Life In Early Medieval Wales

The period AD300--1050, spanning the collapse of Roman rule to the coming of the Normans, was formative in the development of Wales. This book uses archaeology and other evidence to uncover how people lived in late Roman and early medieval Wales and how their lives changed over time, as well as drawing comparisons with Britain and the wider world.

Research for and the writing of this book was funded by the award of a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship. The period c. AD300--1050, spanning the collapse of Roman rule to the coming of the Normans, was formative in the development of Wales. Life in Early Medieval Wales considers how people lived in late Roman and early medieval Wales, and how their lives and communities changed over the course of this period. It uses a multidisciplinary approach, focusing on the growing body of archaeological evidence set alongside the early medieval written sources together with place-names and personal names. It begins by analysing earlier research and the range of sources, the significance of the environment and climate change, and ways of calculating time. Discussion of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries focuses on the disintegration of the Roman market economy, fragmentation of power, and the emergence of new kingdoms and elites alongside evidence for changing identities, as well as important threads of continuity, notably Latin literacy, Christianity, and the continuation of small-scale farming communities. Early medieval Wales was an entirely rural society. Analysis of the settlement archaeology includes key sites such as hillforts, including Dinas Powys, the royal crannog at Llangorse, and the Viking Age and earlier estate centre at Llanbedrgoch alongside the development, from the seventh century onwards, of new farming and other rural settlements. Consideration is given to changes in the mixed farming economy reflecting climate deterioration and a need for food security, as well as craft working and the roles of exchange, display, and trade reflecting changing outside contacts. At the same time cemeteries and inscribed stones, stone sculpture and early church sites chart the course of conversion to Christianity, the rise of monasticism, and the increasing power of the Church. Finally, discussion of power and authority analyses emerging evidence for sites of assembly, the rise of Mercia, and increasing English infiltration, together with the significance of Offa's and Wat's Dykes, and the Viking impact. Throughout the evidence is placed within a wider context enabling comparison with other parts of Britain and Ireland and, where appropriate, with other parts of Europe to see broader trends, including the impacts of climate, economic, and religious change.

This is a study of the seasonal activity cycles of a pre-urban society, examined through the lens of an early medieval Welsh case study. It considers the patterns of power and habitual activity that defined spaces and structured lives. Key areas of early medieval life - agriculture, tribute-payment, legal processes and hunting - are shown to share a longstanding seasonal patterning that is preserved in medieval Welsh law, church and well dedications, and fair dates.

Crucial texts from ninth- and tenth-century Wales analysed to show their key role in identify formation. WINNER OF THE FRANCIS JONES PRIZE 2022 Early medieval writers viewed the world as divided into gentes ("peoples"). These were groups that could be differentiated from each other according to certain characteristics - by the language they spoke or the territory they inhabited, for example. The same writers played a key role in deciding which characteristics were important and using these to construct ethnic identities. This book explores this process of identity construction in texts from early medieval Wales, focusing primarily on the early ninth-century Latin history of the Britons (Historia Brittonum), the biography of Alfred the Great composed by the Welsh scholar Asser in 893, and the tenth-century vernacular poem Armes Prydein Vawr ("The Great Prophecy of Britain"). It examines how these writers set about distinguishing between the Welsh and the other gentes inhabiting the island of Britain through the use of names, attention to linguistic difference, and the writing of history and origin legends. Crucially important was the identity of the Welsh as Britons, the rightful inhabitants of the entirety of Britain; its significance and durability are investigated, alongside its interaction with the emergence of an identity focused on the geographical unit of Wales.

How did the Welsh travel beyond their geographical borders in the Middle Ages? What did they do, what did they take with them in their baggage, and what did they bring back? This book seeks for the first time to capture the medieval Welsh on the move, and core to its purpose is the exploration of identity within and outside the Welsh territories – particularly since ‘Welsh’ may have become a fluid term to describe a stranger, often pejoratively. The contributors also seek to explore the nature of ‘Welsh history’ as a discipline. How can a consideration of the Welsh abroad draw upon wider paradigms of nationhood, diaspora and colonisation; economic migration; gender relations; and the pursuit of educational, religious and cultural opportunities? Is there anything specifically ‘Welsh’ about the experiences of medieval migrants and correspondents? And what can the medieval experience of Welsh people exploring the then known world contribute to the longer-term history of emigration and exchange? Examining archaeological, historical and literary evidence together, this book enables a better understanding of the ways in which people from Wales interacted with and understood their near and distant neighbours.

Recent research and fieldwork on the settlement and landscape of Medieval Wales presented at the 1994 meeting of the Welsh Archaeological Congress is here set down for all to read. The contributions are: Landscape and settlement (Nancy Edwards); Wetland reclamation on the Gwent levels (Stephen Rippon); Landscape of Gwent and the Marches as seen through the Charters (C Hurley); The royal courts of the Welsh princes in Gwynedd, AD 400-1283 (David Longley); The locations of the royal courts of 13th century Gwynedd (N Johnston); Aerial photography and historic landscape on the Great Orme, Llandudno (M Aris); Place-names and vegetation history as a key to understanding settlement in the Conwy Valley (D Hooke); Transhumance and settlement on the Welsh uplands: A view from the Black Mountain (A Ward); Historic settlement surveys in Clwyd and Powys (Robert Silvester); Post-conquest and pre-conquest villages in Pembrokeshire (J Kissock); Small boroughs in south-west Wales (K Murphy); New Radnor: the topography of a planned town (R J Silvester); Medieval Wales: a summing up (Christopher Dyer).