Cymru. Separated from their fellow British Celts by the beginning of the eighth century a.d., the Celts of the western peninsula of Britain were consolidated into several kingdoms. Offa, the Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia, who attempted to annex all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms under his rule, ordered the construction of a rampart from the River Dee to River Wye in a.d. 782, marking the western border of the English kingdoms and hemming the British Celts, called welisc or “foreigners” by the Anglo-Saxons, into their peninsula. It was designed on the principle of Hadrian’s Wall. Any British Celts found on the English side were subject to severe penalties.
In a.d. 844 Rhodri Mawr (Rhodri the Great) became king of Gwynedd, the main north Wales kingdom, and also inherited the kingdom of Powys. Rhodri found Wales a collection of small states and left it a united country. He was still called “king of the Britons” (Annals of Ulster, a.d. 876). In a.d. 916 his grandson Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) consolidated this unity. He is reported as calling the first recorded parliament, and under his direction the law system was first codified. The Welsh law system became known as the Laws of Hywel Dda. Comparison to the Irish Brehon Law system shows their common Celtic origins. [The Latin Text of the Welsh Laws, H. D. Emanuel, Cardiff, 1967, and Welsh Medieval Law, A. W. Wade-Evans, Oxford, 1909.] Hywel Dda was king when the last great Celtic alliance was defeated by Athelstan. Athelstan had united the English kingdoms and in a.d. 937, at Brunanburh, Celts from all the remaining Celtic countries united to attempt to drive the Anglo-Saxons out of Britain. A poem entitled Armes Prydein Fawr (The Prophecy of Great Britain) was composed in support of this attempt. But the Celts were defeated.
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