442 – Mynydd Carn

Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie, and this is episode 442, Maneth Karn.

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By now, you're aware that one of our biggest sources for this period of history are the works of Orderic Vitalis, who was a Benedictine monk who, having been born in 1075, lived very close in time to these events.

As such, he provides a critical, near-contemporary view into these events, and specifically, the period of time that we're moving into right now is covered in Orderic's sixth book.

And, well, I guess he wasn't happy with the response that he got for books one through five.

Because here's how he opens up book six: quote: Book six, chapter one, introduction containing remarks on scarless criticism and the decay of piety among the prelates of the author's age.

The human mind has continual need of being usefully exercised so that it may be well directed in a virtuous course for the future, by its researches into the annals of the past and its observation on what is passing around.

It is every man's duty to be daily daily learning how he ought to live by having the examples of the ancient worthies ever present before his eyes and profiting thereby.

It sometimes happens that many events present themselves to the ignorant as unheard of things, and new circumstances are frequently occurring in modern times on which no light can be thrown to inexperienced minds but by having reference to former transactions.

Studious persons, therefore, inquire into the obscure passages of history with anxious care and set a high value on whatever can profit a well-disposed mind.

Animated by their labors by this good design, they unfold the past to posterity with perfect impartiality, while, notwithstanding their ability, senseless men snarl at their works and tear them in pieces with their currish fangs.

Smarting under such attacks, even wise men sometimes flag in their energies, abandoning their undertakings and shutting themselves up in perpetual silence.

Thus it happens that from some frivolous circumstance, the world suffers a lamentable loss.

If this were not irreparable and a kindly feeling posterity could recover what it had lost, it would shake off its indifference and joyfully rouse itself to gather with eagerness the flowers and the fruit of the labors thus subjected to malicious attacks and to study them with lively and careful attention.

I've often found complaints of this sort with ancient writers and unite with our illustrious masters in their lamentations over the injuries heaped upon them by their envious contemporaries.

We hear Saint Jerome and Oregon and other doctors of the church complaining in their works of the cavals of scurrilous critics.

And it is a cause of regret that on this account we have been deprived of many important communications.

Able men preferring to rest in peace rather than employ their talents skillfully treating difficult subjects, when by doing so, they expose themselves to malicious attacks.

Let those, I beg and entreat, observe silence, who neither produce anything of their own, nor accept the labors of others in a friendly spirit, nor correct with temper anything which dissatisfies them.

Let them learn of what they are ignorant of, and if they are incapable of learning, then at least let them suffer their fellow disciples to publish what they think is right.

End quote.

So basically, he opens up his book by telling the medieval YouTube comment sections that what he's doing here is hard, and if they think think they could do better then go out there and prove it or shut the f ⁇ up.

And I'm including this here for two reasons.

First, because I find it hilarious.

I literally laughed out loud when I read this for the first time because Orderk has so clearly headed up to hear with the critics that he recorded his own hissy fit.

But beyond this amazing medieval ballad of the content creator, I'm also including it because it's important to remember that our sources are not oracles.

Their records weren't uncontroversial even at the time that they were written.

And when you're talking about history in a public way, every now and then you come across a fairly common complaint.

And they usually say something along these lines.

Just tell us the history.

And that implies that all the equivocation and all the competing arguments and all the maybes and perhapses are just something that historians are putting in.

That there's some great big book of history out there we can all reference that is completely without bias and gaps, and then historians come along and just start muddying the waters for no good reason.

But the documents that we rely on to understand the past were debated and criticized back when they were still practically news.

And sometimes our chroniclers have an absolute hissy fit over their Yelp reviews.

But many times those criticisms went unrecorded.

I mean, for all we know, the monasteries were absolutely full with backbiting.

I mean, maybe scholars spent hours upon hours spilling the tea about every single one of our beloved sources.

Who got this wrong?

Who could have cross-reference a text to save their life?

Who didn't even know how to speak a language all that well?

There could have been all kinds of stuff, but unless they wrote down those complaints, or unless one hilarious monk completely lost any sense of professionalism and started calling out people for being a bunch of haters, these discussions are invisible to us, and they give us the impression that there was no dissent.

So Orderic's amazing meltdown is truly a gift, and it reminds us that the nature of our sources and the environment that they were created under were normal human ones, where mistakes were being made all the time.

Now, of course, we should also remember that the presence of debate doesn't mean mean that a source is untrustworthy or even inaccurate and definitely not necessarily worthless.

Sometimes you can have different but equally accurate perspectives on the same event.

And even if an account was inaccurate, but it was also widely believed, that still tells us something about the culture and the people who believed it.

