Keeping the Players Straight

For a little more than two centuries, the Welsh fought the Normans, trying to keep them from totally taking the land of their fathers. This border warfare continued along the "Marches" until the time of Edward I, beginning 1272, when he decided that enough was enough, and began a campaign to take this wild west county. It is always difficult to keep all the players straight, so the following is a time line for the Norman(English) rulers, and the Welsh rulers:

Norman Kings \ Welsh Lords

William I (the Conqueror) - 1066-1087

Rhys ap Tedwy (Tudor) d. 1093

William II (Rufus) - 1087-1100

Henry I - 1100-1135

Gruffydd ap Cynan d. 1137

Gruffydd ap Ryhys d. 1137

Stephen - 1135-1154

Henry II - 1154-1189

Madoc ap Maredydd d. 1160

Owain Gwynedd d. 1170

Richard I - 1189-1199

Rhys ap Gruffydd (Lord Rhys) d.1197

John - 1199-1216

Henry III - 1216-1272

Llewelyn ap Iorwerth (the Great) d. 1240

Edward I - 1272-1307

Llewelyn ap Gruffydd d. 1282


The Normans were actually introduced to the Welsh around 1055 when Edward the Confessor used their assistance in fighting the Welsh under Gruffydd ap Llewelyn. Excellent references for this period of history are:

"England Under The Norman and Angevin Kings 1075 - 1225", by Robert Bartlett, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2000.

"The Feudal Transformation 900 - 1200" , by Jean-Pierre Poly and Eric Bournazel, Holmes & Meier, London, 1991.

"The Normans", by Christopher Gravett & David Nicolle, Osprey Publishing, Ltd, Oxford, 2006.

"The Normans and the Norman Conquest", by Allen Brown, The Boydell Press, Suffolk, 1968.

"1066 The Year of The Conquest", by David Howarth, Dorset Press, a division of The Viking Press, 1978.

"The Bayeux Tapestry", by Simone Bertrand, ouest france, Rennes, 1978.

Isn't amazing that any of our JONES family survived!

Whittington

The grandfather of Tudor Trevor is identified as being from Whittington. This would place Cadforch (the grandfather) at Whittington around 870 A.D. +/- twenty years. [This is using the 30 year generation calculated from previous genealogies under "Holding the Bag" Oct. 15, 2010.]

Whittington, a parish in the hundred of Oswestry, county of Salop, is located 3 miles (E.N.E.) from the town of Oswestry. A reference in "A Topographical Dictionary of England", by Samuel Lewis, [Vol.III-IV, p.461] refers to a document titled "Archaeologia". In this document it is reported that Whittington was named Drev Wen, or the White Town, by Llowarch Hen. [Llowarch Hen is believed to have been a British bard who flourished about the close of the sixth century, or around late 590 A.D. However, Meic Stephens places this name as "Canu Llywurch Hen" and states this represents a song (story) written down around the late ninth century. This reference is found in "The New Companion to the Literature of Wales", p.87.] At any rate, Whittington was clearly a settlement before the dates of Cadforch. A British chieftain (Condolanus)is reported to have been slain here in an attempt to expel some Irish invaders.

In the reference "Topographical Dictionary of England", it states:

"According to the bards, it was subsequently the property and chief residence of Tudor Trevor."

Thus, for at least three generations, Cadforch [spelled Gadforch, Kadfarch, Kadvarch) to Ynyr, to Tudor Trevor had settled Whittington.

Last Choice

Mountains, mountains, and more mountains seemed to form the character of the land. Surrounded by ocean (sea level) on three sides, the land quickly rises to over 600 feet. [see last post] Here billions of years ago, the first limestone, sandstone, and slate were formed. [Known as the Cambrian period which is thought to represent the earliest geologic period.]

The map to the right is my attempt to show the tallest mountain peaks and their geographic locations. The center of the compass is located approximately in the central Beacons. The highest peak is 2097 feet and in 1586 a writer named Camden called the Becons "Arthure's Hill". To the north shows the general distribution of the mountain peaks which slice the land into ridges, hollows, moors, lakes, forest and streams. The highest peak is Yr Wyddfa [Snowdon] which in the Welsh is Eryri meaning "abode of Eagles". Snowdonia refers to the whole group of mountain peaks that form a distinctive ridge which separates this part from the rest of the land. The mountain ridges run various directions, some north to south, some northeast to southwest, some east to west, producing a very narrow coastline and a quilt like pattern of land which could support farming and agriculture. You can certainly understand how the land provided areas that could be settled (family tribal groups) yet separated from one another by mountain ridges rather than by miles. You can also understand how this land might be the last choice in which to settle your family.

