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

Welsh language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language family, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut P ...

poets of the

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

Life

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

Flintshire , settlement_type = County , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_shield = Arms of Flint ...

(now

Wrexham County Borough Wrexham County Borough ( cy, Bwrdeistref Sirol Wrecsam) is a county borough, with city status, in the north-east of Wales. It borders England to the east and south-east, Powys to the south-west, Denbighshire to the west and Flintshire to the nort ...

), north-east

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

. 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 It is uncertain when Tudur Aled started to write poetry. A remark by him in his el ...

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 and was a student of Dafydd ab Edmwnd. Gutun Owain was closely associated with the Cistercian abbey of Valle Crucis where ...

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 amongst the great poets of Europe in the Middle Ages. Life R. Geraint Gruffydd suggests 1315- 1350 as the poet's dates; others place him a little ...

. 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 b ...

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 of ...

, Dafydd eschewed the

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought bet ...

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 or Anglophobia (from Latin ''Anglus'' "English" and Greek φόβος, ''phobos'', "fear") means opposition to, dislike of, fear of, hatred of, or the oppression and persecution of England and/or English people.''Oxford ...

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

Welsh Laws Welsh law ( cy, Cyfraith Cymru) is an autonomous part of the English law system composed of legislation made by the Senedd.Law Society of England and Wales (2019)England and Wales: A World Jurisdiction of Choice eport(Link accessed: 16 March 20 ...

Hywel Dda Hywel Dda, sometimes anglicised as Howel the Good, or Hywel ap Cadell (died 949/950) was a king of Deheubarth who eventually came to rule most of Wales. He became the sole king of Seisyllwg in 920 and shortly thereafter established Deheubarth ...

, resulting in compensation being paid to the victim’s family rather than being sentenced to the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

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 (, RP: ; cy, Caerfyrddin , "Merlin's fort" or "Sea-town fort") is the county town of Carmarthenshire and a community in Wales, lying on the River Towy. north of its estuary in Carmarthen Bay. The population was 14,185 in 2011, ...

. This was achieved with a

in praise of the

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...

, 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 o ...

. 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 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