Big shoe

 

Following up my posts on Meurig ap Dafydd, the leader of the Welsh revolt in Gwent in 1294-5. I started posting on this man a couple of weeks, but didn't have time to finish before going on holiday. Oops.

To recap: Meurig was a burgess of Abergavenny and royal tax collector, chosen by the local Welsh as their leader during the revolt that swept over Wales at this time. While Morgan ap Maredudd attacked the lands and castles of Gilbert de Clare in Glamorgan, Meurig's army laid siege to Abergavenny. The revolt in Gwent was shattered in mid-February, when Humphrey de Bohun broke the siege, slaughtered Meurig's followers and devastated their lands. Bohun remained in the south-east until the summer, when Edward I came to Brecon on 16 June. By that point the revolt was well and truly over.

Meurig's fate is unknown, and he might well have been killed in the fighting over the spring. The king's postwar settlement of Gwent was not straightforward. On 21 June he granted John Hastings, lord of Gwent, the forfeitures of all Welshmen and tenants lately in arms against the king. These men, presumably the surviving rebels, had recently been admitted to the peace. However, the grant then states the Welsh are permitted their lives and limbs and lands and tenements. This left Hastings with the option of imposing fines, except the king also reserved the right to mitigate or cancel any fines, if they seemed too grievous.

Hastings was thus left with the option of throwing a shoe at the Welsh, so long as it wasn't a big shoe. Curiously, the entire grant was then cancelled altogether. Now Hastings didn't even have a shoe.

The cancelled grant was followed by a string of further royal instructions, which make for interesting reading. In 1297 the Welshries of Morgannwg and Brecon were granted various charters of liberties: these included the respite of fines imposed upon them for the recent revolt – the communities of Miskin and Senghenydd were exempted in this way – and the grant of the laws and customs of their ancestors.

As Rees Davies (pictured) noted, the king was turning the aftermath of the revolt to his advantage, and exploiting it to drive a wedge between the Marcher lords and the Welshry on their estates.