The rise and fall of the medieval town in Wales

When the Anglo-Normans began their invasion of Wales in the late eleventh century they discovered a country largely devoid of any significant centres of population; the people, according to Giraldus Cambrensis’s celebrated late-twelfth-century description, ‘neither inhabit towns, villages, nor castles, but lead a solitary life in the woods’. ¹ True, some Anglo-Norman towns such as Carmarthen, ² Usk ³ and Cardiff ⁴ were founded on the sites of Roman forts or towns, and Rhuddlan was sited on the tenth-century Saxon burh of Cledemutha, ⁵ but in all these cases the status of the immediate pre-Anglo-Norman settlement is uncertain; they certainly cannot be classified as urban centres.