CARADOG ap IESTYN
(
fl.
1130
),
founder of the family of ‘Avene’ in Glamorgan
,
was a son of
Iestyn ap Gwrgant
(q.v.)
.
Iestyn
is known to history from two entries in
Liber Landavensis
; in the first he appears low down in the list of
lay witnesses
to a grant in
Edlygion
made to
bishop
Herwald
by
Caradog ap Gruffydd
(q.v.)
; in the second he is himself a
ruler
, with a warband for whose misdeeds he makes amends to the same
bishop
by the gift of a manor in the
Ely valley
. It would, therefore, seem that
Iestyn
, on the death of
Caradog
, rose out of an obscure station to be
lord of Glamorgan
and was the
prince
whom the
Normans
ejected when they attacked the region about
1090
. The detailed account of the conquest given in
Powel
's
Historie
,
1584
, confirmed as it is by no other source, must, however, be set aside as untrustworthy. Of
Caradog
, there is only one contemporary mention; with his brothers,
Gruffydd
and
Goronwy
, he was concerned in
1127
in a deed of violence, the bearing of which is uncertain. But it is clear that, on the collapse of
Iestyn
's rule, he received from
Robert
Fitz Hamon
the land between
Nedd
and
Afan
(and perhaps more) as a subordinate holding, to be retained by his descendants for many generations. By his wife,
Gwladus
, daughter of
Gruffydd ap Rhys
, he had four sons,
Morgan
,
Maredudd
,
Owain
, and
Cadwallon
; the first of these succeeded him in the lordship of
Afan
.
Bibliography:
-
A History of Wales
, 402, 440, 504, 572.
Author:
Sir John Edward Lloyd, D.Litt., F.B.A., F.S.A. (1861-1947), Bangor
