From the time of the fall of Rome, Wales was divided into numerous petty "kingdoms" ("gwledydd", lit. "peoples") which were repeatedly unified and then redivided. It is frequently stated that Welsh law demanded the division of a kingdom between all the ruler's sons, but that is a misunderstanding of the inheritance law the crown itself was unitary but the king's "lands" ("maertref") were required to be divided among all of his acknowledged sons by whatever mother. This naturally weakened the position of the new king and that weakness, along with the long free and separate traditions of the various Welsh "gwledydd", then permitted disputes and civil wars among the family appanages. Further, by the time of Hywel, the kingdoms normally taken as independent Deheubarth, Powys, &c. were nominally subordinate to the elder line of the family in Gwynedd and bound to display that with annual gifts.