The Flemish settlement in Pembrokeshire was a movement of Flemish settlers in England to Little England beyond Wales, mostly in south Pembrokeshire in southwest Wales. This was a systematic plantation by Henry I and Henry II, as a way to displace troublesome Flemish refugees and to influence Welsh affairs. Although it is believed that they created space for the English language to predominate over Welsh in the area, there is no known influence on language in the area.
Although Saxons were among the first foreign settlers there, steering the language, quite a few Flemings also arrived after the Norman conquest of England. William of Normandy had been married to Matilda of Flanders and quite a number of Flemish nobles and soldiers had joined William in 1066.[1]
First wave: 1108
Carew Chimney (Flemish chimney)
In Henry I's reign in the early 12th century a wave of Flemish refugees arrived in England, escaping damage from floods that affected the coast of Flanders.[2] At first they were given land on the eastern side of the Tweed[2] before Henry I systematically planted the Flemish settlers in south Pembrokeshire.
King Henry removed all the Flemings in England into Wales. England contained so many of these Flemings...that the country was overburthened with them. Wherefore with the two-fold intent of clearing the land, and repressing the brutal audacity of the foe, he settled them with all their property and goods in Ros, a Welsh province.
The fact that they came via England, and that at that time the Flemish language was not markedly different from Old English,[dubious–discuss] was likely to have influenced the English language becoming, and remaining, the dominant language of the area.[2]
In the year 1108 the rage of the sea did overflow and drowne a great part of the lowe countrie of Flanders in such sort that the inhabitants were driven to seek themselves other dwelling places, who came to King Henrie and desired him to give them some void place to remain in, who being verie liberall of that which was not his owne, gave them the land of Ros in Dyvet, or West Wales, where Pembroke, Tenby and Haverford are now built, and where they remaine to this daie, as may well be perceived by their speach and condition farre differing from the rest of the countrie.
Second wave: 1113
A second batch of Flemings were sent to southwest Wales by King Henry I in about 1113. According to Brut y Tywysogion he:[3]
Sent to his castellans and officers, and the Frenchmen and Welsh who were well affected to him, with a command to receive the Flemings and give them means of subsistence, under condition that they should take arms when required by the king and those faithful to him. And so it was. And those strangers had Rhos and Penfro in Dyved, and settled there as loyal men to the king. And he placed English among them to teach them the English language, and they are now English, and the plague of Dyved and South Wales on account of their deceit and lies, in which they exceeded any settlers in any part of the Island of Britain.
Henry II
Henry II (reigned 1154-1189) equally sent Flemish people, mainly soldiers and mercenaries, to Pembrokeshire, but this was mainly driven by the desire to have the warmongering Flemings (the "Flemish wolves") out of his way.[4] As an increasing number of "foreigners" settled, the original inhabitants were driven away. It has been called a "process of ethnical cleansing".[5] The Flemings showed a real zest for settling elsewhere, discarding the social fabric that was in place: they were "a brave and robust people, but very hostile to the Welsh and in a perpetual state of conflict with them".[6]
In 1155, under the orders of the new King Henry II, a third wave of Flemings were sent to Rhys ap Gruffydd's West Wales territories.[7]
High Middle Ages
What followed, starting with the reign of Edward I in the late 13th century, was 100 years of peace, particularly in "Little England", marked by the Edwardian conquest of Wales, which must have compounded the tendency of Welsh to become a minor language in the region.[8]
With the failure of Owain Glyndŵr's revolt in the early 15th century, in which no fighting took place in "little England", came punitive laws affecting Wales, though these were, for reasons historians have not been able to ascertain, applied less rigorously here than elsewhere in Wales.[9]
Local influence
Haverfordwest[10] and Tenby consequently grew as important settlements for the Flemish settlers.[11] In Tenby, a castle and a church was erected for the Flemish colonists.
The Flemish were experts in the woollen trade, and this flourished in the area.[12]
The Normans and the Flemings built a line of over 50 castles – most of them earthworks – to protect south Pembrokeshire. This line of castles is known as the Landsker (old Norse for 'divide') and stretched from Newgale on the west coast to Amroth on the south east coast. The Landsker line represented a divide in language and custom in Pembrokeshire that remains tangible today.
Although the initial planting of Flemish was a move by Norman rulers, the influx of Flemings into south Pembrokeshire appeared to be so significant that Flemish allowed for English to become the dominant language in the region.
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