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THE LINEAGE OF PEBID PENLLYN
By Darrell Wolcott
Virtually nothing has been written of the ancient line of "leading men" of Penllyn, whose ancestry traces back to an early
5th century man called Pebid Penllyn. His pedigree down to c. 1010 was cited in ABT 22 as
"Meirion
ap Lleufodeu ap Royt ap Dunod ap Tudwal ap Ednyfed ap Brochwel ap Dyfnwal ap Deinioc ap Cadwr ap Pybyr ap Capor ap Pwder ap
Ystadwer ap Pandwlff ap Cynwlff ap Cornlwng ap Peblych ap Sulwych ap Pebid Penllyn"
This family does not appear in Peter Bartrum's charts of Welsh Genealogies AD300-1400. His only acknowledgement
of the family was in his Welsh Classical Dictionary, where he dismissed it entirely with a curt "Ancestor of a long
line of princes of Penllyn of whom nothing is known" entry for Pebid.
The only clue as to the identity of the last-born man in the pedigree (Meirion ap Lleufodeu) is found in Pen. 128, 62, where
its author added a gloss when he copied the pedigree from the now-lost Hengwrt Ms 33. [1] He said that, according to
the book of John Wynn of Peniarth (born 1512), "Meirion
is the man called y Blaidd Rhudd (the red wolf) of Gest". It was this identification which provided the date ranges we used
in our opening paragraph. Y Blaidd Rhudd was born c. 1010. Using our formula which holds that 3 male generations
of ancient Welshmen, on average over several hundred years, equals about 95 years, we would date Pebid Penllyn to c. 420.
This would make Pebid contemporary with the sons of Cunedda (who are identified with Gwynedd) and with the sons of Cadell
Ddyrnllwg of Powys.
There is no other male named
Pebid found in the entire body of early Welsh manuscripts. There is, however, a man of Penllyn called Tegid Foel, who
occurs in the same generation as Ceredig ap Cunedda. Bonedd y Saint, 6 says that a daughter of Tegid Foel of
Penllyn married a son of Ceredig. We would tend to date this Tegid to c. 420 and suggest that he is either a brother
of Pebid Penllyn, or is the same man. We would further identify Tegid Foel as the Tegid son of Cadell Ddyrnllwg who
is cited as the father of Gwynllyw in the pedigree of St Bueno of Holywell. [2]
What we do not know is why
none of the men in the immediate family of Meirion y Blaidd Rhudd are mentioned in any version of the Brut during the "glory
days" of Powys in the 10th and 11th centuries. The earliest Brut mention of the commote of Penllyn was in 1116, when
it was "divided between Gruffudd ap Maredudd ap Bleddyn and his cousin, Einion ap Cadwgan ap Bleddyn". This division
occurred at the same time that Meirionydd and Cyfeiliog were seized from Uchdryd ap Edwin (or from his sons if Uchdryd had
recently died). [3] Those two territories had earlier been granted to Uchdryd by Cadwgan ap Bleddyn , but that grant
did not mention Penllyn. Was it also in the hands of Cadwgan during his life, and if so, who had taken it away from
the family descended from Pebid Penllyn?
Other sources claim
that men maternally descended from Meirion y Blaidd Rhudd held the Lordship of Penllyn c. 1155-1220 so it must have been restored
to its original owners sometime after 1116. [4] Can we suggest a reasonable scenerio to explain the status of Penllyn [5] during
this period?
Meirion y Blaidd Rhudd probably
died near 1075, having lived a full life of 65 years. He was survived by two known children. A daughter, Haer
born c. 1040, was a 24 year old widow with no children when she married (as his 3rd consort) Powys King Bleddyn ap Cynfyn.
[6] In 1065, she bore a son, Maredudd. Her brother, Cyllin ap y Blaidd Rhudd, was born c. 1045 and became the new Lord of
Penllyn. When Bleddyn ap Cynfyn was killed in 1075, none of his sons were yet old enough to become king. A son
of his first-cousin, Trahaearn ap Caradog, was advanced to the kingship but he was killed in 1081. For a bit longer
than a year, the 4 eldest sons of Bleddyn "held" Powys as regents until Cadwgan ap Bleddyn became "of age" for kingship in
1083.
