The Welsh Marches

At the Hay Festival, Misha Glenny and guests discuss the impact of the Norman invasion on the people and land of Wales and across the modern border with England in what became known as The Welsh Marches, march being a term for a militarized borderland. Hay was one of the first Marcher lordships. Even before 1066, William the Conqueror knew that he would have to subdue the Welsh if he were to control the English and he allowed more and more Norman warlords to establish virtually their own private kingdoms in these Marches. Later some of the Lords were to use these bases to invade Ireland rather than conquer the rest of Wales. Marcher Lords built numerous castles such as the one at Hay and many new towns would then grow up alongside these where there was one law for the English and another for the Welsh and, though the Acts of Union under the Tudors brought an end to much of the Marcher Lords’ powers, the distinct identity of these Welsh Marches continued.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Rhun Emlyn No other episodes
  Lecturer in the Department of History and Welsh History at Aberystwyth University
• Professor Helen Fulton 4 episodes
  Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol
• Huw Pryce 3 episodes
  Emeritus Professor of Welsh History at Bangor University

Reading list

• The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063-1415
  R. R. Davies (Oxford University Press, 2001) Google Books →
• Lordship and Society in the March of Wales 1282-1400
  R.R. Davies (Oxford University Press, 1978) Google Books →
• The Welsh Marcher Lordships II: South-West
  John Fleming (Logaston Press, 2023) Google Books →
• The Welsh Marches: 40 Town and Country Walks
  Ben Giles (Pocket Mountains, 2012) Google Books →
• The Welsh Marcher Lordships I: Central & North
  Philip Hume (Logaston Press, 2021) Google Books →
• The March of Wales, 1067-1300: A Borderland of Medieval Britain
  Max Lieberman (University of Wales Press, 2018) Google Books →
• The Medieval March of Wales: The Creation and Perception of a Frontier, 1066-1283
  Max Lieberman (Cambridge University Press, 2010) Google Books →
• The Lordship of Denbigh 1282-1543
  D. Huw Owen (University of Wales Press, 2024) Google Books →
• All the Wide Border: Wales, England and the Places Between
  Mike Parker (HarperNorth, 2024) Google Books →
• Both Sides of the Border: An Anthology of Writing on the Welsh Border Region
  Dewi Roberts (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch/Eagle Rock Press, 1998)
• The Welsh Borders
  Christopher Somerville (Philips, 1991)
• Patronage and Power in the Medieval Welsh March: One Family's Story
  David Stephenson (University of Wales Press, 2021) Google Books →
• Medieval Wales
  David Walker (Cambridge University Press, 2008) Google Books →

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Programme ID: m002wt1v

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002wt1v

Auto-category: 942.02 (History of England and Wales: Norman period, 1066-1154)