Wales and the Britons, 350-1064

Abstract This is a history of the Welsh in the centuries in which Wales acquired the shape it was to retain until the present day. In 350 what is now Wales was just one part of Roman Britain: contemporaries had no notion of Wales or the Welsh in the later-medieval or modern sense. The inhabitants of what is now Wales were just Britons; and, in the early middle ages, the Welsh remained one part of a larger group, the Britons, called Walas or Wealas by the English. The book thus includes the Britons of North Britain, of Cornwall, and of Brittany, although its main focus is the Britons of Wales. The period saw, first, the creation of an English people and, later, of an English state; relations with the Britons of Wales were an essential strand in these developments. For the Britons themselves relations with the English shaped the political and military side of their history; but, in the cultural and religious sphere relations with Ireland were usually more important. For relations of power the Britons of Wales looked east; in the intellectual and spiritual sphere they mostly looked west. The book is divided into four parts: the Post-Roman period, approximately 400–600; early Welsh society; relations with the English; and the religious organization and culture, both in Latin and the vernacular.