Medieval Wales

Medieval Wales Synopsis

The sources for the history of medieval Wales are scanty, sporadic and physically scattered. Neither in archival, narrative nor archaeological remains is Wales comparable to England, and what survives is less accessible, for there has been a notable reluctance among Welsh scholars to produce guides and surveys for this difficult corpus of material. The purpose of Medieval Wales is to examine the history and survival of records produced by administrations inside what is now Wales, princely, seigneurial, ecclesiastical, municipal; to indicate the relevance of English official records to students of Welsh history; to give an introduction to the main narrative sources; to put the work of the Welsh antiquaries into a wider context; to re-examine the whole question of independent Welsh coinage; and to bring together discussion of Welsh archaeological remains, place-name studies and early cartography.