Dafydd ab Edmwnd (fl. c. 1450–97) was one of the most prominent

Welsh language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic languages, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales by about 18% of the population, by some in England, and in (the Welsh c ...

poets of the

Later Middle Ages The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the period of European history lasting from 1300 to 1500 AD. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renai ...

Life

Dafydd was born into a family of Norman ancestry in Hanmer, in

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. ...

(now

Wrexham County Borough Wrexham County Borough () is a Principal areas of Wales, county borough, with city status in the United Kingdom, city status, in the North East Wales, north-east of Wales. It borders the English ceremonial counties of Cheshire and Shropshire to ...

), north-east

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

. As a freeman and landowner within Welsh society he was not, like most of his contemporaries, dependent upon patronage. Dafydd was the bardic disciple of

Maredudd ap Rhys Maredudd ap Rhys (fl. 1450–1485), also spelt Meredudd ap Rhys, was a Welsh language poet and priest from Powys. He was born in gentry, having pedigree blood, as discovered from the Peniarth Manuscripts. He is thought to have been the bardic tu ...

and was in turn, the bardic tutor of

Tudur Aled Tudur Aled (c. 1465 – 1525) was a late medieval Welsh poet, born in Llansannan, Denbighshire (Sir Ddinbych). He is regarded as a master of cynghanedd. Beginnings Tudur Aled was born c. 1465 in Llansannan, in what is now Denbighshire. It is l ...

and

Gutun Owain Gutun Owain (fl. 1456–1497) was a poet in the Welsh language. He was born near Oswestry in what is now north Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhab ...

Poetry

The main themes of Dafydd’s poetry were love and nature in the tradition of

Dafydd ap Gwilym Dafydd ap Gwilym ( 1315/1320 – 1350/1370) is regarded as one of the leading Welsh poets and among the great poets of Europe in the Middle Ages. Dafydd’s poetry also offers a unique window into the transcultural movement of cultural pract ...

. His best-known poems include the following

cywydd The cywydd (; plural ) is one of the most important metrical forms in traditional Welsh poetry ( cerdd dafod). There are a variety of forms of the cywydd, but the word on its own is generally used to refer to the ("long-lined couplet") as it is ...

au: :*'' Cywydd Merch'' ("To a girl") :*'' I Wallt Merch'' ("A lady’s hair") :*'' Enwi’r Ferch'' ("Naming the girl") Unlike many of his contemporaries, such as

Guto'r Glyn Guto'r Glyn (c. 1412 – c. 1493) was a Welsh language poet and soldier of the era of the ''Beirdd yr Uchelwyr'' ("Poets of the Nobility") or ''Cywyddwyr'' ("cywydd-men"), the itinerant professional poets of the later Middle Ages. He is consid ...

Lewys Glyn Cothi Lewys Glyn Cothi (c. 1420 – 1490), also known as Llywelyn y Glyn, was a prominent 15th-century Welsh poet who composed numerous poems in the Welsh language. He is one of the most important representatives of the ''Beirdd yr Uchelwyr'' ("Poets ...

, Dafydd eschewed the

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of armed confrontations, machinations, battles and campaigns fought over control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The conflict was fo ...

and politics. However, Dafydd was moved to compose an elegy for his friend, the harpist Siôn Eos, who was hanged for killing a man in a tavern brawl. In this, arguably his finest poem, Dafydd expresses his own

anti-English sentiment Anti-English sentiment, also known as Anglophobia (from Latin ''Anglus'' "English" and Greek φόβος, ''phobos'', "fear"), refers to opposition, dislike, fear, hatred, oppression, persecution, and discrimination of English people and/or ...

, and regrets that Siôn Eos could not have been sentenced under the more humane Welsh Laws of

Hywel Dda Hywel ap Cadell, commonly known as Hywel Dda, which translates to Howel the Good in English, was a Welsh king who ruled the southern Welsh kingdom of Deheubarth and eventually came to rule most of Wales. He became the sole king of Seisyllw ...

, resulting in

compensation Compensation may refer to: *Financial compensation *Compensation (chess), various advantages a player has in exchange for a disadvantage *Compensation (essay), ''Compensation'' (essay), by Ralph Waldo Emerson *Compensation (film), ''Compensation'' ...

being paid to the victim’s family rather than being sentenced to the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

under ''cyfraith Lundain'' ("London’s law"). :*'' Marwnad Siôn Eos'' ("The Death of Sion Eos")

1450 eisteddfod and its legacy

In 1450 Dafydd won the silver chair at an

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 ...

held at

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 ...

. This was achieved with a

in praise of the

Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, thr ...

, which exemplified the 24 metres of Welsh bardic poetry reformed by Dafydd, previously codified by

Einion Offeiriad Einion Offeiriad ("Einion the Priest") (died 1356) was a Welsh language poet and grammarian. Einion lived in Ceredigion, where he was a chaplain to Sir Rhys ap Gruffudd ap Hywel ap Gruffudd ab Ednyfed Fychan, a wealthy nobleman. Amongst Einion' ...

and

Dafydd Ddu o Hiraddug Dafydd Ddu o Hiraddug (died 1371), also known as Dafydd Ddu Athro o Hiraddug, was a Welsh language poet, grammarian, and Roman Catholic priest in the diocese of Llanelwy (St Asaph). He was once believed to be the son of a certain Hywel ap Madog of ...

. He deleted two metres and replaced them with the more complicated ''Gorchest y Beirdd'' and the ''Cadwynfyr''. The 24 metres presented by Dafydd at the eisteddfod became widely adopted throughout Wales. While the training of poets had always been kept within bardic circles, with the craft handed down from tutor to pupil, Dafydd’s reforms of the metres subsequently increased the segregation between the “professional elite” and the amateur poets. However the consequence of this, and of Dafydd in particular, was that greater emphasis was placed upon the bardic craft with its adherence to the stricter metres rather than on the content and theme of the poems. The passion and intensity of

and

Llywelyn Goch ap Meurig Hen Llywelyn Goch ap Meurig Hen (fl. c. 1350–1390) was a Welsh language court poet from Merionethshire, in the north west of Wales. Llywelyn is credited, along with Iolo Goch, with introducing and popularizing the cywydd metre in the north of Wales ...

tended to be lost.

Bibliography

*''Gwaith Dafydd ab Edmwnd'' (ed. by Thomas Roberts, Bangor, 1914).
''Welsh Literature - Chapter 7: Poets of the Gentry''
*Meic Stephens, ''The New Companion to the Literature of Wales'' (University of Wales Press, Cardiff 1998) *Gwyn Williams, ''The Burning Tree: Poems from the First Thousand Years of Welsh Verse'' (Faber and Faber, 1956). Includes a complete translation of the poems. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dafydd Ab Edmwnd Welsh-language poets People from Flintshire 15th-century Welsh poets