Welsh Journals

FOURTH SERIES.—No. XXIX. JANUARY, 1877. COYTY CASTLE AND LORDSHIP. The lordship of Coyty is regarded by the Welsh as an Honour of high antiquity, the estate and seat of a royal lineage, and the inheritance of one of the sons of Jestyn, the last native lord of Morganwg. It is divided into the lesser lordships of Coyty Anglia and Wallia, and it formed one of the " members" of the county under the Norman lords. Being a member, and not in the body of the shire, it is not included in the thirty-six and three-fifths knights' fees which paid military service to Cardiff Castle ; but it was held under the lord of Gla¬ morgan, who held of the Crown, and the castle, manor, and members of Coyty appear accordingly in inquisi¬ tions of the Earls of Gloucester and their successors in the reigns of Edward I, II, and III. In the 24th Henry VI, for some probably temporary reason, only the Castle and a fourth part of the manor are returned in the chief lord's schedule. Coyty was granted by Fitzhamon to Sir Pagan or Payne de Turberville, a knight, who probably held Bere- Turberville and other lands in Dorset, and the manor and Castle of Crickhowel in Monmouthshire. Unlike most of the sites of the Norman castles in Glamorgan, Coyty was evidently an earlier residence and a place of strength, and in its circular and raised area, and its circumscribing moat, much resembles the earthworks so common in England and upon the Welsh marches, and 4th ser., vol. viii. 1