Straddling The Fence

From the passing of Vortigern around 480 AD, until the arrival of Tudor Trevor around 900 AD, there was a great deal of change in the home of our grandfathers. The Saxons by their military conquest and colonization, drove the Britons who did not want to comply into the highest parts of the island. The most western part of the island is shown in the picture to the right. The green areas roughly shows the land above 600 feet. This land then rose rapidly to peaks of 3560 feet in the northwest, following a central ridge to 2906 feet in the south central area. Surrounded by ocean on three sides, and two rivers on the other, this rock and water world became the home to our Jones family. The two rivers almost joined on the eastern side, but had a narrow land bridge which connected the more fertile plans to the east and the limestone ridges to the west. This land bridge became the battle ground for many during this 400 year period.

The Welsh language had its beginning during the years 500 AD - 600 AD. It became a distinctive branch of the Brythonic language tree separating from the Irish and Scottish tongues. Understanding the geography of the land helps one understand the multiple tribal divisions that occurred during this time period. This land produced a large number of isolated pockets of settlements which were able to survive among the rugged terrain. One of these tribal groups became our Jones family.

By 600 AD the Saxons were knocking on the door. They built their first fence called Watt's Dyke sometime during this period. It began at Oswestry Old Fort and extended north to provide a boundary and cattle fence. As time will tell, this fence straddles much of the land that became our Jones family land. As during the Roman occupation, our family must have maintained a trade business between the two cultures. We survived, and we must have managed to walk this fence.

The First JONES

The first of my direct JONES line that is recorded among the pages of history is Beli Mawr, son of Manogan. His name first appears in the most ancient of Welsh documents called "The Mabinogion". [A translation by Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones, Everyman Press, is available.] In the manuscript known as "The Four Independent Native Tales", a story titled "Lludd and Llefelys" is told. He is recorded here as having four sons; Lludd, Caswallawn, Nyniaw, and Llefelys. A daughter is given by the name Penarddun in another story titled "Branwen Daughter of Llyr". Now Ashley in his book "British Kings & Queens" states that Beli was a "semi-legendary British king who was probably an historical ruler" (p. 69) He dates him to around 100 BC and notes that he was from the Silures (southern tribal group), and was "High King" of the Britons. This would place my JONES line 50 years before those Latin writers were to show up. According to the "Historia Brittonum", he is identified as the "King of the Britons" in the time of Julius Caesar. Well, by any account, he was early in the history of Wales. According to Stephens in her book "The New Companion to the Literature of Wales", early heraldry of Wales shows that the eminent families in and the "Old North" claimed descent from Beli Mawr.(p.44) Not a bad start for a JONES line, hey?

Empire Without Limit

The Latin writers who were to arrive on our island between 55 B.C. and 84 A.D., [the conquest of northern Britain and Wales was completed in 84 A.D.], had the following mindset: according to Virgil, Jupiter himself decrees,

"I set upon the Romans bounds neither of space nor of time:
I have bestowed on them empire without limit."

These Latin writers describe a Celtic culture divided geographically. They named multiple social groups, scattered about the island. We have come to call these "tribes". The tribal groups that came to occupy that part of the island from which our JONES surname originates are five in number. The Cornovii centered its land around the land bridge between the head waters of the Dee and Severn. At one point they were thought to have occupied what was to become present day Shropshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, the Clwyd valley and eastern Powys. The Deceangli occupied the northern coastal area being the extreme north of our JONES family land. The Ordovices claimed what was to become Gwynedd. The Demetae spread over what was to become Dyfed. Finally, the Silures were settled in what was to become Galmorgan and Gwent. Within these five Celtic tribal groups our JONES surname was hidden. It would take another 500 years before the tribes that survived the "empire without limit" would be identified as "Walas".

Mind your P's and Q's

Now when the Celtic social and cultural groups reached the northwestern most tip of the continent, they faced the ocean. To the west was water for as long as you could go. To the north and northeast was a number of islands that had yet to be settled by the Celts. Their language had, pretty much, been uniform until the migration across this water generated a branch. There were those who used their lips versus those who used their hard palate to form their sounds and words. The sounds "B" and "P" became dominate in the group that moved to the southwestern tip of the larger island. The sounds "Q" and "Mu" dominated among those who migrated to the smaller island. As these Celtic cultures settled and soon dominated the folks already there, this branching came to be called P-Celtic (Brythonic) and Q-Celtic (Gaulish) by the linguists who study such a thing today. The P-Celtic then moved along the western coastal area northward, and the Q-Celtic settled among the folks on the island to become Ireland. The Scots who first arrived at the smaller island picked up this dialect, and continued to form the Gaelic tongue. The bilabial folks (who used opposing lips to make sounds) formed the Brythonic tongue; these also formed, on a return trip to the continent, the Breton tongue. There was another branch of the Celtic language to form on the smallest island in the Irish Sea, The Isle of Man. This language root called Manx is extinct today.

Now the Germanic groups that remained north of the Danube formed their northern and western language branches. It was the western branch that became the root for English, Flemish, Dutch, Afrikaans,Low German, and High German.

Again, understanding this distinction between the two language roots is the beginning to really understand the true origin of our JONES surname.