For example, I think we can all agree that modern politics is a kaleidoscope of perspective.

And it's difficult to get on the same page even when talking about an event that is happening right now.

We also know that there are about as many inaccurate beliefs as there are accurate understandings of literally everything.

And those inaccuracies are going to be critical for some poor future historians who are trying to untangle this cluster f that we've all become accustomed to.

So, there you go.

That meltdown is actually useful, but it's also also really funny.

And I'm really going to miss Orderk.

Anyway, back to the story.

So in 1080, likely in the fall, Duke Robert was leading an army through the barren wasteland of Northumbria, past all the burned villages, and past all the dead and mutilated villagers.

Because these Normans were something else.

I mean, it was one thing to ravage your neighbors.

That was just business.

Even a bit of pillaging against some of your own people was somewhat expected.

But widespread extermination campaigns being waged against your own people, where even the animals were being cut down?

Well, that's insane, even by the standards of the time.

And King Malcolm III of Scotland, hearing about what was happening across his southern border, had absolutely no desire to lock horns with such a ruthless and dishonorable foe.

And so, as Robert and his army advanced, Malcolm ordered his people to disperse.

They would deal with the Normans in the same way that they dealt with them in 1072, by ensuring that they were anywhere that the Normans weren't.

It was a smart move, because pretty much any other option would involve an enormous amount of dead Scots.

Even if Malcolm thought he could successfully fight off the Normans or even successfully take the English throne.

The risks were insanely high considering how these Normans responded to any challenge to their authority.

So better to just avoid them.

Just move your people out of the way and wait for them to get bored.

And so that's what he did.

And sure enough, Robert and his army did get a bit bored wandering around the lowlands.

So, when King Malcolm offered to meet with them at Falkirk and discuss terms, Robert accepted, which I'm sure Malcolm knew that he would.

Amazingly, 1072 was basically being repeated beat for beat.

The Northumbrians were subject to vicious recurminations for the rebellion.

The Scots, having successfully evaded the Norman army, forced them to seek terms.

And when those terms were reached, they were pretty much the same as the previous peace of Abernathy.

So, in the end, everything went back to the way it was.

Well, everything except for Northumbria.

Northumbria was even worse off than it was before.

And as Robert returned south, he stopped on the Tyne and ordered the construction of a new castle, a real big bugger that would serve to deter any future Scottish campaigns, or English rebellions for that matter.

And the region around that castle soon acquired a new name, reflecting the construction New Castle upon Tyne.

At about this same time, a new Earl of Northumbria was installed.

He was a man named Aubrey de Cousse Le Chateau Aufrique, so, you know, not a local boy.

And chances are, it was Robert who was the one who installed him, because William would have wanted that position filled as quickly as possible, and allowing Robert to be the one to carry it out might have been part of the bargain that he struck with his son when he promised to hand him over more authority.

Either way, though, Oves was handed an absolute charnel house of an earldom.

And assisting him was a man named Abbot William of St.

Vincent of Le Mans.

And he was an old ally of Bishop Odo, who we're going to be hearing about a lot more in the future.

And his ally, Abbot William, was now the new bishop of Durham, filling in for the old one, who got murdered by that mob.

Down south, William...

So that was what was going on up in the north.

Down south, William, against all odds, was still in England.

And he actually had Christmas in Gloucester, just like good old Edward the Confessor used to.

And that probably wasn't accidental.

Things have been looking a bit unstable around here lately, and also Bishop Odo was getting downright shifty these days, so that probably had an impact on why he decided to stick around.

And by February of 1081, once the holidays were over, the king went to Salisbury, as did Robert.

And surprisingly, things seemed pretty normal.

Charters were getting handled, legal disputes were dealt with, and once all that was handled, at Whitsun, the court relocated to Winchester.

And throughout all of this, there's no report of any kind of violence or instability or even any kind of messy family drama.

But

that didn't mean it was far away.

Wales, after all, was just across the border, and the fractured political world and general chaos that had been created by Harold Godwinson's campaign was still echoing throughout the region.

In particular, there was the issue of Griffith Ap Koonin.

And let's give you a lightning recap to remind you who this guy was.

If you remember back, Griffith was the grandson of King Iago of Gwynedd.

But Iago got assassinated during the rise of the first king of all of Wales.

And Griffith's father, Coonan, had to flee for Ireland and live in exile.

But it wasn't long before the first king of all of Wales got assassinated himself, thanks in no small part to the interventions of Harold Godwinson.

And it was the king's half-brother, Blethyn, who ended up replacing him in Gwynedd.

But several years later, King Blethyn of Gwynedd got assassinated himself.

