IESTYN ap GWRGANT (fl. c. 1081-1093), last independent ruler of Glamorgan

Son of Gwrgant ab Ithel. Little is known with certainty about him. Cardiff seems to have been his seat of government, but the extent of his territory is unknown. He cannot have become supreme in Glamorgan until 1081, when Caradog ap Gruffydd, who ruled Glamorgan from c. 1075, was slain. In 1080, Iestyn was sufficiently insignificant to appear as a minor witness attesting a grant of land made to Llandaff by ‘Caratocus rex morcannuc.’ Yet before his death, he was important enough to violate the sanctity of Llandaff, an act for which Iestyn had to atone by a grant of land. He founded the fifth royal tribe of Wales, and most of the noble families of Glamorgan claimed descent from him.

A famous story of Glamorgan, at least as old as the 15th century, associates the Norman conquest of Glamorgan with Iestyn's name. It describes how Iestyn, through his kinsman Einion ap Collwyn, a fugitive in England, secured Robert Fitzhamon's assistance against Rhys ap Tewdwr, whom he slew at Penrhys. Iestyn paid the Normans but refused Einion's promised reward — his daughter in marriage. Einion recalled the departing Normans, who overthrew Iestyn, divided the lowlands amongst themselves, leaving only the hill country to the Welsh. Iestyn fled — to Keynsham Abbey, according to one version — where he died. Where this story touches known facts it is demonstrably wrong, e.g. Keynsham Abbey was not founded till 1169, while Rhys was slain near Brecon in Easter week 1093.

Author

• Ceinwen Hannah Thomas

Sources

• G. T. Clark, The land of Morgan being a contribution towards the history of the lordship of Glamorgan (London 1883), 6, 30, 38, 77, 131, and Limbus Patrum Morganiae et Glamorganiae (1886), 23, 24, 124, 129;
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography;
• Heraldic Visitations of Wales and Part of the Marches between the years 1586 and 1613, under the authority of Clarencieux and Norroy, two kings at arms (Llandovery 1846), ii, 20, 56-7;
• A History of Wales: from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest (London 1912), 402, 440;
• John Leland, The Itinerary in Wales of John Leland in or about the years 1536-1539 (London 1906), 38;
• Liber Landavensis. The Text of the Book of Llan Dâv (1893), 271-3;
• Rice Merrick, Morganiae Archaiographia A book of Glamorganshire antiquities (Broadway 1825), 3, 6-8, 12-23, 43, 50-1;
• L. D. Nicholl, The Normans in Glamorgan, Gower and Kidweli (Cardiff 1936), xiii, 18, 36, 67, 180;
• Annals and Antiquities of the Counties and County Families of Wales, 239, 488, 490;
• The Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1899-1900, 145-8, 162;
• G. J. Williams, Traddodiad Llenyddol Morgannwg (1948), 26, 34, 184-91, 203, 204, 209.

Further Reading

• Wikipedia Article: Iestyn ap Gwrgant

Additional Links

• Wikidata: Q1087998

Published date: 1959

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