Gruffudd Leiaf was a 15th-century

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, of or about Wales * Welsh language, spoken in Wales * Welsh people, an ethnic group native to Wales Places * Welsh, Arkansas, U.S. * Welsh, Louisiana, U.S. * Welsh, Ohio, U.S. * Welsh Basin, during t ...

poet, known almost exclusively from his works. He was reputed to descend from the royal family of Gwynedd. Gruffudd Leiaf was born in Denbighshire, the son of Gruffudd Fychan, in turn son of Welsh knight Gruffudd ap Dafydd Goch, who served on a 1352 jury and died c. 1370, buried at the church of

Betws-y-Coed Betws-y-Coed () is a village and community (Wales), community in Conwy County Borough, Wales. The village is located near the confluence of the River Conwy and the River Llugwy and is on the eastern edge of Snowdonia. The population of the co ...

where his burial monument survives.Smith, J. Beverley, ''Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales'' University of Wales Press, new edition, 2014, p. 579 The reputed father of this earliest Gruffudd, Dafydd Gogh of

Penmachno Penmachno is a village in the isolated upland Machno valley, south of Betws-y-Coed in the county of Conwy, North Wales. The B4406 road runs through part of the village. The village is at the confluence of the Glasgwm and Machno rivers. It ha ...

, was claimed by later genealogies to have been an illegitimate son of

Dafydd ap Gruffydd Dafydd ap Gruffudd, also known as ''Dafydd III'' (11 July 1238 – 3 October 1283), was a Prince of Gwynedd until after the death of his brother, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, when he proclaimed himself as the Prince of Wales from 11 December 1282. H ...

, who briefly reigned as the last native

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales (, ; ) is a title traditionally given to the male heir apparent to the History of the English monarchy, English, and later, the British throne. The title originated with the Welsh rulers of Kingdom of Gwynedd, Gwynedd who, from ...

prior to his 1283 execution, though no contemporary evidence of such a son survives. Gruffudd Fychan had nine children by his wife Wladus ferch Gruffudd of Llifon, Anglesey, including sons Hywel Coetmor, Rhys Gethin, Robert and Gruffudd Leiaf, who with their father were accused in 1390 of preventing non-Welsh-speaking parson William Broun from taking up his parish at Llanrwst, and they were summoned before king

Richard II of England Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Edward, Prince of Wales (later known as the Black Prince), and Jo ...

and his council, so Gruffudd Leiaf and his brothers were presumably adults at the time. The sons would serve as executors of their father's will in March 1397. An ''

englyn (; plural ) is a traditional Welsh short poem form. It uses quantitative metres, involving the counting of syllables, and rigid patterns of rhyme and half rhyme. Each line contains a repeating pattern of consonants and accent known as . Ear ...

'' written by Gruffudd Leiaf survives in two copies, among the Cwrtmawr manuscripts and in the

National Library of Wales The National Library of Wales (, ) in Aberystwyth is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million books and periodicals, and the l ...

. A second work, a

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 ...

to the owl, has also been attributed to him by some manuscripts, though others attribute this work to other poets, his kinsmen

Siôn Leiaf Sion is a name used in Wales and in other nations. Welsh name Siôn () or Sion is a Welsh form of the Anglo-Norman ''Jean'', pronounced in English similarly to the Irish name Seán. Notable people with the Welsh name include: People with the sur ...

and Robert Leiaf, or the unrelated Daffydd ap Gwilym. Gruffudd was founder of a family of related Welsh poets. A large body of poetic work is attributed to his son,

Ieuan ap Gruffudd Leiaf Ieuan ap Gruffudd Leiaf was a Welsh uchelwr and bard, the son of poet Gruffudd Leiaf. His poetry, spanning the period ''c''.1420 to ''c''. 1470, has been fully edited. The earliest dateable poem that can be confidently assigned to him are a cywydd ...

, while Ieuan's son "Syr" Siôn Leiaf and probable son Robert Leiaf, were also poets, and later poet Huw Machno (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1585–1637) of Penmachno was also a reputed descendant of Daffydd Goch and hence akin to Gruffudd Leiaf.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gruffudd Leiaf 13th-century births 14th-century deaths 15th-century Welsh poets