Life in Early Medieval Wales

Nancy Edwards reconstructs life in Wales between roughly AD 300 and 1050, from the fragmentation of Roman authority to the eve of the Norman period. Archaeology is placed alongside written evidence to examine settlement, farming, craft, trade, burial, conversion, monasticism, identity and the emergence of new political elites.

Rather than viewing these centuries only through kings and saints, Edwards looks closely at hearths, fields and workshops as well as churches and high-status settlements. Brooches and imported goods trace connections across the Irish Sea; inscribed stones and changing burial customs reveal how people expressed belonging and remembered the dead. A society often described in terms of post-Roman collapse emerges instead as a patchwork of communities changing at different speeds.