Introduction: the Dunsæte Agreement and daily life in the Welsh borderlands

Abstract

Writing the Welsh borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England argues that the Welsh borderlands formed a culturally distinctive region during the Anglo-Saxon period. The book begins with a close examination of a late Old English legal text known as the Dunsæte agreement, which governs procedure for the recovery of stolen cattle taken across the river which ran between the Welsh and English banks of the Dunsæte territory. This text reflects Anglo-Welsh equality, community, and cooperation, providing a window into the lived reality of the borderlands: it was a region where two peoples lived together for hundreds of years, not simply a space of endless warfare as it is often understood in scholarship on early medieval Britain. The introduction contextualizes this book within recent work in postcolonial studies, border/frontier studies, and the history of Anglo/Welsh relations, laying out a case for why the Welsh borderlands should be understood as a distinctive region during the Anglo-Saxon period.