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Kinship and violence in Wales, 800--1415.
Thesis information
Author:
Johnson, Lizabeth.;Advisor(s):
Stacey, Robin ChapmanDegree:
Ph.D.School:
University of Washington.Year:
2008Full Abstract
In the twelfth century, scholars patronized by the Anglo-Norman kings of England constructed an image of the Welsh as barbaric and uncivilized, the antithesis of mainstream European society of the time. One particular aspect of this image of the Welsh as uncivilized revolved around the proclivity of the Welsh to commit violent acts against their own kin. This image of the Welsh as non-European in their practice and understanding of violence against their kin contributed to a long-standing tendency in historical scholarship to treat the Welsh as a people on the cultural fringes of Europe and is still reflected in the fact that modern scholars often leave Wales out of discussions of medieval European society and culture. However, as other modern scholars have noted, given that the twelfth-century authors of this image of Welsh barbarity were the literate agents of Anglo-Norman imperialism, we can only come to a true understanding of Welsh society and its relation to contemporary European society by turning from this Anglo-Norman view of the Welsh to a view of the Welsh from native sources. The present study does precisely that, by examining the practice and understanding of violence within kin groups as portrayed in Welsh sources from the period 800-1415 and comparing that practice and understanding to contemporary attitudes in Europe as a whole in order to gain a greater sense of the similarities and differences between Welsh and European culture. This study focuses in particular on the practice and understanding of feud (galanas), violence within close and extended biological kin groups (the gwely and the cenedl) and constructed kin groups (the teulu and fosterage), and domestic violence in medieval Welsh society. As this study shows, far from being the barbarians described by twelfth-century historians and chroniclers of the Anglo-Norman regime, the Welsh were not at all unlike their European counterparts. The Welsh participated in European culture, both through their practice of violence and their understanding of kin groups, and thus should be studied alongside European societies rather than portrayed as fringe to those societies.
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