CYNDDELW BRYDYDD MAWR

(Welsh: Cynddelw the Great Poet) flourished 1155, 1200 outstanding Welsh poet of the 12th century, court bard to Madog ap Maredudd, prince of Powys (d. 1160), and then to Madog's enemy Owain Gwynedd, prince of Gwynedd (d. 1170). The extant poems ascribed to him (about 50), composed in the Welsh bardic tradition of deliberate archaism, include a small amount of religious verse and a large number of eulogies to the chief princes throughout Wales. Cynddelw seems, therefore, to have been the chief bard of all of Wales.