The astonishing laws of medieval Wales

The laws of the Middle Ages are often imagined as brutal and unequal, but the laws of medieval Wales tell a more surprising story. These legal texts, named after a tenth century king, aim not simply to punish wrongdoing, but to keep communities functioning smoothly. Preserved in remarkable manuscripts dating back centuries, They reveal a world of cattle disputes and divorce settlements, and some ideas which might seem surprisingly modern. In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Eleanor Evans speaks to Sarah Ellen Roberts, a leading expert in medieval Welsh law, about these fascinating laws and what they reveal about everyday life in medieval Wales.

We're joined today by Professor Sarah Ellen Roberts. Sarah Ellen, you've spent much of your career studying the texts of medieval Welsh law, and we're going to be getting into this remarkable set of laws today. I hope we could start by, if you can situate us a bit with what type of society are we looking at? I realise we're talking a broad timescale. What can you tell us about medieval Wales?

So we all know what Wales looks like today on a map. But it wasn't quite the same in the Middle Ages, in that the boundary with England wasn't as clear-cut. And Wales was largely made up of a number of different regions with different people or different groups controlling them. So you've got princes in North Wales, in Guinness, which is modern-day boundary actually, where Snowdonia is and the island of Anglesey. So you'd have a ruling family there.

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