History of Gwynedd During The High Middle Ages - History - 13th Century - Aberdyfi, Worcester, and Strata Florida; 1216-1240

Aberdyfi, Worcester, and Strata Florida; 1216-1240

Llywelyn's influence was felt all across Wales as he aimed to give substance to the long standing Aberffraw claim as the primary rulers of Wales. The prince used the structures of feudalism to strengthen his position, and between 1213 and 1215 received oaths of alliegence and homage from the rulers of Powys Fadog, Powys Wenwynwyn, Maelgwn of Deheubarth, and the Welsh in Gwent and the uplands of Glamorgan, and the Welsh barons in the region between the Wye and Severn. Additionally, Llywelyn threatened the long occupied Marcher positions in Haverfordwest in Pembroke, and the Braose controlled Swansea and Brecon. In 1216 Llywelyn conviened the Council of Aberdyfi with all the Welsh lords in Pura Wallia in attendance. The choice of Aberdyfi as the place to hold the assembly was significant as the location was where Llywelyn's direct paternal ancestor, Maelgwen the Great, had been recognized as overlord and king of Wales in the 6th century. At Aberdyfi, Llywelyn held court and presided over the division of Deheubarth between the descendants of Rhys ap Gruffydd, with the rulers of Pura Wallia reaffirming their homage and oath of alliagence. Effectively all other rulers of Pura Wallia were mediatized and subsumed into the defacto Principality of Wales, according to Dr. John Davies. Author and historian Beverly Smith wrote of the Council of Aberdyfi, "Henceforth, the leader would be lord, and the allies would be subjects". However, when hostilities broke out between King John and his barons again later that year, Gwenwynwyn of Powys Wenwynwyn broke his oath of allegiance to Llywelyn and sided with the king. Llywelyn reacted by seizing Powys Wenwynwyn "in accordance with the rights of a feudal overlord", according to Davies.

While on punitive campaigns in mid Wales in 1216, King John died leaving his nine-year-old son Henry III as king of England; and the coalition against royal authority in England collapsed. The election Honorius III as pope, an ally of the House of Plantagenet, transferred the full weight of ecclesiastical Roman power away from the baronial party in favor of the royalists, with the pope now excommunicating all the barons who had previously sided against King John. Papal legat Guala Bicchieri pronounced the whole of Wales under interdict for Llywelyn's support of King Louis VIII of France, and the Welsh prince was deprived of valuable allies in the upcoming year. "Each one", wrote Lloyd, "an ally lost to Llywelyn in his contest with the Crown". Complicating matters was the successful recasting of the struggle from one of a civil war between the English King and his barons to one between the English against "foreign" French rule.

Henry III's regents, including William Marshal, were anxious to reach a settlement with Llywelyn and endorsed much of Llywelyn's achievements after lengthy negotiations with the 1218 Treaty of Worcester. However William Marshal was also the Marcher Earl of Pembroke (by marriage to the de Clare heiress Isabel), and insisted on certain restrictions to curb Llywelyn's expansion. Llywelyn was not to retain the direct vassalage of the Dinefwr lords of Ceredigion and of Ystrad Tywi (Cantref Mawr and Cantref Bychen), or of Powys, and Llywelyn could garrison the castles of Carmarthen and Cardigan only until Henry III came of age. Nor was Llywelyn able to restore his ally Morgan ap Hywel to his ancestral seat of Caerleon in Gwent. However, because Powys' new lord Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn was himself in his minority, Llywelyn would be able to govern Powys and Maeliennydd until Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn came of age.

Within five years English officials sought to reverse Welsh gains of the Treaty of Worcester, and in 1223 Earl William Marshal of Pembroke, now the rector of England, took the castles of Carmarthen and Cardigan. That same year Hubert de Burgh, justicar of England, ordered a more defensible castle to be built in Montgomery. However, as de Burgh sought to expand his influence in Powys he was met by Llywelyn and utterly trounced in battle at Ceri in 1228. De Burgh's defeat did not stop him from winning control of other Marcher lordships, further provoking Llywelyn. The Welsh prince led his armies into regions "where a Welsh army had not been seen for a century or more", wrote Davies. Llywelyn burned Brecon, marched through Glamorgan and destroyed Neath. Alarmed, Henry III appealed to Hiberno-Norman knights in Norman colonized Ireland and offered them any lands in Wales they might win from Llywelyn. However, Henry's efforts proved too ineffective against Llywelyn, and by 1232 the Peace of the Middle was signed restoring the Welsh prince to the position he enjoyed in 1216. With the Middle Peace, Llywelyn adopted a new title Prince of Aberffraw and Lord of Snowdonia, emphasizing his preeminent position as overlord of all Wales.

The question of succession came to occupy much of Llywelyn's domestic and foreign policies following the 1216 Council of Aberdyfi. Llywelyn had an elder son, Gruffydd the Red, who according to Welsh custom was considered by many as the heir apparent. However, the now defunct 1211 treaty, in which the English crown would only recognize legitimate issue born of Llywelyn and Joan as heirs of Gwynedd, demonstrated to Llywelyn the value the wider Western polity placed on legitimate birth. Additionally, Llywelyn's own successes, chiefly overcoming his usurper uncle, could be viewed as a triumph for legitimacy, argued Lloyd. Considering this, Llywelyn went to great lengths to secure the succession of his second but legitimate son Dafydd, born to Joan. In amending Welsh custom, Llywelyn had an example from which to draw from. The Lord Rhys, Prince of Deheubarth, had reached a similar conclusion about legitamcy in the latter part of the 12th century, and had set aside his eldest illegitimate son Maelgwn in favor of his legitimate second son Gruffydd. However, Rhys' untimely death in 1197 and the two Dinefwr brother's rivalry over the succession plunged Deheubarth into a disastrous civil war not settled until its full division in 1216.

Llywelyn sought to avoid the pitfalls the Dinefwr example revealed and curried favor with his brother-in-law Henry III of England. Despite the occasional conflict between the Welsh prince and the English king, their personal relationship as brothers-in-law was not one of constant discord, and for the greater period between 1218 and 1240 there was a sense of amenity between the two. Henry III fully endorsed Dafydd as Llywelyn's heir, and in 1226 Henry III had successfully petitioned the Papacy to free his sister Joan from any stigma of illegitimacy. In 1229, Dafydd traveled to London to do homage for the lands he would inherit, and Llywelyn arranged for the advantageous marriage between Dafydd and Isabella de Braose, daughter and co-heiress of Llywelyn's powerful ally the Marcher lord William de Breos.

Shortly before 1238 Llywelyn, now aged 65, suffered a slight paralytic stroke. In an effort to assure a smooth transition from his rule to that of his son's rule, the prince assembled his vassals and bishops at the Assembly of Strata Florida in Ceredigion. The choice of Strata Florida as the venue for the ceremony was significant as a gauge of how complete the Aberffraw victory was in their claim as the primary princes of Wales and heirs of Rhodri the Great. The Cistercian abby, founded in 1164, was under the patronage of the Dinefwr family, dynastically junior rivals (but also, at times, allies of necessity) of the Aberffraw family. In a ceremony rich in feudal pagentry and with an act of homage reminiscent of Capetian France, the leading magnats of Wales swore fealty and allegiance to Dafydd as their future feudal overlord, suzerain, and prince.