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Queenship and narratives of power in Welsh medieval sources

ABSTRACT The article considers women and sovereign authority in Wales in the high Middle Ages. It suggests that the memory of queenship as an element of royal power was transmitted even as the power of the princes, during an age of transformation and change wrought by interactions with Anglo-Norman invaders in Wales, was itself changed. Such memories were key to the identity of the Welsh and the idea of queenship in Wales was a complement to, and an active element of, Welsh kingly dignity. The article is thus a contribution to studies of elite women and power and in particular it focuses on the evidence relating to queenship in Wales in the twelfth century. It begins with a case study of Nest of Deheubarth, the ‘Helen of Wales’, and then considers a broader range of evidence to consider the power of queens and queenship as presented in difficult and complex sources.