And into that power vacuum stepped King Trehern of Gwynedd, who might have been Blethin's cousin?

Maybe?

Meanwhile, meanwhile, over in Ireland, that exiled nobleman, Kunin, got married to a local girl and had a child.

And then he kicked the bucket.

Now, Coonin's son was named Griffith Apkunin.

And this Griffith soon learned that the dynasty that was sitting on the throne of Gwynedd was responsible for his family's downfall.

And so he decided he was going to do something about it.

He went to the king of Dublin, got some boys boys together, hired some additional mercs, and launched a campaign.

Once in Wales, he made an ally of the Norman commander, Robert of Ridlin.

He also got a bunch of northern Welsh lords to support him, and he made a go of it.

And it worked.

He deposed Trehern.

But then he betrayed his Norman allies and launched a surprise attack against them while also managing to alienate the local Welsh people by stationing his Irish soldiers in their towns as an occupying force and basically made a mess of the whole situation.

And seeing an opportunity, Trahern launched a counter-attack, and Gruffyth had no choice but to abandon the crown and flee back to Ireland, which is where he's been for the last six years.

Well, it turns out that during those years, Griffith had been keeping busy.

He was making connections, he was learning from his previous mistakes, and critically, he was keeping his ear to the ground.

You know, just in case another opportunity presented itself.

And in 1081, which is where we're at right now, he spotted a big one.

You might recall that another Welsh king, King Caradog of Gwent, was the powerhouse of the south, and he went toe to toe with Harold Godwinson back in the day.

He also seized control of large portions of southern Wales and was basically starting to look like he was going to be the second king of all of Wales.

And in 1081, that role was still potentially on the table for him, which means he was acting very aggressively.

And at this point, he was seeking to take possession of De Highbarth, which is in the southwest.

And honestly, he'd been looking to control that region for ages.

And if you want to brush up on your territorial and dynastic struggles of both Caradog and Griffith, you can find them in episodes 430 and 433.

But the point is that Caradog was a battle-hardened, aggressive, and expansionist Welsh king.

And true to form, in 1081, he was in the field killing anyone in DeHybarth who didn't want him as their ruler.

And he wasn't doing all this killing alone.

Assisting Caradog was the king of Powys, as well as Griffith's old enemy, King Trahern of Gwyneth.

Now, the king of Dehybarth, a guy named King Rhys Ab Tudor, didn't stand a chance against this combined army.

And as such, he was forced to flee and seek sanctuary inside St.

David's Cathedral.

And when that happened, across the Irish Sea, in Dublin, Griffith saw his chance.

You see, Griffith's failed conquest of 1075 had taught him a valuable lesson.

It's the same lesson that we've been learning repeatedly throughout this history.

Conquerors aren't popular, and the newly conquered are often looking for revenge.

And so Caradog and Trehern's conquest of De Highbarth actually was a weak spot.

Looking to exploit that, Griffith Apkunen hopped on a ship, accompanied by the army that he'd been raising in Ireland, and headed for St.

David's.

And this army was actually sizable and multicultural.

We're talking about a mix of Irish, Danes, and Welshmen heading to St.

David's.

And one of the biggest problems of being an expansionist king like Caradog is that you can't be everywhere at the same time.

And that was actually a particularly big problem for Caradog because when Griffith arrived at St.

David's along with his big-ass army, apparently no one was there to stop him.

And so he was able to meet with Rees.

And there's a near-contemporary record of this event, which weaves a narrative implying that Griffith found himself at St.

David's out of sheer dumb luck.

According to this record, he had no idea of what was happening into Highbarth, nor that Reese had just lost his kingdom.

The account goes on to tell us that when he learned that Trehern was involved, Griffith Apkunen exploded into rage and demanded the right to fight on behalf of Reese, who was a guy he had only just met.

And Rees, being just super impressed, said, quote, Verily, then I'll give you half my kingdom and do homage to you, End quote.

And I'll be honest here, that story doesn't sound plausible at all, regardless of how much Renfair language the scribes used to dress it up.

I think it's far more likely that Griffith knew exactly what was going on, and also who was involved.

After all, the Irish tended to be well apprised of the affairs across the Irish Sea.

And that makes perfect sense to me, actually.

They did a lot of raiding, and any good heist involves a bit of recon and planning ahead of time.

And ideally, an inside guy.

You know, a guy like Reese.

And Reese wasn't just some random nobleman.

He was actually Griffith's distant cousin.

So they had both a dynastic and a political reason to do a team up here.

Furthermore, during Griffith's last campaign, he did some scouting work and made allies, and then he brought his army over.

