The 1176 Cardigan eisteddfod, as it is commonly described, was a cultural tournament involving

bard In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's a ...

s and musicians, held in the grounds of Cardigan Castle, Cardigan,

West Wales West Wales () is a region of Wales. It has various definitions, either covering Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, which historically comprised the Welsh principality of ''Deheubarth'', and an alternative definition is to include Swa ...

, by the Lord Rhys ap Gruffydd. Though the term ''

eisteddfod In Welsh culture, an ''eisteddfod'' is an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music. The term ''eisteddfod'', which is formed from the Welsh morphemes: , meaning 'sit', and , meaning 'be', means, a ...

'' was not commonly used until several centuries later, the 1176 gathering is commonly claimed to be the earliest recorded forerunner of the modern

national eisteddfod The National Eisteddfod of Wales ( Welsh: ') is the largest of several eisteddfodau that are held annually, mostly in Wales. Its eight days of competitions and performances are considered the largest music and poetry festival in Europe. Competito ...

event.

Background

Rhys ap Gruffydd Rhys ap Gruffydd or ap Gruffudd (often anglicised to "Griffith"; c. 1132 – 28 April 1197) was the ruler of the kingdom of Deheubarth in south Wales from 1155 to 1197. Today, he is commonly known as The Lord Rhys, in Welsh ''Yr Arglwydd Rhys' ...

became the ruler uniting the whole of

Deheubarth Deheubarth (; , thus 'the South') was a regional name for the Welsh kingdoms, realms of south Wales, particularly as opposed to kingdom of Gwynedd, Gwynedd (Latin: ''Venedotia''). It is now used as a shorthand for the various realms united under ...

, covering southwest Wales, in 1155. This had followed years of battles with the English King Henry II. Rhys was made Lord of Ystrad Tywi or, commonly, the Lord Rhys. There followed a period of relative peace and security. In the early 1170s Henry II sought friendship with Rhys and confirmed his leadership of Deheubarth. In 1171 Rhys rebuilt Cardigan Castle in stone, as a political and military statement, making it his chief residence. Welsh princes commonly patronised professional bards at the time, who in return wrote poetry praising their sponsors. The gathering at Cardigan Castle in 1176 is recorded in the medieval chronicle '' Brut y Tywysogion''. The next eisteddfod in Wales of any certainty took place circa 1451 in

Carmarthen Carmarthen (, ; , 'Merlin's fort' or possibly 'Sea-town fort') is the county town of Carmarthenshire and a community (Wales), community in Wales, lying on the River Towy north of its estuary in Carmarthen Bay. At the 2021 United Kingdom cen ...

Description

According to ''Brut y Tywysogion'', Lord Rhys announced the event a year in advance, "throughout Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland and the other islands", which suggests the event was on an unprecedented scale. Participants came from as far away as Ireland and France. It was held at Cardigan Castle over Christmas of 1176. Cardigan Castle was newly restored in stone and, by holding a tournament here rather than at the traditional base of Deheubarth at Dinefwr, Lord Rhys was making a statement to the old Norman and Welsh rulers. According to the 1770 'History of Wales' "a great feast" was held and "many hundreds of English, Normans, and others coming to Aberteifi ardigan were very honourably received, and courteously entertained by Prince Rhys ...Rhys called all the bards or poets throughout all Wales to come thither ...the bards being seated, they were to answer each other in rhyme." Rhys awarded two chairs as prizes, one for the winner of the poetry competition and the other for music. The poetry chair went to a

from

Gwynedd Gwynedd () is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The ci ...

, while the music prize went to the son of Eilon the Crythwr, a member of Rhys's court. Chairs were a valuable asset, normally reserved for people of high status. It has been conjectured that the idea for a cultural festival of music and poetry at Cardigan may have originated from a similar festival in France known as The Puy. Rhys may have known about the tradition via his connections with the

Norman French Norman or Norman French (, , Guernésiais: , Jèrriais: ) is a '' langue d'oïl'' spoken in the historical and cultural region of Normandy. The name "Norman French" is sometimes also used to describe the administrative languages of '' Angl ...

, or from soldiers returning from the continent.

Legacy

The next recorded eisteddfods were held in Carmarthen between 1451 and 1453, by the powerful nobleman of the area, Gruffudd ap Nicholas. He wanted to emulate the Lord Rhys and, probably as a bard himself, wanted to strengthen the bardic tradition. A 'Cadair Arian' (Silver Chair) was awarded as a prize, to a bard from

Flintshire Flintshire () is a county in the north-east of Wales. It borders the Irish Sea to the north, the Dee Estuary to the north-east, the English county of Cheshire to the east, Wrexham County Borough to the south, and Denbighshire to the west. ...

. At the next recorded eisteddfods, in the 16th century, chairs were again awarded as prizes. The first chair made for the modern form of Eisteddfod was at the Carmarthen event of 1819. They became regular prizes after the National Eisteddfod was introduced in the 1860s. In 2015 a high Eisteddfod chair was created and installed at the top of Cardigan Castle's East Tower, as a centrepiece of an exhibition about the Wales Eisteddfod. The chair incorporated interpretative details that would have been important to the Lord Rhys, including a carved lion's head and two bronze horses. The modern restaurant at Cardigan Castle is named "1176" in reference to Lord Rhys's gathering. A novel about the 1176 event, entitled ''Song Castle'' by Luke Waterson, was published in 2018. The book imagined what the festival and the journeys made by its participants were like.

References

{{reflist Cultural festivals in Wales Eisteddfod Cardigan, Ceredigion Cardigan 12th century in Wales