Meurig ab Arthfael

[8] The main sources for King Meurig ab Arthfael are charters recorded in the twelfth-century Book of Llandaff.

Much of this book is fraudulent, and until the late twentieth century most historians dismissed it as worthless, but since the work of Davies in the 1970s on the charters, they have been reappraised, and while some are judged to be forgeries, others are regarded as genuine in whole or part.

[10] Confirmation that Meurig ab Arthfael and his sons, Brochfael and Fernfael, ruled in the ninth century is provided by their notice in two independent sources.

[13] Almost nothing is known of kings in south-east Wales immediately before his time as his reign follows a gap in the Llandaff charters of some fifty years.

Davies comments that the Llandaff charters give an "impression of lawlessness and of the arbitrary use of royal power by those who held it."

In her view, Meurig is one of the few exceptions, as he seems to have attempted to free all ecclesiastical property from lay control, but he cannot have been wholly successful as kings continued to make grants transferring the ownership of churches in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

[23] In charter 74 dating to around 860, Meurig consented to a grant by Britcon and Iliwg of Lann Mocha (St Maughans) to Archbishop Dyfrig's church, but in another version (171b) of the charter Meurig guaranteed their grant of Lann Bocha to Bishop Grecielis, and it is not clear which version is genuine.

[30] Davies states that the royal line descended from Meurig appears to have ended with Brochfael, who died in the early tenth century.