Welsh Journals

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danger to Ceredigion is exemplified in the string of fortifications along the whole line of the Teify from Ystrad Meurig to Cardigan-castles which were built and rebuilt alternately by Norman and Briton as the fortunes of war gave to one side or the other the power to take over control in that region. The initial advantage in the struggle was secured by the Normans who, on the fall of Rhys ap Tewdwr, the last genuine native king of Ceredigion and Ystrad Tywi, in 1093, took almost immediate possess- ion of Ceredigion and firmly entrenched themselves beyond the Teify. Three times Ceredigion was occupied by the Normans during the seventy odd years under review between 1093 and 1102 between 1110 and 1135 and again between 1158 and i i 64-a total occupation of forty-one years. First the Montgomery family, and then successive generations of a junior branch of the house of Clare, reigned here as marcher lords from the new borough and castle set up at Cardigan. Some colonisation by Saxon and Flemish farmers and traders was encouraged, and Norman knights acting under the authority of the Norman lord divided the land into fees based on the commotes— ancient administrative divisions of Ceredigion-and studded the land with small castles." Of these centres of refuge and defence the Normans stood greatly in need because peaceful and stable conditions were impossible harried as the Normans in Ceredigion constantly were, sometimes by fugitive members of the old royal family and their supporters among the men of Ceredigion, or by the princes of Gwynedd and Powys, though rarely in alliance, from the north. These native powers had good reason to fear the presence of the Norman so near to their south-western borderlands, and when oppor- tunity offered, as it did several times when Norman power was temp- orarily weak in Wales, proceeded in turn to occupy Ceredigion-in the case of Powys from 1102 to 1110, a short but exceedingly turbulent occupation and iri the case of Gwynedd from 1135 to 1151, a longer, but again an extremely unrestful phase caused by dissension among members of the royal house ofGwynedd resident in Ceredigion, and by periodic attempts on the part of a thwarted local dynasty and its adherents to reassert themselves. Thus between them the two major contestants for power in Wales made Ceredigion, for close on three quarters of a century, a highway for opposing armies, a cock-pit in which Norman and North-Walian fought out their feuds, each side realising the need to seize and occupy Ceredigion as a buffer against the other. The consequent sufferings of the ordinary inhabitants are borne out in the lamentations of the local annalist who, as well as leaving us with a vivid impression of continuous turmoil, launches indignantly from time to time into detailed des-