Senghenydd (Cantref)

The medieval Cantrefi in Wales

Senghenydd was a medieval cantref in the Welsh Glamorgan . The Welsh name originally meant Land of Sangan , the region was known as Seignhenith until the end of the 16th century .

geography

The elongated area stretched from the coast of the Bristol Channel to Brecknockshire in the north and was bounded by the River Taff in the west and the River Rhymney in the east. It consisted of three commotes, the fertile Cibwr on the coast and the mountainous regions of Is Caech and Uwch Caech, separated by the Caech River .

history

While the fertile coastal region had already been conquered by the Normans towards the end of the 11th century , the Welsh Lord Ifor Bach was able to preserve the independence of the mountains for the time being in the 12th century. The Lords of Senghenydd owed their overlord, the Lord of Glamorgan, an army weapon and horse only on his death . The seat of the Welsh lords was probably Twyn Castell near Gelligaer north of Caerphilly .

Ifor Bach's great-grandson Gruffydd ap Rhys was nominally a vassal of the Anglo-Norman Lords of Glamorgan, but when he allied himself with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd , Prince of Wales in the 1260s , the Anglo-Norman Lord Gilbert de Clare occupied the cantref in 1267. Gruffydd ap Rhys was deposed and died in captivity in Kilkenny, Ireland . To secure its conquest, Gilbert de Clare built several castles, including Caerphilly Castle . Senghenydd was completely subjugated by the Anglo-Normans and became a feudal subordinate of Glamorgan. Several members of the princely family remained important landowners and noblemen in Glamorgan.

Coal mining was mentioned in Senghenydd as early as 1314. On October 14, 1913, the worst mining disaster in the history of British coal mining occurred in a colliery in the mining settlement of Senghenydd north-west of Caerphilly, killing 440 people.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Aber Valley: History and Heritage. Retrieved March 18, 2014 . 
2. ↑ Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales: An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan: III - Part 1b: Medieval Secular Monuments the Later Castles from 1217 to the present , Her Maj. Stat. Office, London 2000, ISBN 978-1-871184-22-8 , p. 56
3. ^ Rees R. Davies: The Age of Conquest. Wales 1063-1415. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1991, ISBN 0-19-820198-2 , p. 273
4. ↑ Caerphilly Chronicle: Castles and Conquest. Retrieved May 3, 2015 . 
5. ↑ David Crouch: ZIfor ap Meurig [called Ifor Bach] (fl. 1158). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
6. ^ Charles Wilkins: History of the iron, steel, tinplate and other trades of Wales: with descriptives sketches of the land and the people during the great industrial era under review . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011. ISBN 978-1-108-02693-2 , p. 12
7. ^ National Museum Wales: Senghenydd 1913. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; accessed on March 18, 2014 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.