Welsh Journals

SIR HUGH JOHNYS: A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY WELSH KNIGHT! by W. R. B. ROBINSON ON E of the few monuments to survive the bombing of St. Mary's, Swan sea in 1941 is the fifteenth-century brass commem- orating Sir Hugh Johnys, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, and his wife, Maud.2 Even in its present mutilated state the quality of the brass is still apparent, and the interesting details of Sir Hugh's career inscribed on it have long made his name familiar to students of medieval Gower. A short monograph describing the monument and giving an account of Johnys's life was published at Swansea in 1845 by the Reverend Thomas Bliss and George Grant Francis,3 but this work is now rare and a new examination of his career may accordingly be of interest. The material available for such a study is slight and uneven and is always likely to remain so, although further information may come to light among classes of records at present uncalendared in the Public Record Office and elsewhere. 1 I am greatly indebted to Mr. T. B. Pugh for many valuable suggestions made during the preparation of this article. 2 The brass has been re-set in the floor of the sanctuary of the new St. Mary's. The earliest description of the brass is that given by T. Dineley, The Account of the Official Progress of His Grace Henry, the First Duke of Beaufort, through Wales in 1684, ed. R. W. Banks (London, 1888), pp. 290-2. Dineley also made a sketch of the brass which is reproduced on p.292. A more detailed description of the brass, together with a woodcut depicting it, is given in T. Bliss and G. G. Francis, Some Account of Sir Hugh Johnys, deputy knight marshal of England, temp. Henry VI, and Edward IV, and of his monumental brass in St. Mary's Church, Swansea (Swansea, 1845), hereafter referred to as Some Account of Sir Hugh Johnys. A nineteenth-century rubbing of the brass is in the British Museum, Additional MS no. 32489 N (1). 3 See n. 2 above. The reference in the title to Johnys as 'deputy' knight marshal is inaccurate.