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Urien

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For other uses, see Urien (disambiguation).
Urien Rheged
Arms of Rhys ap Thomas (d. 1525), attributed to Urien, with whom Rhys claimed kinship.[1]
King of Rheged
Reignc. 550? - c. 572 x 593
PredecessorCynfarch Oer?
SuccessorOwain ab Urien?
Diedc. 572 x 593
Aber Lleu[2]
Cause of deathAssassination
Issue
HouseCynferching (Coeling)
FatherCynfarch Oer

Urien ap Cynfarch Oer or Urien Rheged (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈɨ̞riɛn ˈr̥ɛɡɛd], Old Welsh: Urbgen or Urbagen) was a sixth-century ruler of the territory known as Rheged. His existence is confirmed by a ninth-century history and eight praise-poems to him possibly to be dated to his lifetime, attributed to the poet Taliesin. Urien features in medieval literature from Wales as one of the most celebrated figures of Welsh legend down to today. Outside of the Welsh context, he eventually was transformed in Arthurian legend into the figure of king Urien of Garlot or Gore.[3] His most celebrated son, Owain mab Urien, similarly gave his name to the character of Ywain.

Life

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Material found in Harley MS 3859

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The earliest genealogy of Urien, found in Harley MS 3859 (c. 850-950 AD), gives his patrilineal descent as 'Urien son of Cynfarch son of Meirchion son of Gwrwst son of Coel Hen.'[4] In later genealogies, his descent is always given the same, so this ancestry can be judged relatively secure. His oldest recorded ancestor is Coel Hen, who functions as an originator for many of the northern Brythonic dynasties of the early Middle Ages in England. In modern scholarship, it is not generally held that Coel was an important historic figure or even the ancestor of all these dynasties, known as the 'Coeling', at all. Rather, the fact that he features as the origin of so many pedigrees of important figures from the sixth century is because it adds a greater sense of cohesion to the story of Urien's career.[5] Since the 'Coeling' first appear in genealogies together in Harley 3859 with the Historia Brittonum, the first historical reference to Urien, it is thought the compiler of the genealogies joined together the lineages of all the British (i.e. 'Welsh'-speaking) leaders mentioned in the narrative. Nevertheless, it is likely that Urien at least was descended from Coel, while the others may have been grafted on to this family. Nothing reliable is known of Urien's father Cynfarch, even if he ruled over Rheged, though this may be assumed given that later material refers to the 'Cynferching', those claiming (or attributed) descent from him.[6]

The Historia Brittonum, written in 829 AD in Gwynedd, hundreds of years after Urien's death, is our only historical record of Urien, though its usefulness for reconstructing history is a matter of academic debate.[7] The Historia Brittonum, based on Bede, synchronises Urien's life to the reign of Theodric of Bernicia (d. c. 579 x 593).[8] Interestingly, in a later prologue attached to the text, the author of the HB claims to have assembled his text based on the work of Rhun, Urien's son, who is also credited with baptising Edwin of Northumbria, together with Paulinus of York, though as with much of the Historia Brittonum, this is of uncertain historical value.[9] The narrative concerning Urien relates him as having taken hostile action against Theodric, together with Rhydderch Hen, Gwallog, and Morgan, all of whom are recorded as Coeling, Urien's distant relatives, according to the genealogies. Echoing Gildas, it is said that the conflict between the Britons and the Saxons was back and forth, but Urien and his allies eventually had the upper hand and besieged Theodric on Lindisfarne (Old Welsh: Medcaut). Urien, however, was killed at the instigation of Morgan, who the author of the Historia Brittonum says was jealous of Urien's martial ability.[10] As Morgan is supposed to have come from a nearby territory to Lindisfarne, it has been suggested that Morgan at that moment felt more as threatened by Urien's powerful presence near his home than by Theodric.[11]

