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33-510: Gwenhwyseg or Y Wenhwyseg (also called " Gwentian " in English) is a Welsh dialect of South East Wales . The name derives from an old term for the inhabitants of the area, y Gwennwys . One of Gwenhwyseg's characteristics is the change in the long a vowel to a long e e.g. y Ted a'r Meb a'r Ysbryd Glên rather than the standard y Tad, y Mab a'r Ysbryd Glân ("the Father,

66-537: A church on the spot and buried his father's body there, giving the surrounding land to the Bishops of Llandaff; a bishops' palace was later built there. The place became known first as Merthyr Tewdrig ("Tewdrig the martyr"), and later as Mateyrn ("place of a king") or Mathern. Tewdrig's defence of his homeland was said to be sufficiently decisive that the Saxons would not dare to invade again for thirty years. There

99-557: A rocky place near a ford across the River Wye . When a Saxon threat to the kingdom emerged, he returned to lead a defence. He was successful, but at a battle or skirmish at or near the ford (called Rhyd Tintern ), he was mortally wounded. He asked to be taken to Ynys Echni (called Flat Holm in English) for burial, but got no further than Mathern on an inlet of the Severn estuary , where he languished briefly and died. King Meurig built

132-517: A time when the bishopric at Llandaff was struggling against the competing bishoprics at Saint David's and Hereford . The book was written specifically to justify the claims of Llandaff, and Tewdrig's story provides the reason why his son, Meurig ap Tewdrig , donated the lands near Mathern to the see of Llandaff. Tewdrig is not mentioned by Nennius in the Historia Brittonum (c. 850). Lloyd 's History of Wales (1911) mentions

165-450: Is a minor hagiographic element in this story from the Book of Llandaff . On returning to secular service due to military necessity, Tewdrig is given the prophecy that he will be successful but will be mortally wounded; that a vehicle pulled by two stags , yoked, will appear and carry him towards his destination of Ynys Echni, but that he will die in peace three days after the battle. Wherever

198-782: Is amongst the highest in Britain and certainly the rest of the Welsh Marches , with at least 25 castle sites remaining in Monmouthshire alone today. Conflict with the Welsh continued intermittently, although the Welsh Lord of Caerleon, Morgan ab Owain, grandson of King Caradog ap Gruffudd, was recognized by Henry II c. 1155, with Caerleon remaining, in Welsh hands, subject to occasional struggles, until William Marshal retook

231-519: The civitas capital of Venta Silurum , perhaps meaning "Market of the Silures". In the post Roman period , the territory around Venta became the successor kingdom of Guenta, later Gwent, deriving its name directly from the town through the normal sound change in the Brythonic languages from v to gu . The town itself became Caerwent , "Fort Venta". According to one Old Welsh genealogy ,

264-612: The Book of Llandaff's account of Tewdrig's combat at the crossing of the Wye , and notes that Merthyr Tewdrig is now called Mathern, but adds nothing further. Nedelec's History of the Early Cambro-British Christians (1879) retells the story from the Book of Llandaff , adding a number of unattributed details which are colourful but inconsequential. Turner 's History of the Anglo-Saxons (1799) repeats

297-542: The English spoken in the area with English speakers using Welsh words and syntax (see Welsh English ), e.g. "What is on her?" reflects Welsh Beth sy' arni hi? . Other differences between standard Welsh and Gwenhwyseg are: Kingdom of Gwent Gwent ( Old Welsh : Guent ) was a medieval Welsh kingdom , lying between the Rivers Wye and Usk . It existed from the end of Roman rule in Britain in about

330-491: The Marcher Lordships of Abergavenny , Caerleon , Monmouth , Striguil ( Chepstow ) and Usk . Welsh law as seen through Norman eyes continued, with Marcher lords ruling sicut regale ("like a king") as stated by Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester. The Normans lords freely built permanent stone castles , many originating from a network of earlier motte and bailey castles. The density of castles of this type and age

363-517: The Norman invasion of Wales extending westwards, Caradog's area of control moved into Deheubarth to the west, and in 1074 Caradog took over control over what was left of the war-ravaged Kingdom from Cadwgan ap Meurig. By Caradog's death in 1081 most of Gwent had become firmly under Norman control. The Normans divided the area, including those areas which they controlled beyond the River Usk, into

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396-418: The preserved counties of Wales used for certain ceremonial purposes, and also survives in various titles, e.g. Gwent Police , Royal Gwent Hospital and Coleg Gwent . Tewdrig The context of the battle is one of Britons versus invading Saxons , without explicit religious overtones. Since Tewdrig held to a religious lifestyle and was killed while defending a Christian kingdom against pagans , by

