Hyfaidd ap Bleddri
Hyfaidd ap Bleddri (Hyfaidd son of Bleddri) (born c. 830 - d. c. 892) was a king of Dyfed.
The Triad 68 - "Three Kings who Sprang from Villeins" - in the Red Book of Hergest (which dates from the fourteenth century), lists Hyfaidd among their number, meaning that his father Bleddri or Bledrig was considered to have been a serf rather than a member of Dyfed's old royal family claiming descent from Aed Brosc.[1] Hyfaidd's mother was supposed to be Tangwystl, a daughter of the earlier King Owain ap Maredudd.[1]
T. Charles-Edwards argues that Hyfaidd was responsible for consolidating the lands that would later become Deheubarth, annexing Ystrad Tywi and possibly Ceredigion into Dyfed before his death in around 892.[2] Hyfaidd was said to have oppressed the clerics of Meneva (modern St. David's)[3] and exiled Bishop Nobis,[4] earning him the enmity of Nobis's kinsman, the historian Asser, Bishop of Sherborne.[4]
Although later Welsh histories made Hywel Dda's inheritance of Dyfed a peaceful affair brought about by his marriage to Hyfaidd's granddaughter Elen (d. 929)[5] and the extinction of Hyfaidd's male line,[6] Asser's more contemporary Life of King Alfred reports that Dyfed or Brycheiniog both fell under such sustained attack from Hywel's uncle Anarawd and father Cadell.[7] The expansionist policies of the sons of Rhodri Mawr[8] meant that Kings Hyfaidd and Elise ap Tewdur of Brycheiniog both submitted to King Alfred of Wessex's overlordship in exchange for his protection.[9]
Hyfaidd's sons Llywarch and Rhodri reigned after him, but were both dead by 905, both likely due to warfare. Rhodri ap Hyfaidd was killed by beheading in Arwystli.[2] The kingdom of Dyfed was soon lost to Cadell's son Hywel who consolidated his realms as Deheubarth.[2]
Children
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References
[edit]- ^ a b "Welsh Triads/Red Book of Hergest - Wikisource, the free online library". en.wikisource.org. Retrieved 2025-04-27.
- ^ a b c Charles-Edwards, T. Wales and the Britons, 350–1064, p. 495. Oxford University Press, 2012. Accessed 20 Feb 2013.
- ^ Charles-Edwards, p. 489.
- ^ a b Charles-Edwards, p. 452.
- ^ Thornton, David E. (1999). "Predatory Nomenclature and Dynastic Expansion in Early Medieval Wales". Medieval Prosopography. 20: 1–22. ISSN 0198-9405.
- ^ "Hywel Dda [Hywel Dda ap Cadell] (d. 949/50), king in Wales". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/13968. Retrieved 2025-04-27.
- ^ "HYWEL DDA (Hywel the Good) (died 950), king and legislator | Dictionary of Welsh Biography". biography.wales. Retrieved 2025-04-27.
- ^ "RHODRI MAWR ('the Great') (died 877), king of Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth | Dictionary of Welsh Biography". biography.wales. Retrieved 2025-04-27.
- ^ Thornton, David. Kings, Chronicles and Genealogies: Studies in the Political History of Early Medieval Ireland and Wales, p. 110. Occasional Publications UPR, 2003. Accessed 20 Feb 2013.