We have made our own edit of these confusing citations and presented them so that those names which appear in multiple
sources are aligned so they will appear on parallel horizontal lines. Except for two omitted names in the
column 6 pedigree, the citations appear to be intact and fit correctly together. Those missing names are easily
supplied from the columns on either side.
The
family in columns 1 and 2 reflects a male line down to Clydwyn (Gloitguin and Gletwin are variant spellings) and cites
two offspring, Clotri and Gwledyr, with separate lines descended from each. The family shown beneath Clotri is the ruling
dynasty of Dyfed and that branch is also found in columns 3 and 4. A look at Tryffin will find two parents cited, Aed
Brosc (Irish version of Ewein vreisg) and Clotri. It seems obvious the pedigrees were intended to show both the maternal
and paternal ancestry of Tryffin, and that Clotri is his mother. Virtually every modern genealogist claims that Clotri
is a man because this name is followed by "map" not "ferch". But just because an unknown medieval scribe thought so
when he inserted his "maps" is not evidence the original drafter of the pedigree believed it. To avoid the absurd
conclusion that Tryffin had two fathers, modern scholars have conjectured that Clotri died without heirs and "his" sister
Gwledyr married a member of the Irish family and delivered the kingdom of Dyfed to that line. The only thing they seem
to disagree about is whether Gwledyr married Aircol or Tryffin or Aed Brosc. In fact our edit discloses that she married
none of that family as we shall discuss presently.
The family of Tryffin and Aircol Lawhir is that of Vortepir, the sixth century king of Dyfed excoriated by Gildas in
his contempory work The Ruin of Britain. Described in the words "the end of your life
is gradually drawing near", this would indicate Vortepir was past 60 when Gildas wrote in about 530/540. This provides
our first timeline for our chart; we should expect the birth of Vortepir occurred near 470. But since neither the Romans
nor the Irish necessarily followed the Welsh custom of sending sons away to make up the warbands of their lords, and
thus prevent them from standing on their own in their twenties, we would assume a somewhat smaller generational span than
the customary 32 years. Counting back three generation from 470, we would estimate the two daughers of Clydwyn occurred c.
390/395.
The father of Clydwyn was, in
modern spelling, Ednyfed and he was the son of Antonius Donatus, a name occurring in pedigrees variously as Anthun, Antoni or
Dunawt and modernized as Anwn Dynod. We believe it was the scribal distortion of Dynod into Dyfed in Column 2 which
led to the belief that he and his paternal line had ruled the kingdom of Dyfed until the era of Clotri. But the manuscripts
which recount the settlement of the Irish Deisi tribe in the far southwest of Wales should put forth the suggestion that it
was the ruling family there both before and after the era of Tryffin. His father merely married a lady descended from
a Roman noble whose lands are not identified in these pedigrees.
Continuing our date estimates
which we began with Vortepir, Dynod ap Maxim in column 1 would date from near 305 and Maxim from about 280. Clearly
this man was too old to be identified with the Maxen Wledig slain in 388; if we were to apply standard generational gaps rather
than the shorter ones we felt appropriate, Maxim's era would be all the more removed from Maxen Wledig. In fact, a glimpse
at our columnar array places Maxen Wledig two generations after this Maxim and a birthdate around 340/345 is where most scholars
place the famous Maxen.
However, Emperor Maxentius
was born c. 279 and fits chronologically as the father of Anwn Dynod; his father was Emperor Maximianus Herculius and could
well be the "Protect" in the pedigree in column 1. That man was adopted as a son of Diocletian before being named a
Caesar and the latter may be the "Protector" cited. Both Maximianus and Diocletian held the honorific Brittanicus
Maximus and thus protectors of Britain.
Turning now to the second
family in the Harleian pedigree, shown in columns 5-7 above, they begin with Constantius Chlorus and his son, Constantine
the Great. The latter did have a son named Constans, whom Nennius called Maximus, and that man's son Maxen is cited
as the father of Custinnen. Probably born near 370, the latter's son appears in columns 5 and 6 under the
Roman title "Miser" or "Pincr misser" (Pincerna is the Latin equivalent of
the butler in a Welsh king's court) but since the families in columns 6 and 7 are identical, that man's given name was Amweryd.
One son of Amweryd is called "Stater" but his given name seems to have been
Amloyd. His other son was Ewein (Owain) and the maternal descent of Ewein is shown in column 2. Accordingly,
we find that Gwledyr ferch Clydwyn was the wife of Amweryd ap Custinnen and mother of Ewein and, perhaps, his brother Amloyd.
Ewein's descendants in
the pedigrees end with Kyndeyrn bendigeit (the Blessed) better known as St. Kentigern. Although the medevial genealogists
claim his father was Owain ap Urien Rheged (not Owain ap Cyngar) this is chronologically impossible. St. Kentigern was
born somewhere between 515 and 525 (our estimate from the generational gaps is c. 520) and died an old man early in the
seventh century. Owain ap Urien Rheged could not have been born earlier than c. 540 based on recorded events in his life.
In summary, we find two
separate families in Harleian Ms 3859, 2 which have been editorially merged but which were actually only connected by
marriages. The tenth-century drafter of the pedigrees identified two daughters of Clydwyn ap Ednyfed, the men they married
and the ancestry of those men, and the principal families which descended from each of these daughters. If both families
were merely attached to "famous ancestors" by later descendants, they certainly selected ancestors which fit chronologically.
We see no good reason to reject them as cited. We would only insist that the "Maxen/Maxim" of the pedigrees was two
very different men who lived at least two full generations apart, the first born c. 280 and the other c. 340.
NOTES:
[1] See Rachel Bromwich "Trioedd Ynys Prydein",
1961, Cardiff, pp cxxx, 452
[2] See Y Cyymmrodor, vol xxi, pp 63-105 for a full discussion of the problems
in editing Harleian Ms 3859
[3] P.C. Bartrum "Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts", 1966, Cardiff
[4] Column 1 = first fragment from Harleian Ms 3859, 2
Column 2 = one fragment from ABT 18(a)
Column 3 = another fragment from ABT 18(a) but incorrectly
inserts Erbin as the father of Vortepir; a virtually duplicate fragment is found in Jesus College Ms 20, 12/13
Column 4 = Bodleian Ms Rawlinson B 502
Column 5 = second fragment from Jesus College
Ms 20, 12/13
Column 6 = second fragment from Harleian Ms
3859, 2
Column 7 = third fragment from ABT 18(a)
