Gruffudd ap Maredudd ap Dafydd (fl. 1352 – 1382) was a Welsh

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 ...

working in

Anglesey Anglesey ( ; ) is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. It forms the bulk of the Principal areas of Wales, county known as the Isle of Anglesey, which also includes Holy Island, Anglesey, Holy Island () and some islets and Skerry, sker ...

in the service of the

Tudors of Penmynydd The Tudors of Penmynydd () were a noble and aristocratic family, connected with the village of Penmynydd in Anglesey, North Wales, who were very influential in Welsh (and later English) politics. From this family arose Owen Tudor, Sir Owen Tudo ...

. One of the last of the older school of poets known as the ''

Gogynfeirdd Medieval Welsh literature is the literature written in the Welsh language during the Middle Ages. This includes material starting from the 5th century AD, when Welsh was in the process of becoming distinct from Common Brittonic, and continuing t ...

'', he resisted the innovations in Welsh verse-form which took place in his lifetime. About 2400 lines of his work have survived in the

Red Book of Hergest Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secon ...

. His best-known poem is "Gwenhwyfar", an elegy to a young lady. He was described by the literary historian D. Myrddin Lloyd as "the finest of all the late ''Gogynfeirdd'' poets" and by

Saunders Lewis Saunders Lewis (born John Saunders Lewis; 15 October 1893 – 1 September 1985) was a Welsh politician, poet, dramatist, Medievalist, and literary critic. Born into a Welsh-speaking ministerial family in Greater Liverpool, Lewis studied in a p ...

as "one of the greats".

Life

Gruffudd ap Maredudd came from a landowning family in

, and is himself recorded to have been part-owner of the townships of Aberalaw, Carneddawr and Dronwy in the

commote A commote (, sometimes spelt in older documents as , plural , less frequently )'' Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru'' (University of Wales Dictionary), p. 643 was a secular division of land in Medieval Wales. The word derives from the prefix ("together" ...

Talybolion Talybolion was a commote in the Hundred of Cemaes. The parishes of Llanfwrog and Llanbadrig Llanbadrig is a village and community (Wales), community (and former Wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral ward) in Anglese ...

. He was also sheriff of Talybolion. As a poet he was closely associated with the

, and can indeed be described as their family

. He is known to have been active from 1352 to 1382, but his date of death is unknown.

Work

Gruffudd's style largely follows the practice of his predecessors, the 12th- and 13th-century ''Gogynfeirdd'', rather than that of his contemporaries, the Poets of the Nobility. The verse-forms he employed were the time-honoured ''

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 ...

'' and ''

awdl In Welsh poetry, an ''awdl'' () is a long poem in strict metre (i.e. ''cynghanedd''). Originally, an ''awdl'' could be a relatively short poem unified by its use of a single end-rhyme (the word is related to ''odl'', "rhyme"), using cynghanedd; ...

'' rather than the comparatively new ''

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 ...

''. However he differed from the earlier ''Gogynfeirdd'' in making much use of the complicated system of alliteration known as ''

cynghanedd In Welsh-language poetry, ''cynghanedd'' (, literally "harmony") is the basic concept of sound-arrangement within one line, using Stress (linguistics), stress, alliteration and rhyme. The various forms of ''cynghanedd'' show up in the definitions ...

'', and even of the very demanding double ''cynghanedd sain''. His most common themes are the beauty of women, clothes and the Anglesey countryside, and the pathos of the deaths of beautiful people cut down in the joy of their youth. His poems are remarkable for their great breadth of reference to older Welsh, and even Irish, literature and legend. Gruffudd worked in a wide range of genres. He wrote eight praise-poems, seven of them being addressed to the Penmynydd family, namely

Tudur ap Goronwy Tudur ap Goronwy (c. 1310 - c. 1367) was a Welsh landowner, soldier and administrator of the Tudors of Penmynydd family from the island of Anglesey. Origins Born about 1310, he was one of the two sons of Goronwy ap Tudur Hen and his wife ...

; his brother Hywel, archdeacon of Anglesey; and Tudur's son Goronwy. The eighth is written to a patron who has not been identified. He also composed fifteen works on religious subjects, including poems of praise to God, a plea for God to spare

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 ...

from the

Black Death The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the list of epidemics, most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. ...

, and a poem on the Rood of

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

which has been described as a masterpiece and as one of the most ambitious poems of its time. Several of his religious poems are addressed to the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

, a fact which marks him out from the earlier ''Gogynfeirdd''. Gruffudd's other works include two love poems, an elegy for Hywel y Fwyall, a political poem supporting

Owain Lawgoch Owain ap Thomas ap Rhodri (, July 1378), commonly known as Owain Lawgoch (, ), was a Welsh soldier who served in Lombardy, France, Alsace, and Switzerland. He led a Free Company fighting for the French against the English in the Hundred Year ...

in his plans to liberate Wales from the English, and four satires which have been called "technically adept but quite repellent". The best known of his works is "Gwenhwyfar", an elegy (or possibly four related elegies) for a beautiful lady who died while still young. This has been translated, either in whole or in part, several times. The scholar Simon Rodway called it one of the best poems of the period; D. Myrddin Lloyd wrote of it that "Seldom has the horror of early death been expressed with such skill and anguish combined, and this poem ranks high among the finest achievements of Welsh verse."

Editions

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Notes

Citations

References

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gruffudd ap Maredudd ap Dafydd 14th-century births 14th-century Welsh poets People from Anglesey Sheriffs in Wales Welsh-language poets Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown