Robin Hood in Outlaw/ed Spaces

Media, Performance, and Other New Directions

Lesley Coote, Valerie Johnson, Lesley Coote, Valerie B. Johnson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317062042
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Following in the tradition of recent work by cultural geographers and historians of maps, this collection examines the apparently familiar figure of Robin Hood as he can be located within spaces that are geographical, cultural, and temporal. The volume is divided into two sections: the first features an interrogation of the literary and other textually transmitted spaces to uncover the critical grounds in which the Robin Hood 'legend' has traditionally operated. The essays in Part Two take up issues related to performative and experiential space, demonstrating the reciprocal relationship between page, stage, and lived experience. Throughout the volume, the contributors contend with, among other things, modern theories of gender, literary detective work, and the ways in which the settings that once advanced court performances now include digital gaming and the enactment of 'real' lives.

Act II

6 Property not prophecy

Welsh “outlaws” Owain Lawgoch and Owain Glyn Dŵr as high-status landowners

Spencer Gavin Smith

The study of medieval Wales has turned a corner in the past twenty years. Before this time, scholars tended to focus on the traditional aspects of society within a historical context: politics, kingship, warfare. Since the mid-1990s, the archaeology of medieval Wales has come to the fore and this research has begun to change perceptions of this period. This chapter will highlight one area in which this turning point can be clearly demonstrated by considering how two important Welsh medieval Uchelwyr (the social class that replaced the royal families who lost their lives or property) can be seen in a fundamentally different light with the use of new research techniques and archaeological sources. These two men are Owain Lawgoch (ca. 1330–78) and Owain Glyn Dŵr (ca. 1354–1415).

Owain Lawgoch served as the only non-French captain of a mercenary force during the Hundred Years War, mainly in the pay of the Charles V, King of France. Owain’s grandfather was Rhodri ap Gruffydd (d. 1315), brother of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (d. 1282), the last Prince of Wales. Owain traveled to France from England in 1366 and, with the backing of the King of France, subsequently announced that the principality of Wales was his by right. An inquisition in 1369 found him an outlaw in his absence, because of his dealings with the King’s enemies. Owain was perceived as such a threat by the English Crown that they sent an assassin, John Lamb, to kill him during a siege of the castle of Mortagne-Sur-Gironde, and paid him £20 to carry out this task.¹ His assassination was later depicted in Jean de Wavrin’s Chronique d’Angleterre that is now preserved in the British Library in London as BL Royal 14 E iv. Owain was buried in the church of Saint Léger in Mortagne-Sur-Gironde and his mercenary company carried on fighting, under new leadership, right until the turn of the fifteenth century.²

Owain Glyn Dŵr appears to have attended law school in Westminster. From 1384, he appears in English muster rolls serving in Scotland under Sir Gregory Sais and, in the following year, in the retinue of the Earl of Arundel.³ In 1387, he fought at sea as an esquire in the retinue of the earl of Arundel, who led the expedition; and he was first in the list of esquires named on the muster roll for the follow-up campaign of 1388. The reasons for his revolt appear to have been both personal, with a long-running but vaguely documented dispute with his neighbor Lord Reginald Grey of Ruthin,⁴ and also fueled by the wider disaffection of the Welsh people after the deposition of King Richard II of England.⁵ His initially very successful and wide-ranging rebellion, which eventually attracted support from the French King Charles VI, began on September 16, 1400, when Owain was declared Prince of Wales by several of his peers at his hunting lodge on his estate of Glyndyfrdwy.⁶ He could have himself declared as such because the marriage of his mother and father had brought together two Welsh royal dynasties. An inquisition later in the same year declared him and his followers outlaws following their attacks on a series of English boroughs. The revolt that took his name lasted, officially at least, until March 1414,⁷ although Owain himself is not heard of again in the English Government records after 1416,⁸ and his final fate remains unknown.

These two men, Owain Lawgoch and Owain Glyn Dŵr, are most readily identified with their military identities and in the case of Owain Glyn Dŵr, have been the subject of numerous books, both academic and popular in their focus.⁹ Owain Glyn Dŵr appeared as Owen Glendower in William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I. Owain Lawgoch, by contrast, has led a much more sheltered historical afterlife in Welsh culture. Appearing as a minor character in folklore, mainly in West Wales, it was not until the historian Edward Owen, in an article in the Transactions of the Cymmrodorion in 1900, that a connection was made between the historical figures of Welsh prince Owain Lawgoch and Mercenary Captain Yvain de Galles. Yvain de Galles, by contrast, was very much alive and well in the history and culture of France, Switzerland, and Guernsey. The traditional view of these two men as outlaws has been perpetuated by Carr in his biography of Owain Lawgoch and Davies in his biography of the revolt of Owain Glyn Dŵr. Drawing on the historical sources of English court rolls, inquisitions, and contemporary reportage, the lives of both men have been viewed through the prism of their military prowess. The research by Carr and Davies did include some information on the land and property of both men, but they did not contextualize it because there was a lack of archaeological research into the size, location, and economic status of their estates. This view of Owain Lawgoch and Owain Glyn Dŵr as outlaws is still part of contemporary Welsh society. A memorial to Owain Lawgoch was unveiled in 2003 in the French town of Mortagne-Sur-Gironde. It is composed of Owain’s coat of arms, which incorporates a horned helmet as part of its design, carved onto a slate disc. The disc is supported on an oversize upraised hand some eight feet high. The memorial to Owain Glyn Dŵr in Corwen, Denbighshire, unveiled in 2007 portrays Owain on the back of a galloping armored warhorse bedecked in his coat of arms. Owain wears plate armor, his helmet visor is raised, his sword is raised aloft, and his face contorted into a war cry.

There are other ways of interpreting the legacy of these men. By declaring themselves as the Prince of Wales, they took on the mantle of rulers of their country, and consequently the legal definition of outlaw by the English crown. With this came all the trappings of this position, including the use of prophecy and poetry to enhance their claim to the throne, the effective exploitation of economic sources for maximum financial gain, and the development of their property portfolio, whether that was secular or religious in its nature.

The following chapter will discuss the use of prophecy in the definition of a Welsh ruler and the compulsion of those to fulfill this prophecy. It will consider the varying types of poetry composed to the two men. It will also reexamine the known historical sources and integrate them with the recent archaeological evidence to challenge the dominant interpretation of Owain Lawgoch and Owain Glyn Dŵr only as outlaws consumed by prophetic poetry, propaganda, and personal gain.

Prophetic poetry

There was no lack of prophecy in medieval Europe, and Wales as a nation was no exception. Prophetic poetry in Wales was known as canu brud and the branch of poetry this chapter is concerned with is Y Mab Darogan, the Destined or Prophesized Son. This “Mab Darogan” was not strictly equated to a figure such as King Arthur, but rather was an idea passed on by the court poets, and later by cler, or peripatetic poets from at least the tenth century. The concept of the poetry passed on by the poets was to encompass those of high status who were alive and could and should fulfil this role in their considered opinion. The name “Owain” was the name most commonly applied to this prophetic figure, especially in the corpus of poetry surviving from the fourteenth century detailing how and why the Welsh needed such a hero, in particular after the thirteenth-century Edwardian Conquest of Wales when the Kingdom of Gwynedd was finally subsumed.¹⁰ One couplet from a poet called Y Bergam includes the lines

ac y mae gwr yn ffraink ffrowddos kyffrank
a ddial i dad o gad gyfan.
And there is a man in France eager for battle
who will avenge his father with a whole army.

This poetry, written in the cywydd form that is prevalent in the fourteenth century, is almost explicit in connecting Owain Lawgoch and his campaigns in France with his destiny to return to Wales. Another, written in the awdl form by the poet Gruffudd ap Maredudd ap Dafydd, urges Owain to return from France to liberate Wales and conquer England.

Similarly, prophetic poetry addressed to Owain Glyn Dŵr is also known, with the poem by Gruffydd Llwyd perhaps the most well-known example¹¹; Schoales provides a recent overview of Welsh prophetic poetry in the age of the Princes.¹² This poetry is important in this context because it provides material that highlights the social connections of these men. It does not treat them as the outlaws the English Crown sees them as, but rather as legitimate rulers of Wales.

Poetry of landscape and economics

Poetry could also be used for other purposes. One strand of Welsh medieval poetry composition was concerned with the praise of houses and landscapes,¹³ and the cywydd composed by Iolo Goch to Sycharth, Owain Glyn Dŵr’s llys or residence in the Cynllaith valley southwest of Oswestry is considered one of the finest of its genre.¹⁴ The cywydd praises the largesse of Owain Glyn Dŵr, the quality of the construction of his house, and the variety of economic activities happening on his estate, from a corn mill to a heronry and from hay meadows to fish ponds.

A paper by Enid Roberts in 1973 indicated how the use of praise poetry to houses and their owners was orally transmitted by the peripatetic cler from Uchelwr to Uchelwr, with Owain Glyn Dŵr’s Sycharth being referenced as the house and estate that were to be emulated above all others, even after its destruction in May 1403.¹⁵ The tradition of praise poetry survives the revolt of Owain Glyn Dŵr and a study of the medieval and postmedieval houses of Radnorshire has revealed how important the relationship between poet and Uchelwr continued to be.¹⁶ Unfortunately, there is no surviving poetry to Owain Glyn Dŵr’s other estates at Glyndyfrdwy and Iscoed Glyndwr or the estates of Owain Lawgoch; however, a detailed examination of other strands of poetry may reveal useful information.

Historical evidence

In addition to the evidence that can be derived from the poetry of the period, there is also a range of historical sources that can be used to further the understanding of Owain Lawgoch and Owain Glyn Dŵr as high-status landowners before their being declared outlaws. The evidence for the estates of Owain Lawgoch was collated by Carr and gave an idea of how the family bought and sold land in the counties of Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Montgomeryshire, and Surrey during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Carr’s research is the most comprehensive study of the documentary evidence relating to Owain Lawgoch to date. By comparison, research into the development of the estates of Owain Glyn Dŵr has not been as comprehensive, concentrating more on the wider revolt than estate acquisition and development.¹⁷ I was responsible for the first systematic collation of historical references to the estate of Sycharth in 1997 and a similar exercise for the estate of Glyndyfrdwy is part of my current research.¹⁸

The sources collated by Carr reveal that the estates of Owain Lawgoch, which ranged across four counties in their final form, began from a single estate at Bidfield in Gloucestershire gifted to his grandfather Rhodri ap Gruffydd at the turn of the fourteenth century by King Edward I.¹⁹ By the time of the legal inquisitions taken in the 1360s to ascertain when Owain had left for France, the four estates consisted of at least four manor houses; two water mills, numerous parcels of arable, pasture and meadow land, and two woodlands. Also to be included within the value of the estates were rents and pleas and perquisites of the lord’s court at each of the four manors.

An indication of the quality of Owain Glyn Dŵr’s llys at Sycharth and estate at Glyndyfrdwy comes from a letter written by Prince Hal...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Prologue
• Act I
• Act II
• Epilogue
• Common bibliography
• Editors and contributors
• Index