Programme: Summer Term 2023
Wednesday 26th April, 7.30pm.
Eurig Salisbury
Chair: Dr Sara Elin Roberts
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‘Cydgynnal a’i ceidw gannoes’ (‘May mutual support uphold it for a hundred ages’): Oswestry’s late medieval and early modern urban Welsh poetry
A recent flowering of modern urban poetry in Welsh has given the lie to the notion that Welsh-language literature is confined to rural settings. However, far from being a purely modern innovation, Welsh-language poetry of an urban nature is an important but under-researched feature of the bardic tradition. This paper will consider poetry composed both for and in the town of Oswestry during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. It will argue that Oswestry’s unique social make-up and location in the marches allowed for an unprecedented flourishing of urban poetry that spanned the greater part of two centuries. What defines this poetry in contrast to poetry composed for patrons in rural Wales? To what extent can it be considered a new development in the Welsh tradition with a distinctly municipal outlook? Consideration will be given to both well-known poems recently edited and others that remain unedited, including a hitherto unknown poem of praise to the town.
Eurig Salisbury
is Assistant Head and Lecturer in Creative Writing in the Department of Welsh and Celtic Studies at Aberystwyth University. He has been a member of projects that have edited the work of medieval Welsh poets, most notably Guto’r Glyn (c.1415–90), and his most recent field of research is the poetry of the seventeenth century, primarily the work of Huw Morys (1622–1709). He is also a prize-winning poet and novelist.
Wednesday 10th May, 7.30pm.
Dr David Stephenson
Chair: Philip Hume
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‘Soon one stone could not be found on top of another’. Destruction of Castles in the March by Welsh forces.
In a number of contexts the destruction of castles by Welsh forces in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was commonplace. Sometimes castles were damaged beyond immediate repair in the course of attacks; sometimes they were slighted following capture; at other times they were rendered unusable in case they should fall into the hands of an enemy. One case, however, appears particularly puzzling: in 1265 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was given by Simon de Montfort the major fortification of Painscastle in Elfael, built by Henry III in stone in 1231. The Battle chronicle reports that Llywelyn destroyed the castle. But this was at a period when the prince was constructing, or adding to, several castles which formed a kind of screen on the eastern flank of his principality of Wales. The destruction of Painscastle left a significant gap in that screen. In the event the land of Elfael was one of the key areas in which the principality of Wales first began to unravel. It is on the specific case of the destruction of Painscastle that we shall therefore focus.
Dr David Stephenson
has M.A. and D.Phil from Oxford; a former Bowra Senior Research Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, he is now an Honorary Research Fellow at Bangor University He has published and lectured widely, mainly in the field of medieval Welsh history. His Medieval Powys: Kingdom, Principality and Lordships 1132-1293 (Boydell Press, 2016) won the inaugural Francis Jones Prize for Welsh history, administered by Jesus College, Oxford.
Thursday 25th May, 7.00pm.
Dr Jennifer Bell
Chair: Prof Janet Burton
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A Land of Saints: The Cult of Saints in the Landscape of South Wales.
Wales is known as a land of saints. E.G. Bowen memorably evaluated the way these dedications appeared in the landscape, but new considerations of distribution patterns as shown by Heather James can help to reveal a lot about how early medieval saints cults grew and their relationship with the landscape of south Wales. An examination of the cults of SS. David, Teilo, Illtud and Cadog, four of the major sains cults of the period, helps to highlight some of the ways in which foundations were made and expanded.
Dr Jennifer Bell
teaches in the School of History, Law and Social Sciences at Bangor University. She recently completed a PhD at Bangor University on the development of saints cults in early medieval Wales. She is interested in the development of scriptoria in medieval Wales, and is putting together a project on the Lichfield and Hereford Gospels.
Thursday 8th June, 7.00pm.
Dr Charles Insley
Chair: Professor Helen Fulton
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“The Mercians, the Merfynion and the Anglo-Welsh border, c.820-950”.
Relationships across the Anglo-Welsh border during the early middle ages are often seen as largely hostile and dominated by conflict; this paper explores both Welsh and English sources to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of the evolution of the relationship between the Mercian rulers and the dynasty that came to dominate much of Wales in the tenth century, the Merfynion. This relationship was much more complex than simply one of mutual hostility and this paper will argue that to some extent, Merfynion domination of much of Wales was enabled by Mercian co-operation.
Dr Charles Insley
is a senior lecturer in Medieval History and Head of the History Department at Manchester University, where he has worked since 2012. He did a doctorate in Medieval History at Worcester College, Oxford and since 1995 has worked in a number of UK universities, including Bangor, London, Northampton and, prior to moving to Manchester, Canterbury Christ Church. His interests lie in early medieval British and Irish history (c.800-1100) and he has published extensively on aspects of Anglo-Saxon and Welsh history, most recently an article on the archbishops of Canterbury and naval power in the Journal of the Haskins Society. He has a particular expertise in medieval charters and administrative documents, and is the author of a forthcoming biography of Æthelstan, first king of the English (Routledge, 2023). His current work is on elite women in Britain and Ireland of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries.