Owain Gwynedd

1100–1170

Owain Gwynedd ruled the kingdom of Gwynedd from 1137 to 1170 and was one of the strongest Welsh princes of the twelfth century. He expanded authority across northern Wales, resisted repeated campaigns by Henry II and increasingly styled himself prince of the Welsh. Owain also quarrelled with the archbishop of Canterbury over ecclesiastical independence and faced complicated succession problems because of his many sons and disputed marriage to Cristin.

Owain appears in historical fiction about Norman Wales and the Angevin frontier, though no single English-language novel has defined his popular image. His victories over larger English forces and his difficult family succession provide rich material for dynastic sagas. Fiction can also explore the tension between later Welsh national memory and the intensely regional politics of his own reign.

Ellis Peters’s A Morbid Taste for Bones places Owain Gwynedd within a narrative shaped by crime, espionage and covert power, social change and the pressures of ordinary life, and military command and battlefield decision-making. Ellis Peters’s Dead Man’s Ransom places Owain Gwynedd within a narrative shaped by crime, espionage and covert power, military command and battlefield decision-making, and social change and the pressures of ordinary life. Other novels featuring Owain Gwynedd include Ellis Peters’s The Summer of the Danes.

Series

Series featuring Owain Gwynedd (1 series)

Chronicles of Brother Cadfael in Order

by Ellis Peters 19 books 4.5

The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael follow a former soldier and crusader who has become the herbalist of Shrewsbury Abbey. Between 1137 and 1145, Cadfael investigates deaths, disappearances and disputed identities while working within the rhythms of Benedictine life and the law of medieval England. The twenty novels unfold…

All books in this series