ABSTRACT
The history of Wales in the two centuries between 1063 and 1283 is in essence the history of its rulers and their systems of governance. The exceptional among them succeeded in broadening their power by exercising a form of hegemony over the other native rulers of Wales. Wales was a fragmented land of many kingdoms and many dynasties, the principal divisions of which, at least by the middle of the eleventh century, were the four major territories of Gwynedd, Powys, Deheubarth and Morgannwg. The Crown’s generally fitful interest in Welsh affairs before the mid- to late thirteenth century meant that the balance of power in Wales was more often likely to depend on the emergence of outstandingly able or ruthless native, and after 1066, Marcher leaders. The writings of Gerald of Wales are perhaps among the most frequently used and potentially the most valuable sources for the history of twelfth-and early thirteenth-century Wales.
