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Gutun Owain; Gruffudd ap Huw ab Owain , poet

Active: c.1451-1498   

One of the most proficient Welsh bards of the late fifteenth century. Over sixty poems by him are extant and consist, largely, of eulogies and elegies to noble patrons, poems soliciting gifts and also love poems.

His two most important patrons were Sion ap Rhisiart and Dafydd ab Ieuan ab Iorwerth, abbots of Valle Crucis. Indeed, Gutun spent about forty years of his life at Valle Crucis. He also frequented Basingwerk Abbey and composed a poem in honour of its abbot, Thomas Pennant. Guton wrote a portion of the Black Book of Basingwerk, now preserved in the National Library of Wales (MS 7006D).

Sites associated with this person

Basingwerk Abbey, Flintshire

Valle Crucis Abbey, Denbighshire

Bibliographical sources

Printed sources

Johnston, Dafydd, 'Monastic patronage of Welsh poetry', in Monastic Wales: New Approaches, ed. Janet Burton and Karen Stöber (University of Wales: Cardiff, 2013), pp. 177-190

Web links (open in new window)

Williams, Gruffydd Aled , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online - Owain, Gutun (View website) (Subscription reqd.)

Archival sources

National Libray of Wales, 'Black Book of Basingwerk', (Document), (View website)


 
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