Biography of Bernard Neufmarché 1050-1125

The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales: Book 1 Chapter 2. Bernard de Newmarch³⁸ was the first of the Normans who acquired by conquest from the Welsh this province, which was divided into three cantreds.³⁹ He married the daughter [[his former wife] Agnes or Nest St John] of Nest, daughter of Gruffydd, son of Llewelyn, who, by his tyranny, for a long time had oppressed Wales; his wife took her mother's name of Nest, which the English transmuted into Anne [Agnes?]; by whom he had children, one of whom, named Mahel, a distinguished soldier, was thus unjustly deprived of his paternal inheritance. His mother, in violation of the marriage contract, held an adulterous intercourse with a certain knight; on the discovery of which, the son met the knight returning in the night from his mother, and having inflicted on him a severe corporal punishment, and mutilated him, sent him away with great disgrace. The mother, alarmed at the confusion which this event caused, and agitated with grief, breathed nothing but revenge. She therefore went to king Henry I., and declared with assertions more vindictive than true, and corroborated by an oath, that her son Mahel was not the son of Bernard, but of another person with whom she had been secretly connected. Henry, on account of this oath, or rather perjury, and swayed more by his inclination than by reason, gave away her eldest daughter [[his daughter] Sibyl Neufmarché Countess Hereford], whom she owned as the legitimate child of Bernard, in marriage to [his former son-in-law] Milo Fitz-Walter,⁴⁰ constable of Gloucester, with the honour of Brecheinoc as a portion; and he was afterwards created earl of Hereford by the empress Matilda, daughter of the said king. By this wife he had five celebrated warriors; [his grandson] Roger, [his grandson] Walter, [his grandson] Henry, [his grandson] William, and [his grandson] Mahel; all of whom, by divine vengeance, or by fatal misfortunes, came to untimely ends; and yet each of them, except William, succeeded to the paternal inheritance, but left no issue. Thus this woman (not deviating from the nature of her sex), in order to satiate her anger and revenge, with the heavy loss of modesty, and with the disgrace of infamy, by the same act deprived her son of his patrimony, and herself of honour. Nor is it wonderful if a woman follows her innate bad disposition: for it is written in Ecclesiastes, "I have found one good man out of a thousand, but not one good woman;" and in Ecclesiasticus, "There is no head above the head of a serpent; and there is no wrath above the wrath of a woman;" and again, "Small is the wickedness of man compared to the wickedness of woman." And in the same manner, as we may gather grapes off thorns, or figs off thistles, Tully, describing the nature of women, says, "Men, perhaps, for the sake of some advantage will commit one crime; but woman, to gratify one inclination, will not scruple to perpetrate all sorts of wickedness." Thus Juvenal, speaking of women, say,

- Nihil est audacior illis [Nothing is bolder than them]

Deprensis, iram atque animos a crimine sumunt. [When caught, they take anger and spirit from the crime.]

- Mulier saevissima tunc est [A woman is most savage then]

Cum stimulos animo pudor admovet. [When modesty adds goads to her spirit.]

- colllige, quod vindicta [Gather this, that with vengeance]

Nemo magis gaudet quam foemina. [No one rejoices more than a woman.]

Note 38. The name of Newmarche appears in the chartulary of Battel abbey, as a witness to one of the charters granted by William the Conqueror to the monks of Battel in Sussex, upon his foundation of their house. He obtained the territory of Brecknock [Map] by conquest, from Bleddyn ap Maenarch, the Welsh regulus thereof, about the year 1092, soon after his countryman, Robert Fitzhamon, had reduced the county of Glamorgan. He built the present town of Brecknock, where he also founded a priory of Benedictine monks. According to Leland, he was buried in the cloister of the cathedral church at Gloucester, though the mutilated remains of an effigy and monument are still ascribed to him in the priory church at Brecknock.

Note 39. Brecheinoc, now Brecknockshire, had three cantreds or hundreds, and eight comots. - 1. Cantref Selef with the comots of Selef and Trahayern. - 2. Cantref Canol, or the middle hundred, with the comots Talgarth, Ystradwy, and Brwynlys, or Eglyws Yail. - 3. Cantref Mawr, or the great hundred, with the comots of Tir Raulff Llywel, and Cerrig Howel. - Powel's description of Wales, p. 20.

Note 40. Milo was son to Walter, constable of England in the reign of Henry I., and Emme his wife, one of the daughters of Dru de Baladun, sister to Hameline de Baladun, a person of great note, who came into England with William the Conqueror, and, being the first lord of Overwent in the county of Monmouth, built the castle of Abergavenny. He was wounded by an arrow while hunting, on Christmas eve, in 1144, and was buried in the chapter-house of Lanthoni, near Gloucester.

Note. Emme his wife is the subject of much debate. There is uncertainty about her parentage, and whether Hameline de Baladun was her brother.

The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales: Book 1 Chapter 2. Having crossed the river Wye, we proceeded towards Brecheinoc, and on preaching a sermon at Hay [Map],²⁵ we observed some amongst the multitude, who were to be signed with the cross (leaving their garments in the hands of their friends or wives, who endeavoured to keep them back), fly for refuge to the archbishop in the castle. Early in the morning we began our journey to Aberhodni [Map], and the word of the Lord being preached at Landeu [Map],²⁶ we there spent the night. The castle and chief town of the province, situated where the river Hodni joins the river Usk, is called Aberhodni [Map];²⁷ and every place where one river falls into another is called Aber in the British tongue. Landeu [Map] signifies the church of God. The archdeacon of that place (Giraldus) presented to the archbishop his work on the Topography of Ireland, which he graciously received, and either read or heard a part of it read attentively every day during his journey; and on his return to England completed the perusal of it.

Note 25. Hay [Map]. A pleasant market-town on the southern banks of the river Wye, over which there is a bridge. It still retains some marks of baronial antiquity in the old castle [Map], within the present town, the gateway of which is tolerably perfect. A high raised tumulus adjoining the church [St Mary's Church, Hay-on-Wye [Map]] marks the site of the more ancient fortress. The more modern and spacious castle owes its foundation probably to one of those Norman lords, who, about the year 1090, conquered this part of Wales. Little notice is taken of this castle in the Welsh chronicles; but we are informed that it was destroyed in 1231, by Henry II., and that it was refortified by Henry III.

Note 26. Llanddew [Map], a small village, about two miles from Brecknock, on the left of the road leading from thence to Hay; its manor belongs to the bishops of Saint David's, who had formerly a castellated mansion there, of which some ruins still remain. The tithes of this parish are appropriated to the archdeaconry of Brecknock, and here was the residence of our author Giraldus, which he mentions in several of his writings, and alludes to with heartfelt satisfaction at the end of the third chapter of this Itinerary.

Note 27. Aberhodni [Map], the ancient name of the town and castle of Brecknock, derived from its situation at the confluence of the river Hodni with the Usk. The castle [Map] and two religious buildings, of which the remains are still extant, owed their foundation to Bernard de Newmarch, a Norman knight, who, in the year 1090, obtained by conquest the lordship of Brecknock. [The modern Welsh name is Aberhonddu.]