Patterns of power in early Wales : O'Donnell lectures delivered in the University of Oxford 1983

Power in Wales in the early middle ages was inextricably linked to political authority.

This book analyzes the nature of power and its relationships, in theory and in practice.

Who had power? How did they use it? What did it mean? Wendy Davies examines the distribution of power, territorial and social, and traces the ways in which contemporaries defined this fundamental concept. "Patterns of Power in Early Wales" confronts questions relating to definitions and consequences of military control, alien settlement, landownership and political domination.

Professor Davies analyzes the impact and nature of English, Irish and Viking contacts with the Welsh, and argues their significance for the long-term development of Wales.

This is a scholarly study by one of the foremost historians of the Celtic world.