The Royal Title that No One Can Remember

Thanks for watching, everyone. If you’ve seen anything on this channel before, then you know I love a good mystery, and it’s hard to find something more mysterious than a title that can’t be translated. Can’t wait for my next video, going over the dozens of epithets that actually can be translated. I also want to say thank you to everyone who voted on this topic, I think there were about 4,000 votes in total! And thank you for all of the comments, I try my best to get to all of them, but it's usually tricky when the video first comes out, I will catch up eventually!

"the last time I met fifteen people, I crashed into a bus." love how deadpan that joke was

Speaking of epithets reminds me of playing Crusader Kings 2, and having a ruler called "Leo the Chaste" who had 10 children

My theory is that the reason these rulers are being nicknamed “ country like” is for their exceptional taste in country music.

imagine historians in the future trying to decipher our slangs today lol

Welsh character creator: Select your class [Tall, Bald, Greasy-Beard, From Gwynedd, Wledic (DLC)]

Here's my own theory: In Welsh there's also the word 'gwladol' ('national, civil') related to 'gwlad', and in Breton there's a cognate 'glad', which currently means 'arable land' but in older texts had the meaning of 'fiefdom'. This indicates that gwlad — or the Old Welsh equivalent — had a meaning more akin to 'country' or 'realm', with an implication of sovereignty or legitimacy. This would parallel a similar lexical development in latin, where 'pāgus' originally meant 'district' but eventually shifted to meaning 'countryside' (it's where the word pagan comes from!) It could be that 'gwledig' was an epithet used for individuals viewed as especially legitimate, or those with more extensive power over their subjects than was the norm. I'm not particularly familiar with the biographies of those rulers with the epithet though, so I'm not sure how valid this theory is. Once again thank you so much for the great video!

Bro, the production value is getting better with every video and the information is so engaging. The dry jokes add so much personality to the videos. For being on such a narrow topic, this is one of the best history channels…

Made me think about an unoficial adjective given to former king of Spain, John Charles I, "campechano". It means somebody down to earth and not as distant in appearance as kings are. And as Gwledig it has the same semantic root, from "campo" meaning field.

I have an idea - could it mean "patriotic?" Patriot is derived from "patris," e.g. homeland, and "-otic" e.g. something that has the nature of the root word - e.g., country-like. That would explain why it's seemingly given both to certain great warlords but also poets and writers; like in the US, being patriotic doesn't necessarily denote power, just someone that loves and serves their country. In the US there is also a sense that men of the past were more patriotic than men of the present.

The fact that the video uses Cambria as it's font of choice is pretty meta. I love it.

I love your editing style, but I miss it when your videos went a little slower. I loved how it gave me the feeling of unravelling a mystery, slowly finding and deciphering clues. The eerie music really contributed to it as well.

I had a feeling that "country like" could mean the person in some way had the same properties as the country, like "wide reaching". Or is similar to the modern "Down to earth", "grounded". Taking into consideration the possibility of it making both lord and country it could mean a lord closely tired to their country in some way. Maybe forging closer ties to rural people in their land? Those are my two cents but i trust the people who have spent decades learning about Welsh history to have more likely ideas lmao :P Amazing video! Keep it up <3

One of my first thoughts when you were going over the people it's applied to was how many are notable for being ancestors. I started thinking that it could be something akin to "patriarch". Maybe it deontes someone who is seen as establishing a noteworthy lineage. The fact that there is an instance of someone who wasn't originally called gwledig, but was given the epithet in later genealogies, could indicate that it wasn't until later on that his line achieved importance enough for him to be deemed gwledig.

I didn't have getting sucked into Welsh philology on my 2024 bingo card. Fascinating, even hypnotic video. Bravo, sir.

This is truly one of the few channels that make you feel like you're standing on the frontier of medieval studies. Almost to the point where one's guess is as good as the next lol.

A classic history channel with Jon Bois-style edits is so obviously a great combo. Subscribed and excited to watch the backlog

I love this channel's weird blend of early medieval imagry, 90s editing techniques, and scifi techno music

That stunning and detailed depiction of Syr Thomas Williams really caught me off guard

This is the Jon Bois type beat of medieval history. Fantastic visual production, and fantastic conclusion. Truly captivating video!!