Wales and the Britons, 350-1064

This, the first volume in the History of Wales, provides a detailed history of Wales in the period in which it was created out of the remnants of Roman Britain. It thus begins in the fourth century, with accelerating attacks from external forces, and ends shortly before the Norman Conquest of England.

The narrative history is interwoven with chapters on the principal sources, the social history of Wales, the Church, the early history of the Welsh language, and its early literature, both in Welsh and in Latin. In the fourth century contemporaries knew of the Britons but not of Wales in the modern sense. Charles-Edwards, therefore, includes the history of the other Britons when it helps to illuminate the history of what we now know as Wales. Although an early form of the name Wales existed, it was a word in the Germanic languages, including English, and meant inhabitants of the former Roman Empire; it therefore covered the Gallo-Romans of what we know as France as well as the Britons.

T. M. Charles-Edwards, Formerly Jesus Professor of Celtic, University of Oxford

Thomas Charles-Edwards was Jesus Professor of Celtic and Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford from 1997 until 2011. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Introduction: The Lands of the Britons
A. After Rome
1. Britain, 350-550
2. The Britons and their Languages
3. Inscriptions
4. The Britons and the Irish, 350-800
5. From Pelagius to Gildas
6. Rome and the Britons, 400-664
B. Early Welsh Society
7. Charters and Laws
8. Lords, Food-Renders, and Peasants
9. Kinship and Status
10. Kingship
C. The Britons and the English, 550-1064
11. The Britons and the Northumbrians, 547-685: The Evidence
12. The Britons, Northumbria, and the rise of Mercia, 550-685
13. The Britons and their neighbours under the Mercian hegemony
14. Two Ninth-Century Writers
15. The Transformation of the Ninth Century
16. The Britons and the Empire of Britain
17. Wales, 950-1064
D. The Welsh Church and Culture
18. The organization of the Welsh Church, 768-106
19. Learning
20. Poets and Story-Tellers
Bibliography
Index