Poetry to Urien attributed to Taliesin

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Urien has the unique distinction of having many possibly contemporaneous poems surviving dedicated to him, attributed to his court poet Taliesin. Taliesin is mentioned in the Historia Brittonum as well, though his life is synchronised to the reign of Ida of Bernicia (c. 547 - 559), slightly before Urien's reign.[12] Much like many cultures in north-western Europe during Late Antiquity, medieval Welsh culture valued praise-poetry, that is, poems extolling the virtues of a ruler or leading figure in a society, very highly.[13] The poems which are attributed to Taliesin survive in the Book of Taliesin, a Middle Welsh manuscript of the early fourteenth century. Taliesin was very well known for his poetic skill in later medieval Wales, and all sorts of legends sprang up about him attributing to him magic powers, including many poems 'in character' attributed to him, and these poems form the bulk of this text.[14] The manuscript was given its title in the seventeenth century because of the preponderance of this material within it.

There are eight poems in this manuscript attributed to Taliesin which are dedicated to Urien Rheged and devoid of supernatural or gnomic content, and so these are, together with one poem to Cynan Garwyn, one to Owain ab Urien, and two to Gwallog ap Llenog, called the 'historic' Taliesin poems.[15] Only one poem of these twelve (PT VIII, 'Yspeil Taliessin') is explicitly attributed to Taliesin in the manuscript, but since Taliesin was strongly associated with Urien in later medieval Welsh literature, and the bulk of the content of the manuscript is to do with Taliesin, the attribution has stuck.[16] The dating of these poems is still hotly debated between those who see the poems as reflecting early material, and those who favour a later date.[17]

These poems are in sometimes obscure language and do not offer very much in the way of clear biographical information about Urien, though fleeting references to Urien as 'lord of Catraeth' have led to much speculation about his involvement in the Battle of Catraeth.[18] Much of the place-name evidence of these poems is understood to refer to places in modern-day Cumbria, though Urien is also said to have led battle in the area of the River Ayr, in the Brythonic-speaking kingdom of Strathclyde, and perhaps against the Picts.[19] He is also recorded as fighting against the English, much like he is said to have done in the Historia Brittonum.[20] One poem mentions Urien and Owain as having fought one 'Fflamddwyn' (meaning 'flame-bearing'), which has been traditionally identified as a kenning referring to one of Ida's sons, perhaps even Theodric, since Owain ab Urien is praised for killing him alongside a 'broad host of English' in another poem.[21] Nevertheless, Urien is far more often mentioned fighting other Britons or the Picts than the English. The two most technically accomplished poems in the corpus are generally taken to be 'Uryen yr echwyd', and 'Gweith argoet llwyfein'.[22] There is also one dadolwch, or reconciliation-poem, among these poems, implying that Taliesin ran afoul of Urien at some point and was obliged to get back into his good graces.[23]

Later material

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Saga Poetry and 'Canu Urien'

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Due to his appearance in early poetry and place in the narrative of the Historia Brittonum, Urien became a figure in the later Welsh literature concerning the 'Old North', which functioned as the setting for a great deal of medieval Welsh literature. One such piece of literature concerning Urien, or more accurately Urien's sons, is fittingly called the 'Urien Rheged' cycle (Welsh: Canu Urien) by modern scholars, as the poems are concerned with the events in Rheged after the killing of Urien. The poems survive mainly from two Middle Welsh manuscripts, the Black Book of Carmarthen (c. 1250) and the Red Book of Hergest (after 1382). Nevertheless, 'Canu Urien' is traditionally understood to be a copy Old Welsh-period material, dated to around the same period of the Historia Brittonum.[24] This material is called 'saga poetry' by comparison with Icelandic sagas, both because like the Icelandic material, the Welsh poems are thought to have been taken from longer, partly prose (or oral) works, and because they both might reflect earlier history through a literary lens.

The most impactful and moving poems from this cycle are 'Pen Urien' and 'Celain Urien', which relate the immediate aftermath of Urien's killing, with the name of the assassin apparently given in another poem as Llofan Llaw Ddifro.[25] In 'Pen Urien' and 'Celain Urien', it is an unnamed companion of Urien who was forced to finish Urien off and strike off his head, with the implication that it was unsafe to carry Urien's entire body home for burial. The narrator laments his fortune and curses his hand and that he must leave the body of his caring lord behind.

