Everything about Kingdom Of Gwent totally explained
Gwent was one of the kingdoms or principalities of
mediæval Wales, in the
Welsh Marches.
Emergence
The area has been occupied since the
Paleolithic, with
Mesolithic finds at
Goldcliff and growing activity during the
Bronze Age,
Iron Age and Roman period.
The
Dark Age Welsh kingdom of Gwent was traditionally the area between the rivers
Usk,
Wye and the
Severn Estuary. It came into being after the
Romans had
left Britain, and was a successor state drawing on the culture of the pre-Roman
Silures tribe and ultimately their
Iron Age territories. It took its name from the
civitas capital of
Venta Silurum, meaning "Market of the Silures". In the
post Roman period, the territory around Venta became the small successor kingdom of Guenta, later Gwent, deriving its name directly from the town through the normal sound change in the
Brythonic languages from
v to
gu. The town itself became
Caerwent, "Venta fort".
Early history
According to one
Old Welsh genealogy, the semi-legendary founder of the kingdom was
Caradoc Vreichfras. A later monarch was King
Tewdrig who was mortally wounded repelling a
Saxon invasion. Some believe his grandson,
Athrwys ap Meurig, may be the origin for
King Arthur.
The centre of the kingdom may have been at Caerwent or
Caerleon. The latter had formerly served as a major
Roman military base. Welsh
saints like
Dubricius,
Tatheus and
Cadoc Christianized the area.
Norman partition
The
Normans partitioned the area into the Lordships of
Abergavenny,
Monmouth, Striguil (
Chepstow) and
Usk, where they built and fortified large permanent stone
castles from a network of early
motte and bailey castles. The density of castles of this type and age is amongst the highest in Britain and certainly the rest of the
Welsh Marches with at least 25 castle sites remaining in Monmouthshire alone today.
The castles protected new settlements and enabled older settlements to prosper under Norman rule despite the subjugation, taxation, conflicts and rebellions that affected this part of south east Wales over the centuries.
The Lordships, overseen by powerful
Marcher Lords, were the basic units of administration for the next 450 or so years, until
Henry VIII passed the
Laws in Wales Act 1535. This Act abolished the Marcher Lordships and established the County of
Monmouthshire out of them — combining the Lordships of
Newport, (
Gwynllwg) or Wentloog and
Caerleon east of the
River Usk and
Abergavenny,
Monmouth,
Usk and
Chepstow to the west of it.
Recent times
In the 19th and 20th centuries, writers began using the name 'Gwent' in a romantic literary way to describe
Monmouthshire, and in the local government re-organisations of 1974/5, many new administrative areas in Britain were named after
medieval kingdoms — such as
Cumbria,
Strathclyde and within Wales: '
Gwent',
Dyfed, and
Gwynedd.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Kingdom Of Gwent'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://kingdom_of_gwent.totallyexplained.com">Kingdom of Gwent Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