429-404: The 5th century until the Norman invasion of Wales in the 11th century. Along with its neighbour Glywyssing , it seems to have had a great deal of cultural continuity with the earlier Silures , keeping their own courts and diocese separate from the rest of Wales until their conquest by Gruffydd ap Llywelyn . Although it recovered its independence after his death in 1063, Gwent was the first of

462-574: The Kingdom of Gwent and the Kingdom of England was agreed at the Wye, removing Cantref Coch from Gwent's historic boundaries. The later county of Monmouthshire was made up of the kingdom's two remaining cantrefs, Gwent Uch-coed and Gwent Is-coed. In 1542, these were subdivided into the six hundreds of Abergavenny , Caldicot , Raglan , Skenfrith , Usk and Wentloog . Despite the extinction of

495-473: The Saxons had devastated the border regions, chiefly to the northwest near Hereford (i.e., in the historical Kingdom of Ergyng ), and also along the River Wye . While king of Glywysing , Tewdrig ap Teithfallt had been a patron of the Church at Llandaff, with a history of success in battle. At some point in his reign, he abdicated in favour of his son Meurig in order to live a hermitical life at Tintern ,

528-596: The Son and the Holy Spirit"). The diphthong ae is changed in the same way: This is a diphthong which varies in pronunciation over the Gwenhwyseg territory and not realised with same phoneme; it is also found in words like pen, pren, pert , etc. This does not occur in monosyllabic words containing a short a like mam and naw as happens in some of the dialects of Montgomeryshire . Gwenhwyseg has influenced

561-674: The Welsh kingdoms to be overrun following the Norman conquest. The area has been occupied since the Paleolithic , with Mesolithic finds at Goldcliff and evidence of growing activity throughout the Bronze and Iron Age . Gwent came into being after the Romans had left Britain , and was a successor state drawing on the culture of the pre-Roman Silures tribe and ultimately a large part of their Iron Age territories. It took its name from

594-492: The Welsh prince of Gwynedd (and Powys ), Bleddyn ap Cynfyn . King Maredudd of Deheubarth decided not to resist the Norman encroachment on Gwent and was rewarded with lands in England in 1070, at the same time as the chronicler Orderic Vitalis noted in his Historia Ecclesiastica that a Welsh king named "Caducan" (Cadwgan ap Meurig) suffered defeat in battle at the hands of William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford . With

627-708: The accounts of the Book of Llandaff and Bishop Godwin (citing Ussher as the source), but then adds that the Saxons in question were those of Wessex , led by Ceolwulf . No authority is provided for this claim. The Iolo Manuscripts are a collection of manuscripts presented in the early nineteenth century by Edward Williams, who is better known as Iolo Morganwg . Containing elaborate genealogies that connect virtually everyone of note with everyone else of note (and with many connections to "Arthur"), they were at first accepted as genuine, but have since been shown to be an assortment of manuscripts, transcriptions, and fantasies, many invented by Iolo himself. [The proof of these forgeries

660-532: The area was invaded by Earl Harold of Hereford , who attempted to establish a base at Portskewett, but it was razed to the ground by Caradog, and Harold - having by then been crowned King of England - was killed at the Battle of Hastings the following year. With the Norman invasion of Britain, the Normans sacked south-east Wales and parts of Gwent in response to Eadric's Herefordshire rebellion in alliance with

693-784: The basic units of administration for the next 450 or so years, until Henry VIII passed the Laws in Wales Act 1535 . This Act abolished the Marcher Lordships and established the County of Monmouth , combining the Lordships east of the Usk with Newport ( Gwynllŵg or Wentloog) and Caerleon to the west of it. In the 19th and 20th centuries, writers again began using the name 'Gwent' in a romantic literary way to describe Monmouthshire. In

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726-735: The castle in 1217 from Morgan ap Hywel . While the kingdom's northern and southern borders were unchanging (confirmed by the Severn Sea and the Brecon Beacons ), the kingdom is variously described as bordering the rivers Wye or Severn in the East, and the Rhymney or Usk in the West. The kingdom's territory is best demonstrated by its subdivisions, the ancient commotes and cantrefi defined in medieval Welsh law. At its greatest extent,