Though one of Urien's allies in the narrative of the Historia Brittonum was Gwallog ap Llenog, he is recorded as having fought against Urien's son Elffin in another one of the poems in this cycle, 'Dwy Blaid'. Likewise, one Dunod fought with Owain, while Brân ab Ymellyrn and Morgan - the orderer of Urien's killing - fought the narrator.[26]

Urien in other medieval Welsh literature

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Urien is mentioned in passing in the Llywarch Hen cycle, poems about the sufferings of his kinsman Llywarch and written in his voice. They are, like 'Canu Urien', certainly later than Llywarch and Urien's time. Urien is recorded as supplying Llywarch's last surviving son Gwên with a horn which Llywarch advises Gwên to blow if he needs aid while on guard at night.[27]

In the mnemonic devices known as the Welsh Triads, intended for poets to recall traditional stories, Urien is mentioned repeatedly. These mostly agree with the testimony of The Historia Brittonum and the other early sources, though there are some references to the later, Arthurian Urien (see below).[28]

Literature about Urien seems to have circulated in more channels than survive to us. This can be evidenced by the twelfth-century poet Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr's attribution of the 'wrath of Urien' to his patron Owain Cyfeiliog, using the form Urfoën (Middle Welsh: Uruoen).[29] This reflects an older form of the name *Urbogen which retained the composition vowel also reflected in weakened form in a rendition of Urien's name in the Historia Brittonum, Urbagen.[30] Kenneth Jackson dated the loss of this vowel to the sixth century in Welsh, and Ifor Williams went so far as to say the trisyllabic form must be reinserted in one of the Taliesin poems to rectify a defect in the metre in a line in one poem.[31] Assuming Cynddelw did not independently create this form so that he might fill the metre of this line in his own poem, this gives the tantalising suggestion that he was reading sources about Urien which do not survive to us, or that this name survived in a fossilised spoken form as a part of bardic lore.[32]

Urien in Arthurian literature

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Urience slain by his own wife Morgane (succeeding here unlike in medieval tellings) in Eric Pape's illustration for Madison Cawein's 1889 poem "Accolon of Gaul"

Geoffrey of Monmouth, drawing on Welsh sources and his own imagination, adapted Urien into Arthurian legend, and made him known across Europe with the explosive popularity of his Historia Regum Britanniae. In Geoffrey's telling, taken on by many following him, Urien is brother of King Lot of Lothian.

In Arthurian chivalric romances, the location of his kingdom is transferred to either the Otherworldly and magical Kingdom of Gorre [fr] (Gore) or a much less fantastic Garlot (Garloth). During the reign of Uther Pendragon (Arthur's father), Urien marries a sister or half-sister of the young Arthur, Morgan (sometimes another of Arthur's sisters is named as Urien's wife, such as Hermesan in the Livre d'Artus and Blasine in Of Arthour and of Merlin). Urien, like the kings of several other lands, initially opposes Arthur's accession to the throne after Uther's death. He and the others rebel against the young monarch (with Urien even briefly kidnapping Arthur's wife Guinevere in the Livre d'Artus), but upon their defeat, he is among the rebel leaders become Arthur's allies and vassals. His marriage to Morgan is not portrayed as a happy one, however, as in a popular version from the Post-Vulgate Cycle (also included in Thomas Malory's influential Le Morte d'Arthur) Morgan plots to use Excalibur to kill both Urien and Arthur and place herself and her lover Accolon on the throne. Morgan fails in all parts of that plan, being foiled by their own son and by the Lady of the Lake.

Urien is usually said to be the father of Ywain (Owain) by Morgan but many texts also give him a second son, Ywain the Bastard, fathered on his seneschal's wife. Welsh tradition further attributes to him a daughter named Morfydd, daughter of Modron.

According to Roger Sherman Loomis, the name and character of another Arthurian king, Nentres of Garlot (husband of Arthur's sister Elaine), could have been derived from that of Urien.[33] Malory also sometimes spells Urien's name as Urience, which has led some later authors (e.g. Alfred Tennyson) to identify him with Arthur's relentless rival King Rience.

