Kingdom of Gwynedd (Guynet)

The Viking invasions of Wales, it was named the Cambro-Norse era spanning the years 850s to 1100s. The emergence of the Royal House of Aberffraw and the prequel to the Norman invasion of the British Isles (Wikipedia articles linked). The Cambro-Norse (Welsh-Scandinavian) era began with the Viking invasion of the British Isles from the 9th century onwards for 200 years. The medieval invasive forces were from northern Scandinavia and they raided and pillaged for centuries, this was after the Anglo-Saxons invaded in the 5th century continuously by integrating into English Kingdoms. By the 850s, the Kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys in North Wales had been subjugated by the English Kingdom of Mercia aided by the Saxons for a century. However, everything was about to change. By the decade of the 870s, the Second Dynasty of Gwynedd as the Royal House of Aberffraw was emerging as a new dynasty in Gwynedd. Rhodri the Great (Welsh: Mawr) was the King of Wales and the King of the Britons. He had...

The laws of Wales (Cyfraith Hywel). The internal factions battling for the Kingdom of Gwynedd, civil wars, and conquests to and from Wales, circa. 900-1300 (Wikipedia articles linked). The founding of the Royal House of Aberffraw in Gwynedd saw a new era of governance within the monarchy. Rhodri the Great (Mawr) divided Wales into factions as Kingdoms ruled by Royal Houses. Although Rhodri's descendants were cousins in separate royal households, they were also competitors, and stability was needed to control the country of Wales . This era saw the new laws written for Wales for the first time in over a millennium after the Iron Age. The original laws were the  Molmutine Laws  and had been written by Dyfnwal Moelmud, circa 400 BC. A descendant of Camber (c. 1,000 BC), the first King of Wales and King of Britain in his own right. The next time was  Hywel Dda (Howel the Good) in the 10th century, he was a grandson of Rhodri Mawr, King of Gwynedd, and son of Cadell, the fo...

Closure of the Welsh Kingdoms reigned by Kings, the end of the Kingdom of Gwynedd (401-1283), the final ruling Kingdom in Wales, and the ending of the Royal House of Aberffraw (Wikipedia articles linked). "It took until 1283, when Edward I conquered Gwynedd, for the last part of Roman Britain to fall. Indeed, a strong case can be made for Gwynedd as the very last part of the entire Roman Empire, east and west, to fall to the barbarians."  Professor Bryan Ward-Perkins . Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, attributed to  Fry1989 , four lions passant guardant, the  flag of Gwynedd . The Kingdom of Gwynedd started as a post-Roman defensive border to protect the British Celts from invading Irish and Picts in the 5th century. The Kings of Gwynedd would go on to thrive in society for nearly a millennium. They expanded their borders far from the original kingdom of the northwest of Wales to conquer all of Wales as a territory today, from their family seat of Aberffraw on Angle...