excluding the marriage of Meilyr Eyton) is found in the following citations: Llewelyn ap Griffri ap Cadwgan ap
Meilyr Eyton is cited in Pen 131, 73 and Pen 127, 25. Clementia [4] ferch Cadwgan ap Meilyr Eyton is cited in Pen 128,
139a. The marriage shown in red is merely our suggestion.
We further posit a scenario in which
the results seen in our chart would be quite logical. Return with us briefly to the year 1191 in Tegeingl. The
brothers, Cadwgan and Griffri ap Gronwy ap Owain ap Uchdryd ap Edwin, were both near age 30 and devout Christians.
The Saracens had, in 1188, invaded Jerusalem and taken possession of the Holy Cross. Archbishop Baldwin and Gerald of
Wales had criss-crossed the country seeking volunteers to "take up the cross" and join a great crusade to liberate Jerusalem.
England's King Henry II died in 1189 and his successor, Richard the Lion-Hearted, prepared to lead a contingent of English
and Welsh soldiers in the crusade.
Cadwgan ap Gronwy had recently
taken a wife, who was now pregnant, so he chose to pass up the crusade. His younger brother, however, was yet single and he elected to join the crusade. Young Griffri
was among the men who set sail for the Holy Land in April, 1191. Two notable things occurred during the following months,
which left a large impression on Cadwgan. First,
Pope Clement died shortly before the crusaders laid siege to the city of Acre. A bit later, word arrived that his
brother, Griffri, had been killed in battle.
Early in 1192, Cadwgan's wife delivered
twins, a boy and a girl. They named their new son "Griffri" in honor of the child's uncle who died as a Christian warrior.
Their daughter was named Clementia to honor Pope Clement, the man who had organized world support for the crusade. About
1208, she married Meilyr Eyton and named her first son "Cadwgan" after her father, who became the child's Godfather.
Thus ends our diversion into conjecture which sought to logically explain results which are found in the written sources.
When Cadwgan ap Meilyr Eyton grew to
manhood and took a wife, he had two children. He named his daughter Clementia after his mother, and named his son
Griffri, exactly as his namesake had named his two children. The two families remained close, and the duplicate-naming
tradition was continued for another 100 years. Both Griffri's named a son Llewelyn, both Llewelyn's named a son Iorwerth,
etc.
NOTES:
[1] For another example where this naming pattern occurred, see our paper on
"Elystan of Powys" at the link below:
[2] Peter Bartrum "Welsh Genealogies AD300-1400",
Index-Volumn 5"
[3] ByT records the killing of Gronwy ap Owain ap Edwin in 1125, and Bartrum
notes that fact (incorrectly as 1124) on his chart "Edwin 1"
[4] Pen 128, 139a actually calls her "Clement". Most of the men who copied
down pedigrees in the Peniarth (and other) manuscripts, used abbreviations to reduce their labor. The male name "Dafydd"
was universally written as "dd", "Llewelyn" as "lln", "Madog" as "Md" etc. We think the instant source was abbreviating
when he wrote "Clement" and identified her as female by following it with "vz", the standard abbreviation of "ferch".
The common Latin female name "Clementia" occurs nowhere else in Welsh pedigrees.
APPENDIX:
We present here a closer
look at the cited pedigrees of Gwenllian ferch Madog Goch ap Heilyn Fychan ap
Heilyn ap Ieuaf. The pedigrees identify her husband as Dafydd (1335) ap Llewelyn (1290) ap Dafydd (1250) ap Gronwy (1215)
ap Iorwerth (1185) ap Hywel (1155) ap Moreiddig (1125) ap Sandde Hardd (1095) ap Sandde (1060) ap Caradog Hardd (1025) descended
from "Gwion" ap Cunedda. We would date Gwenllian to c. 1350:
1020 Edwin
1020 Edwin
1020 Edwin
l
l
l
1055 Uchdryd 1055
Uchdryd 1050 Owain
l
l l
1085 Uchdryd
1085 Uchdryd 1085
Aldud
l
l
l
1115 Owain
1115 Owain
1115 Owain
l
l
l
1150 Llewelyn
1145 Gronwy 1150
Llewelyn
l
l
l
1185 Gruffudd
1180 Griffri
1180 Gruffudd
l_____________________l_____________________l
l
1215 Ieuaf
l
1250 Heilyn
l
1280 Heilyn Fychan
l
1315 Madog Goch
l
1350 Gwenllian
Names in
red in this chart were omitted in the actual citation. Column 1 shows the pedigree found in Pen 176, 251. Column
2 shows the pedigree as cited by Pen 127, 179 and Pen 128, 169b. Column 3 shows the manner in which Bartrum charted
the family, but only the men from Llewelyn back to Edwin are found in any known citation. Such a family is cited in
Pen 128, 604a but includes no son named Gruffudd.
Everyone omitted the Uchdryd ap Uchdryd
from pedigreres they cast, so we do not find the omission unusual in the above cases. However, there are no known sources
which say the Llewelyn in column 3 even had a son named Gruffudd.
You will note that all 3 versions of the
ancestry of Gwenllian "work" chronologically, but Bartrum's version only works by inserting a "Gruffudd" into the pedigree
(probably by copying the lower part of column 1). There are also no known versions of her pedigree which, as they stand,
trace Gwenllian back to Owain ap Edwin.
We believe the agreement found
between Pen 127, 179 and Pen 128, 169b (column 2 above) is more credible than the single citation by Pen 176, 251 (column
1); we therefore reject both columns 1 and 3 as credible versions of Gwenllian's pedigree. But that does not imply that
the list of names in column 1 is NOT a valid family line, only that it was not the family which included the people in the
lower column of our chart.
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