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Agriculture
Deuryw ytir a dyr eto, Draul o fawrIal drwy lafurio, Dodi gwedd a gâr, dirio ŷd o'r âr, Dri heiniar draw heno. (poem 113) After the uprising of Owain Glyndŵr and the Black Death which had such a deep effect on families in the preceding century, the agricultural industry at the turn of the fifteenth century took a very long time to grow into a success. Following the Crown expenditure on The Hundred Years' War, taxes were on the increase, and land in Wales was targeted during the Wars of the Roses too, with frequent occurrences of fire and theft of animals, especially horses. However, farming played a crucial role in improving the economy of the country, and the second half of the fifteenth century was a period of considerable prosperity in the farming community. We hear of land transfers, occasional lawsuits against thieves or cases of disagreement between tenant and master in the surviving records of some of the agricultural affairs of the age. Also, some of the poems of request and thanks for animals tell us much about the farming community in fifteenth-century Wales. A number of Guto’r Glyn's patrons were involved in farming. A number of the poets too were farmers, such as Llawdden and Llywelyn ap Gutun, and there is evidence that poets like Tudur Penllyn, Ieuan Brydydd Hir and possibly Guto'r Glyn himself had some part in the wool industry. It appears that Tudur Penllyn was a highly successful farmer, and the poems exchanged between him and Guto demonstrate the knowledge which both possessed of sheep farming. |
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