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archytas's review
informative
medium-paced
3.75
This is a short, to the point, summary of shifting economic organisation in Wales from the Norman invasion to the Act of Union. The book starts with a chapter summarising the pre-Norman invasion, when life was centred around the gwelyau, then subsequent chapters looking at the impact of the Marcher Lords, population growth, the horrific response to the Glyndŵr rebellion. The final chapter looks at, and unsurprisingly rejects, several frameworks for economic history study over Wales. I was most interested in the thread of how the impact of the Normans created a new, hybridised, society - especially in the Marchers, established to protect the English against the Welsh, but in which the Marcher Lords used both sets of laws and economics to their own advantage in gaining influence in England. This analysis defies easy categorisation and becomes a narrative of change in Wales.
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