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  • The [c]awraidd freichiau Urien 'giant arms of Urien' are mentioned in the 1917 awdl 'Yr Arwr' by Hedd Wyn, for which he was awarded the Bardic Chair posthumously in the 1917 National Eisteddfod.
  • He is a minor character in Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy.
  • He appears as Uryens in John Boorman's film Excalibur (1981), depicted as an enemy lord who becomes Arthur's ally and is the one to knight him.
  • He is one of the key characters in Melvyn Bragg's novel Credo (1996) (reprinted as The Sword and the Miracle in the USA), a celebration of the Celtic tradition and its fight against the Northumbrian and Roman (Catholic) incursions.

References

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  1. ^ Flood, Victoria, 'Political Prophecy and the Trial of Rhys ap Gruffydd, 1530–31', Studia Celtica L (2016), pp. 133-150 (138-141)
  2. ^ See Rowland, Jenny, Early Welsh Saga Poetry: A Study and Edition of the Englynion (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), 'Efrddyl', §30-31.
  3. ^ Christopher W. Bruce, The Arthurian Name Dictionary, p. 544. Routledge 2013. ISBN 1136755373, 9781136755378.
  4. ^ HG[§8] [U]rbgen map Cinmarc map Meirchia[un] map Gurgust map Coil Hen. See Guy, Ben, Medieval Welsh Genealogy (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), chapter 2 for the dating of the genealogies, and p. 335 for Gwallog's patriline.
  5. ^ Medieval Welsh Genealogy, pp. 66-7.
  6. ^ See Jones, Nerys Ann, and Ann Parry Owen (eds.), Gwaith Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr, vol. I, (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1991), poem 5, line 66n, and 24, line 153
  7. ^ See the essays in Dumville, David, Histories and pseudo-histories of the insular Middle Ages, (Aldershot: Variorum, 1990), especially essays I and II. For a recent very critical assessment of the Historia Brittonum, see Parker, Will, 'The Coeling: Narrative and Identity in North Britain and Wales AD 580–950', Northern History 59, pp. 2-27.
  8. ^ The HB offers no dates of its own for Urien's life, and scholars cannot date the death of Theodric with certainty. The reckoning of reigns of Bernician rulers from the text implies his rule ended at 579, but his successor, Hussa of Bernicia, does not appear in Northumbrian sources, implying that he may have been a pretender. The next king all sources agree on is Æthelfrith, who took the throne c. 593, and so Urien could have died as late as this. See Kenneth H. Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh: University Press 1953) pp. 707-8, Lovecy, Ian, 'The end of Celtic Britain: a sixth-century battle near Lindisfarne', Archaeologia Aeliana, Series 5, vol. 4, pp. 31-45, and David Dumville, in a lecture to Cylch yr Hengerdd, Oxford, May 20, 1978.
  9. ^ HB, prologue, §63. See Jackson, Kenneth H., 'On the northern British section in Nennius', in Nora K. Chadwick (ed.), Celt and Saxon: studies in the early British border (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963) 20–62 (33).
  10. ^ Morris, John (ed. and tr.) Nennius: British History and the Welsh Annals (London: Phillimore, 1980), §63. Henceforth HB.
  11. ^ Parker, Will, 'The Coeling: Narrative and Identity in North Britain and Wales AD 580–950', Northern History 59, pp. 2-27 (19-20).
  12. ^ HB §62. It is not that Taliesin would have been only active for twelve years, but this is when it is said he was famed for poetry.
  13. ^ While associated with the Romantic idea of the 'bard' for many hundreds of years now, one finds this occupation among Romans as well, e.g. Sidonius Apollinaris' panegyric to Avitus, or Venantius Fortunatus' praise-poems to various Merovingian dynasts, all in Latin.
  14. ^ For an edition and translation of these, see Haycock, Marged, Legendary Poems from the Book of Taliesin (Aberystwyth: CMCS Publications, 2007), and Haycock, Marged, Prophecies from the Book of Taliesin (Aberystwyth: CMCS Publications, 2013)
