Dewisland
51°56′53″N 5°08′28″W / 51.948°N 5.141°W
The Hundred of Dewisland (often written "Dewsland") was a
The
History
Welsh Bishops
Dewisland was almost identical in area to the pre-
Following the
The Bishop's rights, however, were respected by the Normans, who left Pebidiog alone, thus sparing it the fierce fighting which took place elsewhere.[8] The disestablishment of Deheubarth around it effectively made the Bishop's lands a sovereign state—Dewisland—which was able to boast of being the only Welsh realm never conquered by a foreign invader. It was not a contiguous realm; Llawhaden, a sizeable possession of the Bishop lying elsewhere in Dyfed, also became part of Dewisland,[9] having received the same treatment by the Normans.
Following the incumbency of Sulien, the chapter had begun a pattern of appointing his close blood relatives as Bishop of St. Davids (first Rhygyfarch, his eldest son, then Wilfred, his brother.[10] When they elected Daniel, Sulien's younger son, it began to look like a state with hereditary leadership; King Henry I was able to use the Norman presence around Dewisland to prevent Daniel's consecration.
Norman Bishops
The King summoned the chapter of St. David's to London, and persuaded them to choose his wife's chancellor,
Initially, St David's remained its civil and ecclesiastical headquarters, and small English-speaking communities began to settle there (as they did at
Pembrokeshire
In the 1530s, King
The Bishop died within the year, and Henry appointed an ardent Protestant, William Barlow, as his replacement. Not content to merely approve these changes to the Bishop's status, Barlow tried to move the see out of St. David's altogether - to Carmarthen.
By now, the former English-speaking communities within St David's, Abercastle, and Letterston had become thoroughly Welsh-speaking, and essentially extinct. The local Elizabethan antiquarian George Owen described the hundred of Dewisland as wholly Welsh-speaking.[13]
Modern Marcher Lordship claim
In the early 19th century, the Bishop of St. David's established a college (St David's College), to which he granted the manor of St. Davids. By the late 20th century, this college had become part of the
The court concluded that the Marcher Lordship did not exist, having been abolished by the Laws in Wales Acts. Furthermore, even if it had, it was not the University's to sell, and in any case, the sale contract had explicitly spelt out that when using the phrase Marcher Lordship of St. Davids it was using it as a gloss to refer to the Lordship of the Manor of the City of St David's (rather than, for example, an actual Marcher Lordship). As Lord of the Manor of the City of St. David's, a title to which the court found that Mr Roberts was entitled, he has the right of moiety of wrecks on the shoreline.[9]
Notes
- ^ Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales (1848), p. 39: "(Dewisland hundred): — This district embraces the north-west quarter of Pembrokeshire."
- ^ William Owen Pughe, Cambrian register vol. 2 (1799), p. 79: "...it took the name of Dewisland among the Englishmen, for that it was given to the bishop's see of St. Davids."
- ^ Nicholas Carlisle, A topographical dictionary of ... Wales, a continuation of the topography of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1811), Solfach
- ISBN 0-907158-58-7, p 197
- ^ W. Rees, An Historical Atlas of Wales, Faber & Faber, 1959, plate 28
- ^ a b The history of Wales, descriptive of the government, wars, manners, religion, laws, druids, bards, pedigrees and language of the ancient Britons and modern Welsh, and of the remaining antiquities of the principality, John Jones, 1824, London, p. 63-64
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, 1771, Edinburgh, volume 2, p.907, paragraph 23.
- ^ Raphael Samuel, Alison Light, Theatres of Memory: Island stories : unravelling Britain (1997), p. 51
- ^ a b c d e f Judgement in Crown Estate Commissioners v (1) Mark Andrew Tudor Roberts (2) Trelleck Estate Ltd: ChD (Mr Justice Lewison), 13 June 2008
- ^ Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066-1300: Volume 9, the Welsh Cathedrals (Bangor, Llandaff, St Asaph, St Davids)., Institute of Historical Research, London, 2003. p. 45
- ^ a b Dictionary of Welsh Biography, John Edward Lloyd, London, 1959, entry for Bernard (died 1148), bishop of S. Davids
- ^ Brian Howells, Pembrokeshire County History, Volume 2, Haverfordwest, 2002, p. 148
- ISBN 185902-120-4