IORWERTH FYNGLWYD
(
fl.
c.
1480-1527
),
bard
,
of
S. Bride's Major, Glam.
The cywyddau written in the course of a bardic controversy with
Rhisiart ap Rhys Brydydd
in
John
Stradling
's house in
Merthyr Mawr
prove that
Rhisiart ap Rhys Brydydd
was
Iorwerth Fynglwyd
's
bardic teacher
. Over fifty of his compositions survive in manuscripts and there was much transcribing of them, not only by
Glamorgan
copyists
but by
scribes
in
North Wales
also. He sang much to gentlemen in his own province — members of the families of
Games
,
Stradling
,
Bawdrip
, and
Mansel
, and to
David
,
abbot of Margam
, between
1500 and 1517
. But his chief
patron
was
Rhys ap Siôn
,
Aberpergwm
, the most distinguished member of that notable family. He visited
Kidwelly
and
Ystrad Tywi
also; it may be surmised that one of his favourite haunts was the court of
Sir
Rhys ap Thomas
where he met
Tudur Aled
. His elegy was sung by
Lewis Morgannwg
(q.v.)
, son of his old
bardic teacher
. He himself was the father of
Rhisiart Iorwerth
(or
Rhisiart Fynglwyd
)
, one of the most important
Glamorgan
bards
of about the
middle of the 16th cent.
Iorwerth Fynglwyd
can be regarded as the greatest of the
Glamorgan
cywyddwyr
. He was
master of the conventional eulogy
as practised by the bards. What gives his work particular importance, however, is the gift for
proverb-making
which is so evident in his social poems — that gift of enclosing some truth or statement in a memorable couplet. This is seen in the
cywyddau
which he sang with the object of comforting
Rhys ap Siôn
of
Aberpergwm
when the latter had lost his patrimony for a period and had been obliged to become a fugitive. These
cywyddau
were among the most popular in
Wales
in the
16th cent.
, and quotations from them are given in
John
Davies
's collection of notable lines from the works of the bards, in his
Flores Poetarum Britannicorum
(first published in
1710
).
Iolo Morganwg
sought to make
Iorwerth Fynglwyd
a famous
stonemason
, one of the ancestors of those alleged
stonemasons
,
Richard
and
William
Twrch
, by whom, he maintained, the porch at
Beaupré
had been erected in
1600
. These stories are repeated in
19th cent.
books. They are, however, without foundation. All we have here is an attempt by
Iolo
to explain some lines in poems by
Iorwerth Fynglwyd
which he had seen.
Bibliography:
-
D. Rhys Phillips
,
The Hist. of the Vale of Neath
,
Swansea, 1925
,
1925
, 478, 501-9;
-
Archaeologia Cambrensis
,
1919
;
-
G. J. Williams
,
Traddodiad Llenyddol Morgannwg
,
1948
,
1948
, 52-9.
Author:
Emeritus Professor Griffith John Williams, M.A., (1892-1963),
Gwaelod-y-garth, Cardiff
