Hyfaidd ap Bleddri

This Welsh name means Hyfaidd son of Bleddri.

Hyfaidd ap Bleddri (Hyfaidd son of Bleddri) (born c. 830 - d. c. 892) was a king of Dyfed.

The Triad 68 - "Three Kings who Sprang from Villeins" - in the Red Book of Hergest (which dates from the fourteenth century), lists Hyfaidd among their number, meaning that his father Bleddri or Bledrig was considered to have been a serf rather than a member of Dyfed's old royal family claiming descent from Aed Brosc.^[1] Hyfaidd's mother was supposed to be Tangwystl, a daughter of the earlier King Owain ap Maredudd.^[1]

T. Charles-Edwards argues that Hyfaidd was responsible for consolidating the lands that would later become Deheubarth, annexing Ystrad Tywi and possibly Ceredigion into Dyfed before his death in around 892.^[2] Hyfaidd was said to have oppressed the clerics of Meneva (modern St. David's)^[3] and exiled Bishop Nobis,^[4] earning him the enmity of Nobis's kinsman, the historian Asser, Bishop of Sherborne.^[4]

Although later Welsh histories made Hywel Dda's inheritance of Dyfed a peaceful affair brought about by his marriage to Hyfaidd's granddaughter Elen (d. 929)^[5] and the extinction of Hyfaidd's male line,^[6] Asser's more contemporary Life of King Alfred reports that Dyfed or Brycheiniog both fell under such sustained attack from Hywel's uncle Anarawd and father Cadell.^[7] The expansionist policies of the sons of Rhodri Mawr^[8] meant that Kings Hyfaidd and Elise ap Tewdur of Brycheiniog both submitted to King Alfred of Wessex's overlordship in exchange for his protection.^[9]

Hyfaidd's sons Llywarch and Rhodri reigned after him, but were both dead by 905, both likely due to warfare. Rhodri ap Hyfaidd was killed by beheading in Arwystli.^[2] The kingdom of Dyfed was soon lost to Cadell's son Hywel who consolidated his realms as Deheubarth.^[2]

Children

• Llywarch
• Rhodri