The career and subsequent reputation of Iorwerth Goch, bi-cultural denizen of the medieval Welsh marches

Abstract:Although the mid-twelfth-century figure Iorwerth Goch seems an obscure lurker in footnotes in works which consider medieval England or medieval Wales, the pattern of contemporary evidence about him is extraordinary. He appears as a subsidiary character in both the Welsh tale Breudwyt Ronabwy and the Anglo-French romance Fouke le Fitz Waryn. Extensive further evidence about him appears in the English government's Pipe Rolls and in Welsh chronicles, genealogies, and poetry. Iorwerth founded a hereditary March family which held manors for several generations in return for service as Anglo-Welsh interpreters and intermediaries. Memories of his exploits persisted in Wales and the Marches through the remainder of the middle ages. He is, thus, a good example of the bi-culturally adept lords in the Welsh Marches whose members could preserve and transmit oral traditions which lie behind the Breudwyt Ronabwy, Fouke le Fitz Waryn, and other similar tales.