  15. ^ See Williams, Ifor (ed.), and Caerwyn Williams, J. E. (trans.),The Poems of Taliesin (Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies, 1968), pp. xiv-xxiii, henceforth PT.
  16. ^ See, e.g. the reference made by Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr in the twelfth century: Ny bu warthlef kert Kynuerching werin / O benn Talyessin, bartrin beirtrig 'The verse of the host of the Cynferching was not derisive from the mouth of Taleisin, [who had] the poetic learning of the company of bards'. The 'Cynferching' were the descendants of Cynfarch Oer, Urien's father, so this is an allusion to Urien. See Jones, Nerys Ann, and Ann Parry Owen (eds.), Gwaith Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr, vol. I, (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1991), poem 24, ll. 153-4n.
  17. ^ See Rodway, Simon, Dating Medieval Welsh Literature: Evidence from the Verbal System (Aberystwyth: CMCS Publications, 2013), p. 14, for an overview of the different positions on these poems. Only PT II and VI have been overwhelmingly rejected as authentic on linguistic grounds, though not without objections.
  18. ^ PT II ll. 1-2, VIII, l. 9. For the implications of this, see, e.g. Koch, John T. (ed. and tr.) The Gododdin of Aneirin: Text and Context from Dark-Age North Britain (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp. xiv-vi, xxv-xxxiv, and throughout. Koch argues that Urien was the leader of the opposing force to those memorialised in Y Gododdin, together with Gwallog.
  19. ^ PT II l. 6n, VII, l. 12, VII, l. 22
  20. ^ PT III, l. 9
  21. ^ PT VI, ll. 3-19, IX, l. 11-14. For the identification of Fflamddwyn with a son of Ida, see p. lxi.
  22. ^ PT III, PT VI
  23. ^ PT IX. The dadolwch was practiced by Welsh poets who offended their patrons well into the late Middle Ages, where we find plenty of examples.
  24. ^ Jenny Rowland, essentially following the arguments of Ifor Williams set down a half-century prior, dates 'Canu Urien' to the late eighth century to mid ninth. See Rowland, Jenny (ed.) Early Welsh Saga Poetry: A Study and Edition of the Englynion (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 388-9; henceforth EWSP.
  25. ^ EWSP, 'Pen Urien', 'Celain Urien', for Llofan, see 'Canu Urien' §45
  26. ^ EWSP, 'Dwy Blaid'
  27. ^ EWSP, 'Gwên and Llywarch', §10
  28. ^ See Bromwich, Rachel (ed. and tr.) Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain, fourth ed. (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014), §6, §25, §33, §70
  29. ^ Jones, Nerys Ann, and Ann Parry Owen (eds.), Gwaith Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr, vol. I, (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1991), poem 16, line 97
  30. ^ HB, preface
  31. ^ Kenneth H. Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh: University Press 1953), pp. 647-8, PT II, l. 32n, p. xxxvii.
  32. ^ Andrews, Celeste L. 'What Did Cynddelw Know About the Old North?' Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 39 (2019), pp. 39-52 (43-4)
  33. ^ Loomis, Roger Sherman. "Some Names in Arthurian Romance" in Proceedings of the Modern Language Association, Volume 45, Number 2, pp. 416-443. Cambridge University Press, June 1930. "A king whose name appears in the Vulgate Cycle frequently as Uentres or Nentres was derived from the name Urien, borne originally by a king of the Britons of Strathclyde in the seventh century. Besides the test of an established transmission that derivation can be supported by two other tests: a community of relationships between Urien and Uentres, and an explanation of the latter corrupt form. According to the Huth Merlin, Morgain is given in marriage to Urien of Garlot; according to the English Merlin, Morgan, a bastard daughter of Ygerne, is given to Neutre of Sorhaut. (...) Urien is king of Garlot in the Huth Merlin, and of Gore in Malory, but Sorhaut is a city within his borders. So marked an equation of Urien and Uentres as husbands of Morgain and as lords of Garlot and Sorhaut should suggest a confusion between the names."
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