So I seriously doubt that he gathered an army and then just crossed the Irish Sea and randomly happened upon the correct church that just happened to house a deposed king who also happened to be his relative.

Furthermore, I suspect that when a discussion was made regarding this team-up, it was Griffith who offered the terms of the deal.

And it probably went something like this.

I'll put you back on the throne with my big-ass army I've got right here, all for the low, low price of half your kingdom and your fealty.

Take it or leave it.

That sounds way more believable to me.

But it's also less heroic.

And considering that our source for this situation is Gruffett's personal biography, well, I think some facts were getting massaged a bit.

But regardless of how the terms were struck, Rees jumped at the chance, because of course he would.

It's way better to be king of half a kingdom than just some guy hiding out in a church like you're in a Victor Hugo novel.

So the two boyos sealed the deal by swearing oaths in front of sacred relics, which is what passes in medieval Britain for contract law.

And as a result of this, suddenly, St.

David's was housing a whole lot more than just a deposed king and a bunch of monks.

It was the site of a rebellion.

And not wanting to lose any time, nor lose any of their momentum, Griffith and Reese led their forces north in pursuit of the conquesting army.

And actually, they didn't even wait until the following day.

They had their meeting, they did some magic in front of some old bones, and then Griffith just marched right out the church door.

And Rhys, for his part, gathered up his supporters and various disaffected Welshmen and rushed to join them.

And by nightfall, they reached a place called Manith Karn.

And just across the way, right there, within striking distance, was the enemy.

Perfect.

They could camp here, rest, and then in the morning they could make their presence known and battle for the future of Wales.

Simple, civilized, honorable, exactly the kind of battle that Rees had in mind.

But Griffith had different ideas.

You see, while Griffith's father was Welsh, his mum was the granddaughter of King Citric Silkbeard.

She was Hiberno Norse, and she made sure her son was brought up as a proper Dublin noble.

And Dublin nobles were raiders.

They operated by a different set of rules than the decidedly Welsh Rees.

And what Rees was proposing would not have sounded honorable to Griffith.

It would have sounded stupid.

They were facing off with a combined forces of no less than three kings.

And according to some sources, the army was even supported by some number of Norman soldiers.

So this was a formidable army, and success in a straight-up fight with them was a coin toss at best.

But

they had no idea that Reese and Griffith had snuck in so close.

And they weren't expecting an attack.

Most of the soldiers were asleep, and the rest were probably drinking or relaxing.

And that meant, for Griffith, this was the perfect time to strike.

And so Griffith told Rhys that he and his followers were free to wait until morning, you know, if their honor demanded that.

But everyone else was attacking right now.

Hardcore.

And needless to say, Rhys was in no position to argue here.

The bulk of that army was Griffith's, so it was going down.

And Griffith's instincts were absolutely right.

The forces of Trahern and Caradog were taken completely by surprise.

In an instant, their camp was full of Danes armed with double-edged axes, Irishmen wielding spears, and Welshmen carrying swords and shields.

The account even mentions the presence of horses, so there might have also been mounted troops riding through.

This attack was sudden, it was shocking, and it was terrifying.

And the disorganized forces of Trehern and Caradog panicked.

Now, Griffith's biographer claims that they were panicking at the sight of Griffith's gleaming sword.

And while I'm sure it was lovely, I'm guessing what really spooked them were the cries of the wounded and the dying that echoed all around them.

Because this was an absolute bloodbath.

And when the army broke and fled, which they did, Griffith and his army showed no mercy.

And so they chased them, quote, through groves and glens and marshes and mountains throughout that night by the moon and throughout the following day, and there was scarcely any one of them who escaped from the battle to his own country.

End quote.

It's not clear precisely how many men died in that night assault, nor in the hunt that followed the following day, but it seems that it was probably a large number.

We're told it was, quote, many thousands, end quote.

And that included a large number of high-ranked Welsh nobles.

And among them was King Caradog of Gwent, King Trehern of Gwyneth, and King Malir of Powys.

As for Griffith's men, well, they got away with minor casualties.

This was an unqualified success.

Was it honorable?

Probably not.

Was it effective?

Absolutely.

In the space of a single day, they had functionally decapitated their political opposition within Wales.

But man,

the way he went about it was shifty as hell.

And Griffith's behavior was really starting to give Rhys the heebie jeebies.

Because this guy and his Irish friends really did seem to enjoy killing Welsh kings.

And there was something about the way that they were looking at him that just wasn't sitting right with Rhys.

So, in the dead of night, when no one was looking, Rhys and his men withdrew, and they returned to De Highbarth.

This time not as an exile forced to take sanctuary in a church, but as a victorious king restored.

