CHAPTER II.

_SUMMARY OF THE CYMRIC EVIDENCE._

I. THE UNIT OF CYMRIC TRIBAL SOCIETY.

The next step in this inquiry will be to give a brief summary of the results of the evidence contained in the volume on the ‘Tribal System in Wales,’ adding at the same time such further details as may be useful in helping us to realise the methods by which tribal custom worked itself out in practice.[20]

[Sidenote: The Cymric unit of landholding was the gwely.]

The chief fact revealed by the examination of the Extents and Surveys of different parts of Wales made after the English conquest, taken together with the Cymric Codes, was that the unit of society and of land-occupation under Cymric tribal custom was not the individual, and not the immediate family, but the group of kindred known as the ‘_Wele_’ or ‘_Gwely_.’

Such and such a Villata or District is described in the surveys as in the occupation of the gwelys of so and so, the Latin word used for gwely being ‘lectus’ or bed.

[Sidenote: The gwely was a family group of a great-grandfather and his descendants.]

The form of society thus revealed was _patriarchal_ in the sense that the common ancestor (generally conceived to be the great-grandfather) during his life, and even after his death, was regarded as the head of the _gwely_ or group of his descendants for three generations. In his name as its head this family group occupied land and had grazing rights over certain districts, sometimes alone, more often in common with other family groups.

As to what is meant by land ownership in the full modern sense, the question may not have arisen, or it might have come in gradually sooner or later, as agriculture came more and more into prominence. What property, strictly speaking, the tribesmen owned consisted mainly of herds of cattle.

Naturally, therefore, what rights over land they may have had were mainly rights of occupation and grazing in certain districts for their herds. Their agriculture was secondary, and consisted of the right to plough up such portions of the waste or common pasture as year by year might be required for their corn crop. All that need be said at this moment about their agriculture is that it was an open field husbandry, the result of the co-ploughing of a common plough-team normally of 8 oxen, the joint contribution of several tribesmen.

[Sidenote: The young tribesman is dependent on the chief, not on his father. The tribesmen recover their _da_ or cattle from him as their chief for their maintenance.]

Returning to the gwely, we find that when a child was born into it, whether boy or girl, it was formally acknowledged by the kindred. It remained ‘at the father’s platter’ to a certain age (generally 14), and then the father ceased to be responsible. The boy at 14 became the ‘man and kin’ of the chieftain of the family group, or it might be of the higher kindred embracing several of the gwelys. From that moment the boy obtained by ‘kin and descent’ a tribesman’s right of maintenance. That is to say, he received from the chieftain his _da_, probably in the form of an allotment of cattle,[21] and with it the right to join in the co-ploughing of the waste. He became thus a tribesman on his own hook, apart from his father. So that the unit of society was not simply the family in the modern sense of a parent and his children, but the wider kindred of the gwely or the group of related gwelys headed by the chieftain who provided the _da_.

II. THE CONSTITUTION AND WORKING OF THE GWELY.

Now, as the gwely was the unit of land-occupation, it is worth while to try to realise a little further what it was and how it worked.

[Sidenote: The simplest form of the gwely. The landed rights vested in the chief, and he gives cattle out of the common herd to tribesmen for their maintenance.]

Viewed in its simplest, and perhaps original form, it was a family group of four generations, the landed rights of which were vested in the great-grandfather as its chieftain.

The tribesmen, his descendants, had only rights of maintenance. By right of ‘kin and descent’ they had received their _da_ from the chieftain. The flocks and herds of the chieftain were the common stock out of which the _da_ had been given, and there is reason to believe that under earlier custom, on the death of a tribesman, his _da_ went back into the common stock of the chieftain.

[Sidenote: Probably at first no succession by representation on a tribesman’s death. But in the codes a _peculium_ admitted which went to children.]

At the date of the codes it did so when the tribesman died _without issue_. But in the codes a _peculium_ of private property of which the _da_ was the kernel is recognised and allowed to descend to a tribesman’s children instead of falling into the common stock.

[Sidenote: A redivision takes place _per capita_ as each generation dies off.]

When the great-grandfather died, the chieftainship, with the landed rights and the herds, was divided between his sons, who as brothers thus became chiefs of sub-gwelys. But the original gwely did not then break up, because there would be a right of division _per capita_ when the brothers were dead between first cousins, and when the first cousins were dead between second cousins.

