Welsh Journals

nephew, Rhys ap Gruffudd of Deheubarth, who had co-operated with Owain in a campaign in north-east Wales in 1167. By contrast, Owain's letters to the Capetian court were ignored by Lloyd and have indeed attracted remarkably little scholarly attention. True, the work of Augustin Thierry brought Owain's second letter to Louis to the notice of the nineteenth-century Welsh scholars Thomas Stephens and Jane Williams,3 while more recently Michael Richter has cited the two letters to Louis as evidence for Owain's style and commented that the ruler of Gwynedd 'made a spectacular advance in the field of international diplomacy by offering himself as a vassal to the French king Louis VII.'4 Nevertheless, the letters merit closer inspection than they have received hitherto, since they not only provide valuable evidence for Franco-Welsh diplomacy but also offer a unique insight into Owain's political aims and outlook, especially the second letter to Louis, which contains the earliest surviving use by a Welsh ruler of the title 'prince of Wales'. The first part of this article summarizes what is known of the textual transmission of the letters and attempts to establish the contexts in which they were produced and hence the date-range to which each may be assigned. There follows an assessment of the letters' significance for an understanding of, first, relations between Gwynedd and France and, second, Owain's conception of his power. 2 J. E. Uoyd, A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest (3rd edn., 2 vols., London, 1939), 11, 522; BfrutyJ Tfywysogyon, or, The Chronicle of the Princes,] Rfed] B[ook off Hfergest Version], ed. T. Jones (2nd edn., Cardiff, 1973), pp. 148-9. 3 A. Thierry, Histoire de la conquete de VAngleterre par les Normands (3 vols. in 1, Paris, 1825), II, 369-71 (translated as History of the Conquest of England by the Normans [London, 1841], p. 167); T: Stephens, The Literature of the Kymry (Llandovery, 1849), pp. 231-3; J.Williams, A History ofWales (London, 1869), pp. 259-60. Thierry's discussion is also referred to in P. Barbier, The Age of Owain Gwynedd (London, 1908), pp. 100-1. 4 M. Richter, 'The Political and Institutional Background to National Consciousness in Medieval Wales', inT W. Moody (ed.), Nationality and the Pursuit of National Independence = Historical Studies, XI (Belfast, 1978), pp. 43, 45 and n. 28. See also W L. Warren, Henry II (London, 1973), p. 104, and D. Crouch, The Image of Aristocracy in Britain, 1000-1300 (London, 1992), pp. 89-90; and cf. R. R. Davies, Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales 1063-1415 (Oxford, 1987), p. 49, which comments that Owain 'anticipated the policies of his successors by forming a Franco-Welsh alliance to embarrass Henry II'.