Maredudd ap Rhys facts for kids

Maredudd ap Rhys (who lived from about 1450 to 1485), also known as Meredudd ap Rhys, was a famous Welsh language poet and priest from a region in Wales called Powys. He came from a well-known family, which means he had important ancestors. Many people believe he was the poetry teacher for another famous poet, Dafydd ab Edmwnd. This made Maredudd well-known both for his own poems and for teaching others how to write them.

Life as a Priest

Maredudd ap Rhys worked as a parish priest in a place called Ruabon. Some old writings suggest he might have started this job around 1430, but there isn't clear proof for that early date. By 1450, he was also in charge of churches in Meifod and Welshpool. Later, in the 1480s, another poet named Guto'r Glyn joked that Maredudd wanted his job at Valle Crucis Abbey.

His Poetry

Many old books and papers say that Maredudd wrote at least twenty-one poems called cywyddau. This was a special type of Welsh poem. His poems were about different things like love, religion, and nature. He wrote poems for private people, for social events, and even poems that seemed to predict the future. However, only five of his poems have ever been printed in books.

Inspiration and Themes

Maredudd got ideas from earlier poets, especially Dafydd ap Gwilym. Just like Dafydd, Maredudd wrote a poem about the wind. He also wrote two sad poems when two of his priest friends passed away. In these poems, he blamed winter for stopping him from seeing his friends more often and praised spring as their friend.

Maredudd really enjoyed fishing! He wrote a funny poem about a small boat called a coracle. He also wrote a "begging poem" about fishing nets. In this poem, he compared himself to Madog ab Owain Gwynedd. This is one of the earliest times anyone mentioned Madog, who some people believed discovered America way back in the 1100s.

Prophetic and Religious Poems

Some of Maredudd's poems that seemed to predict the future showed him as one of the seers (people who could see the future) of the 1400s. He questioned if fate would really stop the chaos happening in Wales at that time. He complained about the endless killings of important leaders and the constant wars, writing about how uncertain life was. In 1483, he also wrote a poem mourning the death of King Edward IV, hoping the king would have brought peace to Wales.

Maredudd's religious poems often taught lessons. They talked about God as the creator of everything, about the suffering of Christ, and about the help given by the Virgin Mary. One poem tells the story of a man who was cured of terrible hip pain at St. John's church in Chester. In this poem, Maredudd claimed that in this church, deaf people would hear again, mute people would speak, blind people would see, and even the dead would come back to life.

Family Life

Maredudd ap Rhys was married to a woman named Angharad. They had a son named Siôn and a daughter.