John Abrahall was the patron of a poem requesting a cuirass, attributed to a poet called gutto o bywys (poem 120). For a discussion of the attribution, see the explanatory notes for the poem. John Abrahall was apparently the man referred to as Abrel by Lewys Glyn Cothi in a praise poem for Ieuan ap Phylib of Cefn-llys near Llandrindod (GLGC 170.25).

Lineage
Though John Abrahall’s lineage is not found in Welsh manuscript sources, he is mentioned three times on account of other members of his family. According to WG1 ‘Godwin’ 8, he married the unnamed daughter of one of Guto’s patrons, Sir William ap Thomas of Raglan, and he is connected with Tretire a little to the south of Gillow, near to which there remains to this day a farm called Aberhall. He is associated with Gillow in another source which names his daughter, Marged, in relation to her husband, Gwilym ap Tomas of Llangatwg (Llangattock) in the Usk valley (ibid. ‘Bleddyn ap Maenyrch’ 19; WG2 ‘Bleddyn ap Maenyrch’ 19C). Another of his daughters is mentioned in WG1 ‘Wynston’ 1, this time without being named; she married Gilbert ap John Wynston of Tre-wyn in Monmouthshire. Her daughter in turn, another Marged or Margaret, married a man called Thomas Cecil of Allt-yr-ynys near Abergavenny.

Taylor (1997: 97) suspects that John Abrahall was of Welsh ancestry, a suspicion which is strengthened by Guto Powys’s poem. It is not possible on the basis of the surviving evidence to confirm the relationship between Abrahall and Guto Powys which is given in the poem, where the poet calls himself a nephew of his patron (for more, see 120.22n (explanatory)).

His career
John Abrahall or Aburhale was a Herefordshire gentleman. He lived at Gillow (Y Gilwch in Welsh) in the parish of Hentland (Taylor 1997: 98–9). He died in 1443. The fact that Guto Powys refers to Gillow shows that the poem cannot be addressed to Abrahall’s nephew, also called John Abrahall, since the house passed to another branch of the family after the elder Abrahall’s death in 1443 (ibid. 104–5).

John Abrahall is frequently mentioned in sources of the time. The information is summarized below (unless otherwise stated, all the references within brackets are to pages in Herbert 1978; there is also discussion in Herbert 1981 and Taylor 1997).

As Herbert (45–58) argues, these events reveal a clear pattern. Up until c.1422 John Abrahall flourished under the protection of John Talbot, Lord Furnival, a man of power in the Marches. After quarrelling with other men among Talbot’s favourites, Dafydd ap Rhys and Thomas Barre (cf. the events of 1419), Abrahall lost Talbot’s favour for a long period. It can be seen that he held no office from 1422 to 1437, when he was reconciled with Talbot. At about the same time he found favour also with Humphrey, earl of Stafford. He was a rich man when he died (Taylor 1997: 104).

Bibliography
Herbert, A.E. (1978), ‘Public Order and Private Violence in Herefordshire, 1413–61’, (M.A. Wales [Swansea])
Herbert, A.E. (1981), ‘Herefordshire, 1413–61: Some Aspects of Society and Public Order’, R.A. Griffiths (ed.), Patronage, the Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England (Gloucester), 103–21
Rees, W. (1975), Calendar of Ancient Petitions Relating to Wales (Cardiff)
Taylor, E. (1997), Kings Caple – Archenfield (Little Logaston)