Presents a collection of essays examining power struggles and political identities in medieval Britain. Celebrating the work of the late Rees Davies - a towering figure in the historiography of this period - this book focuses on his interests, opening up different perspectives on the political, social, and cultural history of the middle ages.

Introduction ; Appreciations ; Secular Power and Authority in the Middle Ages ; Heartland and Border: the Mental and Physical Geography of Medieval Europe ; Welsh Rulers and European Change, c.1100-1282 ; Bede and the Unchosen Race ; The Early Middle Ages and Spanish Identity ; Normanizing the English Invaders of Ireland ; Lordship and Society in Twelfth-Century Clydesdale ; Lordship and Liberties in Ireland and Wales, c.1170-c.1360 ; 'Distinction and Diversity': the Common Lawyers and the Law of Wales ; Lordship in the British Isles, c.1320-c.1360: the Ebb-Tide of the English Empire? ; The Charterhouse of Cadzand and the Serendipities of Empire ; On the Hospitality of the Welsh: a Comparative View ; Cheshire and Wales ; Crossing the Frontiers of the English Realm in the Fifteenth Century ; Identity and Morality: Power and Politics during the Wars of the Roses ; Public or Plebs: the Changing Meaning of 'the Commons', 1381-1549 ; A Farewell Speech ; A Bibliography of the Published Writings of Rees Davies