Dr Richard Gwent (died 1543) was a senior ecclesiastical jurist, pluralist cleric and administrator through the period of the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. Of south Welsh origins, as a Doctor of both laws in the University of Oxford he rose swiftly to become Dean of the Arches and Archdeacon of London and of Brecon, and later of Huntingdon. He became an important figure in the operations of Thomas Cromwell, was a witness to Thomas Cranmer's private protestation on becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, and was Cranmer's Commissary and legal draftsman. He was an advocate on behalf of Katherine of Aragon in the proceedings against her, and helped to deliver the decree of annulment against Anne of Cleves.

A royal chaplain, he helped to arrange a peace treaty with Scotland, and steered the revision of the Canon Law and other textual reforms. An instrument of policy rather than a prime mover, he helped to implement major reforms including the King's Supremacy, took the surrender of some larger monasteries in the western English borders, and was Prolocutor of the lower house in three important Ecclesiastical Convocations of the period. He was also involved in the identification and interrogation of heretics. His long association with Cranmer brought him closely into the process of Reform, but in his duty of service to various masters his personal religious sympathies are not fully apparent.

Richard Gwent and his brothers Thomas Gwent and John Gwent were the sons of a Monmouthshire farmer. Elected Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1515, he supplicated for Bachelor of Civil Law on 17 December 1518 and for Bachelor of Canon Law on 22 January following, and was admitted for the latter on 28 February (1518/19). He supplicated for Doctor of Canon Law on 20 March 1522/23, was licensed for Doctor of Civil Law on 1 August 1524 and admitted to the latter on 3 April 1525. He had previously been presented by the abbess and convent of Godstow to the vicarage of St Giles in Oxford, but resigned that benefice in April 1524.

For a while Gwent acted as chief moderator of the canon law school at Oxford University. He was admitted to Doctors' Commons on 20 April 1526, moving to London to practise as an ecclesiastical advocate. Presented to the Canterbury living of Tangmere, Sussex in April 1528, he is thought to have entered the service of Cardinal Wolsey, thereby becoming known to Thomas Cromwell. In 1529 he acted as a junior advocate on behalf of Catherine of Aragon, in the hearings before Wolsey and Lorenzo Campeggio: during that time Gwent's advice was considered important enough, on a certain occasion, that he was fetched from Gloucester and Llanthony to consult with the Queen at Woodstock over letters brought from Rome. Gwent, however, avoided the royal displeasure incurred by John Fisher, who led the Queen's defence, and in March 1530 received the Westminster Abbey presentation to St Leonard, Foster Lane, London.

Gwent may have been transferred from Wolsey's household to the service of the King when that prelate fell: by 1532 he had become a chaplain to the King. He was admitted to the prebend of Pipa Parva in the church of Lichfield in October 1531, but exchanged it for that of Longdon (a Lichfield peculiar) in the following December. During 1532 his name arises in Cromwell's correspondence, and he became prominent among the royal advisors.

This decisive turn in Gwent's career came with the death of Archbishop William Warham of Canterbury, who had held the see since 1504. The vacancy required a principal official who could be depended upon while the successor was chosen, and (although the office was usually in the Archbishop's gift) Cromwell seized the opportunity to appoint Dr Gwent as Dean of the Arches and Master of the Prerogative in the Consistory court of the Province of Canterbury in September 1532. Among his first duties as Doctor of the Decretals was to hear the oaths of the Duke of Norfolk, Sir Andrew Windsor, John Cockes (archbishop's Chancellor) and others, executors in the probate of Archbishop Warham.

Gwent was therefore in office when Thomas Cranmer was selected to succeed as Archbishop in October 1532 and consecrated in March 1533. Cranmer, having received papal preconization, at his consecration was to make his formal statement of obedience to the pope at Westminster. Before doing so, and foreseeing what services would be expected from him, with the king's approval he summoned John Tregonwell, Thomas Bedyll, John Cockes and Richard Gwent to St Stephen's Chapel at Westminster to witness his private protestation that he would not bind himself to anything contrary to the law of God, or prejudicial to the king's rights, or to anything which might prevent necessary reforms in the Church of England. The King's prothonotary Richard Watkins drew up a legal instrument to this effect which they attested, but which was not recited publicly at the consecration.

In a certain case of the 1530s the Wardens of the Bridge Works in the City of London complained in Chancery that Gwent, as advocate, had formerly acted on behalf of Stratford Langthorne Abbey to demand tithes for a mill in West Ham which were traditionally payable to the Wardens. Their complaint was that as a judge, now Dean of the Arches, he proposed to affirm a judgement for the abbot in the same matter: they sought not only relief from the abbot's claim but also a writ of prohibition against Gwent proceeding in it.