The division between brothers was probably originally made only between those sons of the parent who were living at his death. Like the sons of the surviving brothers, the sons of a deceased brother must be content with their _da_ till all the brothers were dead, and in the division between first cousins they would take their share _per capita_ along with the rest.

But at the time of the codes, by what Continental examples lead us to regard as an innovation, the orphaned nephews were allowed in the division to succeed at once, side by side with their uncles, to the share and position which their father would have taken had he survived.

[Sidenote: The rights and property of a tribesman dying without issue fall into the common stock.]

Even after this innovation, if a brother had died _without issue_, his brothers as brothers did not at once succeed as co-heirs. The share fell into the common stock till a division, and then went to all the co-inheritors _per capita_, so that cousins, and it might be even second cousins, took their shares in it.

The introduction of succession by representation to a deceased father’s property and privilege was, as we shall see in Continental cases, a step taken in the direction of individual ownership. It complicated the matter of the division or devolution of the chieftainship in the gwely, but it is a point of interest in connection with the Continental evidence.

A clear understanding of the constitution and working of the gwely, as a typical family group, is so important to this inquiry that it is worth while to place before the reader the passages in codes upon which, taken together with the surveys, the foregoing description of it rests.

[Sidenote: Clauses in the Venedotian Code.]

The following is the clause in the Venedotian Code describing what took place in the gwely, under the heading ‘The Law of Brothers for Land:’

Thus, brothers are to share land between them: four erws to every tyddyn [homestead]. Bleddyn, son of Cynvyn, altered it to twelve erws to the uchelwr, and eight to the aillt, and four to the godaeog; yet, nevertheless, it is most usual that four erws be in the tyddyn.…

If there be no buildings on the land, the youngest son is to divide all the patrimony (trew y tat), and the eldest is to choose, and each in seniority choose unto the youngest.

If there be buildings the youngest brother but one is to divide the tyddyns, for in that case he is the meter; and the youngest to have his choice of the tyddyns; and after that he is to divide all the patrimony; and by seniority they are to choose unto the youngest; and that division is to continue during the lives of the brothers.

And after the brothers are dead, the first cousins are to equalise if they will it; and thus they are to do: the heir of the youngest brother is to equalise, and the heir of the eldest brother is to choose, and so by seniority unto the youngest; and that distribution is to continue between them during their lives.

And if second cousins should dislike the distribution which took place between their parents, they also may co-equate in the same manner as the first cousins; and after that division no one is either to distribute or to co-equate. Tir gwelyauc is to be treated as we have above stated.[22]

[Sidenote: Clauses in the Dimetian Code.]

In the Dimetian Code the same rules of division are stated as follows:

When brothers share their patrimony (tref-eu-tat) between them, the youngest is to have the principal tyddyn, and all the buildings of his father, and eight erws of land, his boiler, his fuel hatchet, and his coulter, because a father cannot give those three to any but the youngest son, and though they should be pledged they never become forfeited. Then let every brother take a homestead (eissydyn) with eight erws of land, and the youngest son is to share, and they are to choose in succession from the eldest to the youngest.

Three times shall the same patrimony be shared between three grades of a kindred, first between brothers, the second time between cousins, the third time between second cousins, after that there is no propriate share of land.[23]

* * * * *

After there shall have been a sharing of land acquiesced in by co-inheritors, no one of them has a claim on the share of the other, he having issue, except for a sub-share _when the time for that shall arrive_. Yet whosoever shall not have any issue of his body, _his co-inheritors, within the three degrees of kin from the stock, are to be his heirs_.[24]

Only by adhering very closely to these texts can the gwely be understood. They seem at first sight to refer to the tyddyns or homesteads, but, as we have seen, the landed rights of grazing in the villatæ in which the gwelys were located were included also.

[Sidenote: How the divisions worked out in practice.]

It would obviously be a fair critical question to ask, what happened when the second cousins at last broke up the gwely of their grandfather and divided the land, or let us say the homesteads and the tribal rights of grazing on the land, for the last time equally _per capita_? There might be twenty or thirty of such second cousins. Did the original gwely split up into twenty or thirty new gwelys? Let us try to realise what happened by carefully following the text, in the light of the Denbigh Survey.

Let us take a hypothetical case in which the gwely of X is described by the surveyor as holding an undivided share of the rights of pasture, &c., in a particular villata or in several villatæ; and assume that, according to the record, the internal divisions of the gwely followed the family division of the descendants of X, as in the following table. Then, applying the rules of the clauses as to _tir gwelyauc_, let us see how it would work out in the hypothetical case stated.

