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The poetic construction of authority: Dafydd ap Gwilym and the uchelwyr* Though Dafydd ap Gwilym is often haded as a poet of love and nature, the function of his poetry is to proclaim the pre-eminence and authority of the native nobihty of fourteenth-century Wales, the uchelwyr. By placing the uchelwyr in contexts suggestive of their wealth, nobility, leadership, and aesthetic superiority, the poems in the Dafydd ap Gwilym canon construct an audience which is powerful and authoritative within Wales. In doing this, the poems continue the eulogistic tradition of Welsh court poetry stretching back ultimately to the sixth century.1 This poetic construction of authority does not entirely conespond, however, to another version of fourteenth-century Wales made available to us by historians and contemporary historical documents. The historical construct makes it clear that following the English conquest of Wales by Edward I in 1282, it was the English Crown, not the native Welsh nobility, which held the real authority in Wales.2 The discrepancies between the poetic construct and the historical construct of uchelwyr status reveal the basic conservatism of the Dafydd ap Gwilym poems and their role in maintaining traditional social hierarchies within a politically changing environment. The emergence of the uchelwyr as a powerful nobility following the loss of Welsh independence in 1282 and the disappearance of the ruting dynasties of Wales has been noted by historians such as R. A. Griffiths, Glyn Roberts, and R. R. Davies, though few studies have been done specifically on this interesting and significant social group.3 A n administrative class of Welsh noblemen, known by the term uchelwyr among others, had already emerged during the thirteenth century, serving the native princes, particularly the rulers of Gwynedd. * A version of this article was presented as a paper at the 13th Annual Conference of the Celtic Studies Association of North America at the University of California, Berkeley, in March 1991. 1 The preceding tradition of eulogy practised by the poets of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is discussed by J. E. Caerwyn Williams, The Poets of the Welsh Princes, Cardiff, 1978. O n Dafydd ap Gwilym's debt to this early tradition, and for a general introduction to his work, see Rachel Bromwich, Dafydd ap Gwilym, Cardiff, 1974. 2 For historical accounts of the English conquest of Wales, see David Walker, Medieval Wales, Cambridge, 1990; W . H. Waters, The Edwardian Settlement of North Wales in its Administrative and Legal Aspects, Cardiff, 1935; R. R. Davies, Conquest, Coexistence and Change: Wales 1063-1415, Oxford, 1987. 3 R. A. Griffiths, The Principality of Wales in the Later Middle Ages, Cardiff, 1972; Glyn Roberts, Aspects of Welsh History, Cardiff, 1969; R. R. Davies, Lordship and Society in the March of Wales 1282-1415, Oxford, 1978. 16 H. Fulton The English Crown, following the Edwardian conquest, was therefore able to appropriate an existing infrastrucuire of administrators. After 1282, then, many Welshmen assumed administrative positions in the service of the Crown, including members of Dafydd ap Gwdym's o w n family. The offices of sheriff, deputy sheriff and governor, for example, were commonly given to native Welshmen rather than to English incomers who were likely to have difficulty controlting a rebeltious local population.4 However, the highest levels of government wereregularlyreserved for imported English officials. The establishment of English boroughs in Gwynedd, together with an upper hierarchy of English rulers, inevitably displaced many of the uchelwyr and laid the groundwork for later hostilities between English and Welsh. The audiences for Dafydd ap Gwilym's poems (and those of his contemporaries) belonged to those successful uchelwyr families w h o made a place for themselves under English rule and w h o retained a considerable degree of status and power, albeit within fairly circumscribed areas. The imposition of English mie and the need to maintain and develop an efficient administrative infrastructure using local Welsh lords led to the emergence of the uchelwyr after 1282 as an increasingly cohesive and pohtically significant social group. Even before the English conquest, wealthy uchelwyr families as well as royal dynasties had patronized court poets, and in the wake of the structural changes after 1282, the wealthier uchelwyr, along with...

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