759-547: The founder of the kingdom was Caradoc Freichfras . The earliest centre of the kingdom may have been at Caerwent , the Roman administrative centre, or perhaps Caerleon , formerly a major Roman military base. Welsh saints like Dubricius , Tatheus and Cadoc Christianized the area from the 5th century onwards. According to tradition, in about the 6th century Caradoc moved his court from Caerwent to Portskewett , perhaps meaning nearby Sudbrook . Other suggestions are that Gwent

792-466: The kingdom by 1091, the name Gwent remained in use for the area by the Welsh throughout this period and later centuries. It was traditionally divided by the forested hills of Wentwood ( Welsh : Coed Gwent ) into Gwent Uwch-coed ("beyond the wood") and Gwent Is-coed ("below the wood"). These terms were translated into English as Overwent and Netherwent, the entire area sometimes being known as "Wentland" or "Gwentland". The Marcher Lordships were

825-416: The kingdom of Gwent is said to have consistent of four Cantrefi: In the early post-Roman period , the later commotes of Ergyng and Ewyas were both kingdoms in their own right. However both kingdoms would lose power, eventually falling entirely under the control of the Kingdom of Gwent. According to William of Malmesbury , Æthelstan met with the Welsh kings at Hereford in 926 where the border between

858-484: The local government re-organisations of 1974/5, several new administrative areas within Wales were named after medieval kingdoms - Gwent , Dyfed , Powys , and Gwynedd . Gwent as a local government unit again ceased to exist in 1996, when replaced by the unitary local authorities of Newport , Blaenau Gwent , Torfaen , Caerphilly (which included parts of Mid Glamorgan ), and Monmouthshire . The name remains as one of

891-589: The origin for King Arthur , although others consider this unlikely. In 931, Morgan ab Owain of Gwent, later known as Morgan Hen (Morgan the Old), was one of the Welsh rulers who submitted to Athelstan's overlordship, and attended him at court in Hereford . However, Gwent remained a distinct Welsh kingdom. In about 942, Gwent and Glywysing were again temporarily united under the name of Morgannŵg by Morgan Hen, but they were broken up again after his death. In 1034 Gwent

924-465: The saint's bones, and that the skull was badly fractured. Ussher also repeats the account of the Book of Llandaff . In 1958 the writer and illustrator Fred Hando recorded a story told to him by an old woman, long resident in Mathern, who claimed to have seen, in 1881, the opened coffin containing Tewdrig's body, with a wound to his skull still visible. The Book of Llandaff was written c. 1125, at

957-455: The stags halted, fountains gushed forth, but as they approached the Severn the wagon was broken, a very clear stream gushed forth and here Tewdric died. A number of sources, such as Ussher 's Brittanicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates (1639), cite Bishop Godwin 's 1615 account of the medieval church at Mathern. Godwin said that he discovered a stone coffin by the altar in the church, containing

990-426: The standards of that day Tewdrig is considered to be a martyr and a saint . The Latin form of his name is given as 'Theodoric' and his feast day is 1 April. Tewdrig's name appears in a genealogy of Jesus College MS 20 , in the line of one of his descendants, but the only substantive information about the person comes from the twelfth century Book of Llandaff . The Book of Llandaff places Tewdrig's story in

1023-439: The territory of the historical Kingdom of Gwent (the southeastern part of modern Monmouthshire ), though it states that he was a king of Glywysing . The ancient histories of the kingdoms of Gwent and Glywysing are intertwined, and he may have ruled both kingdoms. There are three theories about the origins of name Tewdrig: Tewdrig's father, Teithfallt, had also been a king, and the Book of Llandaff notes that during his reign

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1056-635: Was founded by Erb , possibly a descendant of Caradoc, who may have been a ruler of Ergyng east of the Black Mountains who won control of a wider area to the south. A later monarch was the Christian King Tewdrig who was mortally wounded repelling a pagan Saxon invasion. From the 6th century, various kings would unite the kingdom of Gwent with Glywysing to the west, with Tewdrig's son Meurig doing so through marriage. It has been suggested that Meurig's son, Athrwys , may be

1089-682: Was invaded by Canute . Gwent's existence as a separate kingdom again temporarily ended when Gruffydd ap Llywelyn won control of the area and Morgannŵg in 1055, so extending his rule over the whole of Wales. In 1056 Gruffyd ap Llywelyn campaigned from the vicinity of Monmouth with an army of Welsh, Saxons and Danes to defeat Ralph , Earl of Hereford , ravaging the surrounding countryside. However, after Gruffydd's death in 1063, Caradog ap Gruffudd re-established an independent kingdom in Gwent under his father's 2nd cousin Cadwgan ap Meurig . In 1065

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