City Witness: Place and Perspective in Medieval Swansea

The medieval legacy of Swansea is almost invisible today. Wartime bombing and later re-development of the city centre, in particular, have almost completely obscured the traces of the medieval urban lay-out and its buildings. However, a unique research resource exists for medieval Swansea in the form of a fourteenth-century Vatican Library manuscript, which brings together witness testimonies describing the hanging of the Welshman 'William Cragh' by the Lord of Gower in around 1289.

In 1307, nine witnesses were interrogated about events they had seen in Swansea, around seventeen years previously. The Welshman,William Cragh, had been hanged by William de Briouze, Lord of Gower, and –apparently – miraculously restored to life.

The ‘City Witness’ research project uses these medieval testimonies, as well as other documentary and archaeological evidence, to explore questions of place and perspective in medieval Swansea. It experiments with new ways of witnessing the medieval town, and aims to make medieval Swansea and its rich cultural heritage visible today.

The project has now finished, complete with digital tours, pavement markers around Swansea and a new exhibition at the local museum. Scholarly digital editions, maps, and more on the grim story of the failed hanging of 'Scabby William' are all on the project website: http://www.medievalswansea.ac.uk

City Witness is a major, cross-institutional, multi-disciplinary research project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The initial research phase ran from January 2013 until the end of June 2014. 

City Witness: Place and Perspective in Medieval Swansea