page_title: Owain ap Dyfnwal (fl. 934)
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Owain ap Dyfnwal (fl. 934) / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: An excerpt from folio 9r of British Library Cotton MS Faustina B IX (the Chronicle of Melrose). The excerpt refers to the title of Máel Coluim mac Domnaill, King of Strathclyde (died 997).
context_page_description: Owain ap Dyfnwal (fl. 934) was an early tenth-century King of Strathclyde. He was probably a son of Dyfnwal, King of Strathclyde, who may have been related to previous rulers of the Kingdom of Strathclyde. Originally centred in the valley of the River Clyde, this realm appears to have undergone considerable southward expansion in the ninth or tenth century, after which it increasing came to be known as the Kingdom of Cumbria.
  Owain may have represented the Cumbrians in the tripartite alliance with the kingdoms of Alba and Mercia, assembled by Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians in the second decade of the tenth century. Around this time, the Cumbrians are recorded to have campaigned against either Ragnall ua Ímair or Sitric Cáech. Owain may also be the king of Strathclyde who is recorded to have submitted to Æthelflæd's brother, Edward, King of the Anglo-Saxons, in 920 with Ragnall and Custantín mac Áeda, King of Alba. Moreover, Owain seems to have been present at another assembly in 927, when he, Custantín, Ealdred, and perhaps Owain ap Hywel, King of Gwent, acknowledged overlordship of Edward's son and successor, Æthelstan.
context_section_description: For hundreds of years until the late ninth century, the power centre of the Kingdom of Al Clud was the fortress of Al Clud ("Rock of the Clyde"). In 870, this British stronghold was seized by Irish-based Scandinavians, after which the centre of the realm seems to have relocated further up the River Clyde, and the kingdom itself began to bear the name of the valley of the River Clyde, Ystrad Clud (Strathclyde). The kingdom's new capital may have been situated in the vicinity of Partick and Govan which straddle the River Clyde, and the apparent inclusion in the realm's new hinterland of the valley and the region of modern Renfrewshire may explain this change in terminology.
  At some point after the loss of Al Clud, the Kingdom of Strathclyde appears to have undergone a period of expansion. Although the precise chronology is uncertain, by 927 the southern frontier appears to have reached the River Eamont, close to Penrith. The catalyst for this southern extension may have been the dramatic decline of the Kingdom of Northumbria at the hands of conquering Scandinavians, and the expansion may have been facilitated by cooperation between the Cumbrians and insular Scandinavians in the late ninth- and early tenth century. Over time, the Kingdom of Strathclyde increasingly came to be known as the Kingdom of Cumbria reflecting its expansion far beyond the Clyde valley.
  Owain was likely a son of Dyfnwal, King of Strathclyde. Dyfnwal is specifically attested by only one source, the ninth- to twelfth-century Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, which reveals he died between 908 and 915. Dyfnwal's parentage is unknown, although he might have been a member of the British dynasty that ruled Strathclyde before him. He could have been a son or grandson of Eochaid ap Rhun. Alternately, Dyfnwal could have represented a more distant branch of the same dynasty. In any case, the names borne by Owain and his apparent descendants suggest that he was indeed a member of the royal kindred of Strathclyde.
caption: The title of Owain's grandson and eventual successor, Máel Coluim, as it appears on folio 9r of British Library Cotton Faustina B IX (the Chronicle of Melrose): "rex Cumbrorum".[15]
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