Cyngen ap Cadell

Medieval Kingdoms in Wales ( Powys ).

Cyngen ap Cadell (Cyngen son of Cadell) († 855 ) was from about 808 to 855 king of the medieval Celtic kingdom of Powys , which was located in the north-western part of Wales in Britain . His family is derived from the Roman - Celtic warlord Vortigern , whose descendants ruled this kingdom for 400 years. In honor of his great-grandfather Elisedd ap Gwylog he had the pillar of Eliseg (Elisedd) built and died as the last king of Powys of his house, because not one of his sons, but with his powerful nephew, Rhodri the Great King of Gwynedd, a new one Dynasty took control of the Powys Kingdom.

origin

Cyngen comes from the so-called Gwertherion dynasty, named after its ancestor - Vortigern (Welsh: Gwrteyrn), a Roman-Celtic warlord of the 5th century, who became one of the most powerful rulers after the departure of the Romans (410) counted in Britain. A closer progenitor of Cyngens was Elisedd ap Gwylog , his great-grandfather, whom he greatly admired as the renewer of the Powys kingdom.

His father was Cadell ap Brochfael , who ruled as King of Powys from 773–808. No details are known about Cyngen's mother.

Life

Difficult start

Cyngen took over Powys from his father during troubled times. The consequences of the war between the western Welsh neighbor Gwynedd and the eastern Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia in the years 796/798 - which also hit Powys badly as a "marching-through area" - had not yet been eradicated when two years after his accession to power a mouth broke out. and mouth disease came, which hit Powys hard economically, as it fell victim to a large part of the cattle herd. Shortly thereafter, there was an argument between Cyngen's sons, with Elisedd ap Cyngen slaying his brother Gruffud ap Cyngen.

Problems with the neighbors

Relations with neighbors - both the Welsh kingdoms to the west and southwest, and the neighboring kingdom of Mercia - were often problematic.

A benefit was that internal problems prevented the main Welsh neighbor, the Kingdom of Gwynedd , from harassing Powys. After several years of bloody struggle for power in the years 812 to 816 between Cynan Dindaethwy ap Rhodri Molwynog King of Gwynedd (798-816) and his brother Hywel ap Rhodri King of Gwynedd (816-825) there was 825 Merfyn Frych ap Gwriad from succeeded to the throne by another dynasty. Coenwulf, King of Mercia (796-821), used this internal quarrel in 817 for an advance into Wales that affected Powys, but above all the kingdom of Gwynedd, where he occupied the district of Rhufoniog and the area around Snowdonia - where the strongest Gwynedd Defense Position located - devastated. Until 821, large coastal areas of Gwynedd were still in the hands of King Coenwulf, who died peacefully in the same year in the Basingwerk he occupied in Wales. Only two years later, his brother and successor, King Ceolwulf I of Mercia (821–823) made a new foray into Wales and burned Deganwy in Gwynedd.

King Cyngen could have welcomed this weakening of his traditional Welsh rival Gwynedd by the Anglo-Saxon troops had it not been for his own land as a marching-through area also being the victim of these military raids by the Kingdom of Mercia, which devastated large areas of Powys.

Britain at the beginning of the 9th century

Immobilization of the rivals

Fortunately for the Welsh kingdoms came in the following years, the collapse of the power position of the Kingdom of Mercia as in quick succession two of its kings - Beornwulf , the 823-825 reign and Ludeca , King 826-827, in the fight against the Kingdom of East Anglia fell . King Egbert of Wessex (802-839) used this weakness to break the previous supremacy of the Kingdom of Mercia, where he succeeded in occupying Mercia in 829 and thus becoming the most powerful prince within the heptarchy . Through the ensuing internal dynastic battles, Mercia finally lost the ability to exercise the role of a hegemonic power over the Anglo-Saxon and Welsh rulers.

An alliance finally came about between King Cyngen ap Cadell of Powys and the re-established Kingdom of Gwynedd, which through the marriage of Cynge's sister, Nest ferch Cadell, to King Merfyn Frych of Gwynedd - who comes from the House of the Kings of the Isle of Man - was sealed.

Wessex as a new threat

The joy of this positive development did not last long, however, as King Egbert of Wessex (802-839) had consolidated his supremacy in the Anglo-Saxon area to such an extent that he believed that Wales should submit to his power. He therefore undertook a successful campaign directed against Powys and other kingdoms in Wales in 830 in order to force them to submit. However, since there was an uprising in his back in the recently conquered Kingdom of Mercia, in which King Wiglaf of Mercia ruled Mercia from 827 to 829 and 830 to 839, renounced Wessex and declared himself independent, this campaign remained against Wales with no lasting effect. In Gwynedd, after the death of King Merfyn Frych in 944, his eldest son from his marriage to Nest ferch Cadell - a sister of King Cyngen of Powys - Rhodri ap Merfyn Frych, called Rhodri the Great. Years later, the Powys kingdom would fall to the rulers of the Gwynedd kingdom.

The column of the Eliseg

By erecting the so-called "Pillar of Eliseg" (English: Pillar of Eliseg), Cyngen ap Cadell ensured that neither his own name nor that of his great-grandfather was forgotten. It is originally a cross with round bars, which he erected around 850 in honor of his great-grandfather Elisedd ap Gwylog , and had the line of his family's tribe engraved on it. He traces this back to Vortigern and his wife, Princess Severa, a daughter of the Roman general and Supreme Commander of Britain Magnus Maximus , who was called to be Roman Emperor by the troops in Britain in 383 . Thanks to this stone "certificate", various families as descendants of Cyngen ap Cadell have the opportunity to trace their ancestors back to Vortigern, who ruled large parts of Britain from around 425 onwards.

The column of the Eliseg near the Cistercian Abbey of Valle Crucis in Wales in today's damaged condition

Cyngen died on a pilgrimage to Rome in 855.

Marriage and offspring

The name and origin of Cyngen's wife are unknown.

Children: King Cyngen had at least four sons:

• Elisedd ap Cyngen, he was heir to the throne, but was passed over in favor of his uncle - Rhodri the Great (Welsh: Rhodri Mawr) due to circumstances that were not entirely clear.
• Ieuaf ap Cyngen
• Aeddan ap Cyngen
• Gruffud ap Cyngen, he was killed from behind in 818 by his brother Elisedd ap Cyngen.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Edwards, Nancy (2009). "Rethinking the pillar of Eliseg". The Antiquaries Journal 89: 143.
2. ↑ Mike Ashley op cit. P. 149
3. ↑ Kirby, DP (1992). The Earliest English Kings. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09086-5 .
4. ↑ Mike Ashley op cit. P. 346
5. ↑ Geoffrey von Monmouth (Wal .: Gruffudd ap Arthur), Geoffrey von Monmouth (Wal .: Gruffudd ap Arthur,): Historia Regum Britanniae (around 1135)

literature

• John Edward Lloyd: A history of Wales from the earliest times to the Edwardian conquest (Longmans, Green & Co.) (1911)
• Nora Kershaw Chadwick (1963). “Celtic Britain”. Thames and Hudson.
• Mike Ashley: “The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens”, Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. New York, 1998 151
• National Library of Wales, Mostyn Manuscript 117: Bonedd y Arwyr genealogies.
• Kari Maund (2000). "The Welsh Kings: The Medieval Rulers of Wales." Tense.

predecessor	Office	successor
Cadell ap Brochfael	King of Powys 808–855	Rhodri Mawr