Meanwhile, back at camp, Griffith was not pleased.

And, giving us a preview of what gave Rhys the heebie-jeebies, he immediately ordered his men to ravage the surrounding lands into Highbarth and make sure Rhys knew exactly how angry he was.

Once that was done, Griffith headed to Trehern's lands in southern Gwynedd, where he slaughtered the common folk, burned their homes, and enslaved large numbers of women and children.

Then he went off to Powys, where he did the same and spared nothing but the churches, until finally returning to northern Gwynedd, where he took possession of the kingdom and we're told he pacified it, which doesn't sound good and makes me think that he probably was using a lot of those same tactics.

Afterwards, we're told,

there was rest and peace in Gwyneth for a few days, end quote.

A few days of peace.

That's nice.

Needless to say, what happened here and the rise of this guy was an enormously big political shake-up.

And so it wasn't long before messengers arrived at Winchester carrying word of what had just happened in Wales.

And for William, who was probably bored out of his mind with all of the politics and land grants and church matters, and I'm assuming, regular family talks.

Well,

this was just what the doctor had ordered.

Now, our sources aren't overly helpful on precisely what motivated William at this moment.

But honestly, there were a lot of reasons why the bastard would want to get involved in Welsh politics.

First, it's possible that some or all of those Welsh kings who had died at the Battle of Maneth Karn were friendly with him, or perhaps even allied.

I mean, if there really were Normans in that army, and it wasn't just some random slander included in the record, then we have an indication of cooperation.

And we also know that Robert of Rithlin was working pretty hard on behalf of Hugh Lagros to expand Norman influence in Gwynedd.

So it's entirely plausible that they were working with some of those kings.

And if that is the case, then William wouldn't have been pleased to hear that they'd been killed.

There's also the fact that for William's entire reign, he had been the beneficiary of Harold's genocidal campaign and the political shattering of Wales.

Had the first king of all of Wales survived and remained in power, William's time in England very well could have looked quite different.

I mean, there's a reason why the English were anxious about a fully unified Wales.

And this Griffith guy, who had just gone and killed three kings, well, he was very much looking like he might be the next king of all of Wales.

But regardless of how you slice it, William had decided it was time to get involved.

But the way he went about it is honestly a bit odd.

He gathered a big old army and marched right into De Highbarth, which totally sounds like an invasion.

But it doesn't look like he met with any resistance.

And that could indicate that Rhys was taking a page out of Malcolm's book.

Maybe.

But either way, William made it all the way to St.

David's, which was farther into Wales than any of his predecessors had gone.

That alone is kind of nuts.

But it also gives you a sense of how thoroughly the political landscape of Wales had changed in the years following the assassination of the first king of all of Wales.

Now, interestingly, Both versions of the Welsh source The Chronicle of the Princes describe William's advance not as an invasion, but as a pilgrimage.

And you know, maybe William decided to go to St.

David's because he realized that Welsh saints were just superior to pray to than English saints.

Maybe, but I really wonder if this was just the Welsh sources trying to save a bit of face.

And this was actually a pretty aggressive move on William's part.

Because the English sources, like version E of the Chronicle, make it sound much more like an aggressive political intervention.

We're told that William met with King Rhys of De Highbarth, and the power imbalance between these two was painfully obvious, as was how much William used it to his advantage.

We're told that William arranged for the release of prisoners, who presumably were those Normans who had been part of Caradog and Trehern's army.

But when you look at what else happened in the aftermath of this, It's clear that the return of his soldiers was merely the opening volley of the negotiations.

Because almost immediately, the Normans began constructing a castle in Cardiff, within the walls of the old Roman fort.

And then they began minting coins in William's name.

And just in case Rhys was unclear as to who was in charge here, we have an entry in the Doomsday Book that removes all doubt from the equation.

There, we learn that Rhys was required to pay William a regular tribute of 40 quid.

Now, 40 quid sounds like a really minor amount, but it wasn't.

It's difficult to make direct comparisons for this period, but that was probably over 100,000 pounds.

And beyond the monetary impact of this, that tribute stood as a testament to who held power in that relationship.

So while there wasn't a battle, And while we do have some sources be like, well, he did pray to St.

David, so this counts as a pilgrimage, it seems pretty clear that what was really happening here was William was trying to salvage some version of overlordship, having lost some of his allies at the Battle of Menneth Karn.

And with that settled, William turned his army and he headed back towards Winchester.

Meanwhile, to the north, Hugh LaGrosse and Robert of Ridlin were preparing to deal with this new king of Gwynedd.

And after that betrayal back in 1075, Robert of Ridlin in particular was just itching for a little payback.

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Thanks for listening.