Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ieuan ab Hywel Swrdwal
IEUAN ab Hywel Swrdwal (fl. 1430–1480), Welsh poet and historian, was the son of Hywel Swrdwal, who is described in a memorandum attributed to Rhys Cain, and bearing date 1570, as 'master of arts and chief of song, who wrote the history of the three principalities of Wales, from Adam to the first king, in a fair Latin volume, and from Adam to the time of King Edward I' (Jones, Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards, 1784, p. 87). He is said to have lived at Machynlleth in Montgomeryshire. In 1450 he wrote an English ode according to Welsh rules of assonance and in Welsh orthography, addressed to the Virgin Mary. It was published in the `Cambrian Register' (ii. 299), and forms one of the best records of the pronunciation of English at that period. Many unpublished poems of his are preserved in manuscript at the British Museum (see Add. MSS. 14866, 14906, 14966, 14969, 14991), one of which, on Anna, the mother of the Virgin, is based on one of the oldest printed Latin chronicles, known as 'Fasciculus Temporum.' Some are also at Peniarth in the Hengwrt collection (166 and 476). Like his father he is also said to have written a history of the three principalities from the time of Cadwaladr to that of King Henry VI, but nothing is now known of the manuscript.
[Jones's Welsh Bards, ut supra, p. 87; Montgomeryshire Collections, xi. 243; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Cat. of Hengwrt MSS. in Archæologia Cambrensis, commencing 4th S., vol. xv.]