Wales in the Middle Ages
[3] One of the reasons for the Roman withdrawal was the pressure put upon the empire's military resources by the incursion of barbarian tribes from the east.
At the Battle of Chester in 616, the forces of Powys and other British kingdoms were defeated by the Northumbrians under Æthelfrith, with king Selyf ap Cynan among the dead.
[4] It has been suggested that this battle finally severed the land connection between Wales and the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd ("Old North"), the Brittonic-speaking regions of what is now southern Scotland and northern England, including Rheged, Strathclyde, Elmet and Gododdin, where Old Welsh was also spoken.
[citation needed] From the 8th century on, Wales was by far the largest of the three remnant Brittonic areas in Britain, the other two being the Hen Ogledd and Cornwall.
Following Cadwallon's death in battle the following year, his successor Cadafael Cadomedd ap Cynfeddw also allied himself with Penda against Northumbria but thereafter Gwynedd, like the other Welsh kingdoms, was mainly engaged in defensive warfare against the growing power of Mercia.
This kingdom originally extended east into areas now in England, and its ancient capital, Pengwern, has been variously identified as modern Shrewsbury or a site north of Baschurch.
According to the chronicle Brut y Tywysogion, Godfrey Haroldson carried off two thousand captives from Anglesey in 987, and the king of Gwynedd, Maredudd ab Owain is reported to have redeemed many of his subjects from slavery by paying the Danes a large ransom.
[14][15] At the time of the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the dominant ruler in Wales was Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, who was king of Gwynedd and Powys.
[16] While the Normans consolidated their power in England, in the judgement of historian Rees Davies Wales was "utterly peripheral to their ambitions and concerns".
[16] The killing of Bleddyn ap Cynfyn in 1075 led to civil war and gave the Normans an opportunity to seize lands in northern Wales.
His son, Owain Gwynedd, allied with Gruffydd ap Rhys of Deheubarth, won a crushing victory over the Normans at the Battle of Crug Mawr in 1136 and annexed Ceredigion.
[21] He was able to profit from the Anarchy in England to extend the borders of Gwynedd further east than ever before as Stephen of Blois and the Empress Matilda were engaged in a struggle for the English throne.
[22] In the south, Gruffydd ap Rhys was killed in 1137, but his four sons, who all ruled Deheubarth in turn, were eventually able to win back most of their grandfather's kingdom from the Normans.
Rhys held a festival of poetry and song at his court at Cardigan over Christmas 1176, which is generally regarded as the first recorded Eisteddfod.
His son, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn Fawr, followed him as ruler of Gwynedd, but Henry III of England would not allow him to inherit his father's position elsewhere in Wales.
War broke out again when Llywelyn's brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd attacked Hawarden Castle on Palm Sunday 1282.
On 11 December 1282, Llywelyn was lured into a meeting in Builth Wells castle with unknown Marchers, where he was killed and his army subsequently destroyed.
In the 1370s the last representative in the male line of the ruling house of Gwynedd, Owain Lawgoch, twice planned an invasion of Wales with French support.
Henry was of Welsh descent, counting princes such as Rhys ap Gruffydd among his ancestors, and his cause gained much support in Wales.
