Throughout history, people have made a conscious choice to imitate their neighbours, and this could be an important facet of cultural change. This thesis explores how and how far the Welsh imitated their neighbours, which neighbours, and why was this the case.

While historians have explored this in the context of Europe, Britain or major Welsh principalities, few have paid attention to southeast Wales, a region where Welsh, English and Norman coexisted side-by-side for over two centuries. This study seeks to redress that balance by exploring how far members of the Welsh princely dynasties and gentry families of the region imitated, emulated and integrated with their neighbours, and consider their motives for doing so, and argues that conscious imitation could be demonstrated in the image such individuals presented to others, telling us much about cultural identities.

A review of the historical perspectives on cultural change and medieval Wales (Chapter 1) is followed by an analysis of the sources used, including genealogies, poetry, chronicles, charters, seals, heraldry, and castles, and records of the English exchequer (Chapter 2). The study then goes on to explore in turn areas where imitation has been identified and explores some of the motives behind it. Chapter 3 considers Welsh marriage and naming conventions; Chapter 4, the presentation of image through charters, seals and other forms of the written and spoken word: this is complemented in chapter 5 by a study of visual representative means. Chapter 6 considers castle construction as an area adopted by the Welsh. Having explored in each how far the Welsh imitated their neighbours in these various aspects and their reasoning for doing so, Chapter 7 explores how far this emulation translated into wider involvement with their neighbours.

The Welsh showed a remarkable variety in the way they imitated their neighbours, both Welsh and Anglo-Norman. Families increasingly adopted seals, heraldry, titles and castles on Anglo-Norman model, intermarried and cooperated with their neighbours. This indicates a change in the way cultural identities were expressed, changes driven by varying considerations of survival, ambition and the complexity of neighbourly relations in the Welsh marches. Through our study of the lesser gentry, we can see these changes gradually filtering through society.

The case of the princely dynasties of southeast Wales demonstrate they were at the forefront of cultural change in Wales and can be seen as a microcosm for cultural imitation, emulation and integration in Wales, Britain and Europe.