The Fluidity of Borderlands

This introduction to the special issue considers the central themes raised by the volume’s contributions as a whole, focusing on their collective interest in the political and cultural — as opposed to geographical — fluidity of borderland zones in early medieval Britain. To highlight these important points, two case studies from the Anglo-Welsh border region are discussed: the Old English legal text known as the Dunsæte Agreement or Ordinance concerning the Dunsæte and the tradition preserved within some Welsh law texts that legal reforms were enacted by the Welsh ruler Bleddyn ap Cynfyn (king of Gwynedd from 1064 to 1073), both of which underscore the fluidity of frontiers on a political level.