MAELGWN GWYNEDD
(d.
c.
547
in a widespread
plague
); son of
Cadwallon Lawhir
and great-grandson of
Cunedda Wledig
(q.v.)
, he ruled over
Venedotia
(
Gwynedd
) in the
second quarter of the 6th cent.
His kingdom seems to have comprised most of
north-west Wales
, including
Anglesey
, while tradition credits him with a favourite stronghold at
Degannwy
on the
Creuddyn peninsula
. As a fifth and last
ruler
arraigned by
Gildas
(q.v.)
for his misdeeds, he is addressed as ‘
Maglocunus
, the island dragon,’ a martial
prince
who has overthrown many other rulers. Tall of stature (cf. his sobriquet ‘
Maelgwn Hir
,’ ‘
Maelgwn the Tall
’) and excelling most contemporary princes in power, he was an able
military leader
, impetuous and generous by nature, but given to many failings and deeds of violence. In his early years he overthrew his maternal uncle, whose identity is unknown, but not long afterwards gave up all his royal power and dignity and entered a monastery as a
monk
. It was now or earlier that, as
Gildas
tells us, he listened to the instruction of ‘the accomplished teacher of almost the whole of
Britannia
,’ a
teacher
generally identified as the celebrated
Illtud
(q.v.)
, the site of whose monastery has been assigned either to
Llantwit Major
in
south Glamorgan
or to
Caldey Island
off the coast of
Pembrokeshire
.
Maelgwn
, however, soon found the monastic life unbearable, broke his vow, and returned to his former regal position. It is during this subsequent period that
Gildas
and Welsh tradition agree in portraying him as opposed to the ‘Saints,’ i.e. monachism, and the
perpetrator of evil deeds
, among them the
murder of his wife and of his nephew
, whose widow he then m. The same traditions, however, hint at later repentance and the bestowal of many privileges upon various religious centres. In the reference of
Gildas
to
Maelgwn
's own praises resounding on the lips of ‘ranting’ minstrels, we may detect a possible allusion to his
court bards
and his
patronage of native song
. A strong and able, though wayward ruler, who, according to an old Welsh saying, fell upon his ‘
long sleep in the court of
Rhos
.’
Bibliography:
-
Gildae De excidio Britanniae fragmenta,
Liber de paenitentia, accedit et Lorica Gildae / Gildas The
ruin of Britain, fragments from lost letters, The
penitential, together with the Lorica of Gildas
(ed.
H. Williams
),
1899
, 76-86;
-
A History of Wales
, 128-31.
Author:
Professor William Hopkin Davies, M.A., Aberystwyth
