Gwynedd was a petty kingdom of northern Wales created in the
early Dark Ages and surviving until conquered by King Edward I
of England in 1283. Gwynedd has pride of place amongst the Dark
Age Welsh principalities, as it was usually the most powerful of
them. The early kings of Gwynedd were recognised amongst the
Welsh as bearing the title "King of Britain", and in its last
days the rulers of Gwynedd attained the title "Prince of Wales".
Late Roman documents describe the land around today's
Caernarfonshire as Venedotia, which is a Latin form of the
native Gwynedd. The bounds or Gwynedd grew and shrank across the
ages and the kingdom was repeatedly divided, but its typical
area was from the River Dovey in the south to Anglesey in the
north and from the Irish Sea to a boundary shifting back and
forth in the east. The rival kingdom of Powys bordered Gwynedd
in the south-east. Gwynedd's strength lay in part due to the
region's mountainous geography: Snowdonia lay at its heart,
which made it difficult for foreign i