Kingdom of Rhufoniog

Origins

Welsh tradition, preserved in genealogies written down centuries later, says the district took its name from Rhufon, one of the sons of Cunedda who came from the north to settle north Wales in the 5th century. The story is a later origin legend, but Rhufoniog existed as a distinct territory in the uplands of what is now Denbighshire.

Rule and society

Very little is known of its rulers or government. It was one of several small early kingdoms of north Wales whose local dynasties appear in medieval genealogies, and its territory included the hills around Denbigh. Farming and cattle-rearing were the mainstay of a thinly settled land.

Decline and legacy

By the 9th century Rhufoniog had been absorbed into the Kingdom of Gwynedd and later formed one of the cantrefi of the Perfeddwlad, the borderland between Gwynedd and England contested by Welsh princes and English kings until 1283.

Few sources survive for this state; details are uncertain.