Gruffudd Maelor ap Madog ap Gruffudd Maelor

Also known as Gruffudd of Bromfield.

Ruler in Powys.

Arglwydd of Dinas Brȃn.

“Next to the prince of Gwynedd, Gruffudd ap Madog was the most powerful native ruler in Wales in the 1260s.” (Carr)

Events

Date of Birth: about 1190.

Place of Birth: unknown.

The date is given by Bartrum (Bleddyn ap Cynfyn 4).

Date of Death: 7 December 1269, or 1270.

Place of Death: unknown.

Lloyd (p. 9) notes that, although Brut y Tywysogion s.a. 1269 gives the first date, the provision made by Gruffudd’s four sons for their mother bears the date 22 December 1270, and Gruffudd’s death is unlikely to have been long before that. The provision is given in Seebohm (appendices, p. 105).

Place of Burial: Valle Crucis.

The place is given by Carr. Brut y Tywysogion s.a. 1269 gives the place as Llanegwestl.

Relationships

Father: Madog ap Gruffudd Maelor ap Madog.

This relationship is shown by Bartrum (Bleddyn ap Cynfyn 4), and given by Davies (p. 130), by Stephenson, and by Carr.

Mother: Iseult.

A 1222 grant by Madog to Valle Crucis Abbey was made with the consent of “domine I. uxoris mee”. A (spurious) grant to Combermere Abbey from the mid-1200s by Gruffudd Maelor was made for the health of “matris mei Iseude”. A 1270 grant and confirmation made by the sons of Gruffudd Maelor -- Madog, Llywelyn, Owain, and Gruffudd -- mentions “domine Emme matris nostre”, “dominus Griffin(us) pater noster”, and “domina Ysota avia nostra”. (Pryce, nos 506, 510, 526)

(supposed) Mother: Gwladus ferch Ithel.

This relationship is shown by Bartrum (Bleddyn ap Cynfyn 4).

Spouse: Emma, daughter of Henry de Aldithley.

This relationship is shown by Bartrum (Bleddyn ap Cynfyn 4), and given by Stephenson, and by Carr. It is recorded in contemporary grants and petitions. Smith discusses the dower arrangements.

Children:

(Complete source citations for facts about the children on this page are currently outside of the scope of this project. Most information below comes from Bartrum.)

Madog (died 1277) married Margred ferch Llywelyn ap Gruffudd.

Llywelyn (died 1282).

Owain.

Roger.

Gruffudd (about 1230 - 1289) married Margred ferch Griffri.

Angharad married William, son of Ralph Butler of Wem in 1261.

Margaret married Sir John Arderne.

Evidence

Pryce (nos. 510 - 516) gives various documents made by Gruffudd.

References

Bartrum, Peter C., “Bleddyn ap Cynfyn 4” in An Electronic Version of Welsh Genealogies AD 300-1500.

[The sources Bartrum cites for Gruffudd are: Brut y Tywysogion; Rhandiroedd Powys (4-5), a MS written by 1493; Peniarth 129 (57, 59), copied about 1500 from a 1497 MS by Gutun Owain; Peniarth 127 (24, 156), written by Syr Thomas ap Ieuan ap Deicws between about 1510 and 1523; and Peniarth 131 (179), written by Gutun Owain about 1480.]

Bartrum, Peter C. “Rhandiroedd Powys” in National Library of Wales journal, Volume 18, pp. 231-237 (1973). [Bartrum notes that it contains definite errors, but seems to have been regarded as authoritative by genealogists of the sixteenth century.]

Carr, A.D. “Madog ap Gruffudd Maelor (d. 1236)” in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Davies, R.R. The Revolt of Owain Glyn Dŵr. (Oxford U.P., 1995).

Lloyd, J.E. Owen Glendower (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1931).

Ormerod, George; Peter Leycester; William Smith; William Webb; and Thomas Helsby. The history of the county palatine and city of Chester: compiled from original evidences in public offices, the Harleian and Cottonian mss., parochial registers, private muniments, unpublished ms. collections of successive Cheshire antiquaries, and a personal survey of every township in the county, incorporated with a republication of King's Vale royal and Leycester's Cheshire antiquities. (London: G. Routledge, 1882).

Ormerod, George. Miscellanea Palatina: consisting of genealogical essays illustrative of Cheshire and Lancashire families and of a memoir on the Cheshire Domesday roll. (London: T. Richards], 1851).

Pryce, Huw (ed.) The Acts of the Welsh Rulers 1120 - 1283 (Malta, 2005).

Seebohm, Frederic. The Tribal System in Wales (Longmans, 1904).

Smith, J. Beverley. “Dower in Thirteenth-Century Wales: a Grant of the Commote of Anhuniog, 1273” in The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 30 (ii) (University of Wales Press, 1982-3) pp. 348-355.

Stephenson, David. Medieval Powys: Kingdom, Principality and Lordships, 1132-1293. (The Boydell Press, 2016), especially chapter 6, "Survival: the Case of Gruffudd, Lord of Bromfield".

Williams ab Ithel, John (ed.). Brut y Tywysogion; or, The Chronicle of the Princes (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts; 1860).