Cyllin, Lord of Penllyn, probably
died prior to age 40 at a time when his only son (born c. 1080) was yet a child. We think Cadwgan ap Bleddyn took Penllyn
in wardship for that youngster and that arrangement was still in effect when Cadwgan was killed in 1111. Maredudd ap
Bleddyn became the new Powys king, and it was he who restored Penllyn to its rightful owner, the son of Cyllin ap Meirion,
who was also the first-cousin of Maredudd. And it was Maredudd who first gave that man the nickname which had first
been borne by his grandfather: y Blaidd Rhudd. This man, whose birth name is nowhere cited, had a single daughter, his
heiress named Haer, who married Cynfyn Hirdref ap Gruffudd of Nefyn in Lleyn, and carried Penllyn "et uxor",
to that Cynfyn.
Cynfyn Hirdref had 3 daughters,
but we suggest only one of these was by Haer. That daughter, probably named Haer but also cited as Generys, [7] married
Gwrgeneu ap Collwyn of Pennant Melangell in Mochnant and carried Penllyn to him and their son, Rhiryd Flaidd. The latter
was called "the wolf" in honor of his maternal descent from the original "wolf", Meirion y Blaidd Rhudd.
It would appear, therefor,
that the 1116 division of Penllyn between two young grandsons of Bleddyn ap Cynfyn represented an unlawful taking of property
not owned by the Powys kings, but merely being held in wardship by them. King Maredudd ap Bleddyn corrected that abuse
by giving Penllyn back to its rightful heir, but this may have been done only because that heir was his cousin. The date when
Maredudd made the restoration is not known, and may have been within the same year it was improperly taken from wardship.
Our chart of the Penllyn family appears thusly:
NOTES:
[1] Also see our discussion of this citation in our paper "Five Plebian Tribes of Wales as the link
below:
[2] ByS 30
[3] Refer to our discussion of the date on which Uchdryd ap Edwin
was last known to be alive in the final paragraph of our paper "Uchdryd ap Edwin, the Younger son" at the link below:
[4] The young son of Cillyn ap Meirion y Blaidd Rhudd probably
attained his majority c. 1101 but for whatever reason, Cadwgan had withheld Penllyn from him and maintained the wardship until
his own death in 1111.
[5] Our reference is to Penllyn as it existed prior to
the 13th century. In the era of the men discussed herein, there were 3 contiguous "Lordships" called Penllyn, Dinmael
and Ederynion in the northern part of Powys, At a later period, those three territories were combined into a cantref
which was then named "Penllyn", and the original Penllyn was divided into two commotes called Penllyn Is Tryweryn and
Penllyn Uwch Tryweryn
[6] Refer to our paper "The First Wife of Bleddyn ap Cynfyn"
at the link below:
[7] Pen. 127, 89 calls her Generys, 3 other sources call
her Haer, and 3 more call her "unnamed daughter" All 7 sources had copied their data from the now-lost Hengwrt Ms 33,
and that data now forms HLG 3(e)
APPENDIX:
In his classic 20th century book The
History of Wales, Professor John E. Lloyd, on page 566, writes:
Owain Brogyntyn was Lord of Penllyn
and Ederynion....
To support this claim, Lloyd includes
a footnote showing that Owain Brogynton occurs in official records as having granted two manors located in Penllyn to Basingwerk
Abbey. Usually considered a scrupulous scholar, the professor here has taken a button and sewed a shirt on it.
One might apply this logic by predicting
"1000 years from now, some acclaimed historian will anoint me as having been the Lord, or Baron or even Governor of Texas
because he found a record showing that I donated some Texas land to a non-profit organization."
Even Owain's entry in the Dictionary
of Welsh Biography admits that it was the Lordships of Dinmael and Ederynion which his father, King Madog ap Maredudd,
gave his base son, Owain Brogyntyn. While Penllyn bordered on those two commotes, and dozens of men may have owned tracts
of land there, the Penllyn Lordship during Owain's lifetime was held by men maternally descended from Pebid Penllyn.
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