X, Great-Grandfather _deceased_ | +--------------+---------------+ | | Son A Son B | | +------+------+ +-----------+--------+ | | | | | Grandson Aᵃ Aᵇ Bᵃ Bᵇ Bᶜ | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+ +---+---+ | G. Grandson | | | | | | | | Aᵃᵃ Aᵇᵃ Aᵇᵇ Bᵃᵃ Bᵃᵇ Bᵇᵃ Bᵇᵇ Bᵇᶜ Bᶜᵃ

Now let us suppose that X (the great-grandfather, from whom the gwely is called the gwely of X) is dead. While his sons A and B are alive they share equally in the grazing and other rights. When A is dead and so long as B is alive no change is made except that A’s two sons share equally their father’s right to which, in the phrase of the codes, they have ‘ascended.’ B at length dies. There are five grandsons, first cousins, who have a right to share in the rights of the gwely of X _per capita_. There is now therefore a rearrangement after which A’s sons share and hold jointly only 2-5ths, while B’s three sons hold jointly 3-5ths. Equality _per capita_ among grandsons has now been effected. But the gwely goes on. It cannot be broken up because in another generation the great-grandsons may require a fresh division.

[Sidenote: The process is a continuous one.]

Next let us see what happens when all the grandsons are dead and the final division _per capita_ takes place. There are nine great-grandsons. Is the gwely of X now to be divided into nine new gwelys? Certainly not. The grandsons of A are entitled to 3-9ths only, and this they divide _per capita_, being first cousins; one family takes 1-3rd and the other 2-3rds. The portion which has fallen to them of family rights in the gwely of X has become a separate gwely, called either the gwely of A or, as we sometimes find in the Denbigh Survey, the ‘gwely of the grandsons of A’--‘_gwely weiryon A_.’ The other portion has become either the gwely of B or the gwely of the grandsons of B--‘_gwely weiryon B_.’

The grandsons of B, being first cousins, have of course redivided their 6/9ths equally _per capita_, and the internal rights of the gwely of the grandsons of B are

Bᵃ’s two children have 2/6ths. } Bᵇ’s three children have 3/6ths. } of 6/9ths. Bᶜ’s one son has 1/6th. }

They cannot break up the gwely of ‘the grandsons of B’ because they are not second cousins. But when all of them are dead, their children will be second cousins and may do so, and then three new gwelys will be formed in the same way as above, and so on for ever. The process is continuous and always within the same rules of ‘tir gwelyauc.’

This seems to be the state of things as regards succession within the gwely resulting from the rules laid down in the Codes and found at work by the surveyors of the Lordship of the Honour of Denbigh. But we must remember that, apart from these rights of succession, each tribesman on becoming a tribesman had been the recipient of his _da_, and so had had cattle of his own all along in the common herd.

[Sidenote: The rights of females in the gwely.]

Finally, the position of females in the gwely should not pass without recognition. They are not mentioned in the statements of landed rights because, provision having been made for their maintenance independently of their father, they were assumed, whilst claiming their ‘gwaddol’ or portion, to take this with them, on marriage, out of the gwely. They ought to be married into another gwely, within which their sons in due course would receive inheritance and landed rights by paternity. Only on failure of this could their sons claim landed rights by maternity in their mother’s original gwely.[25]

III. THE LIABILITY OF THE WIDER KINDRED FOR _GALANAS_ IN CASE OF HOMICIDE.

Such being the _gwely_, we pass on to the wider kindred, embracing the descendants of seven (and for some purposes nine) generations from a common ancestor.

[Sidenote: The galanas in lieu of blood feud between kindreds for homicide, but none within the kindred.]

We find from the Cymric Codes that the members of the wider kindred had common responsibilities in case of a homicide causing a blood feud between kindreds. A murder _within_ this wider kindred was regarded as a family matter. The murderer was too near of blood to be slain. No atonement could be made for so unnatural a crime. There was no blood fine or ‘galanas’ within the kindred. The murderer must be exiled. But a murder of a member of one kindred by the member of another, inasmuch as, if unatoned for, it would under tribal custom have produced a blood feud between the two kindreds, was the proper subject for the substituted payment of the blood fine or ‘galanas.’ The galanas was thus a payment from one kindred to another in lieu of the blood feud. But its amount was divided in payment on one side and in distribution on the other, in varying proportion according to nearness of relationship to the murderer or the murdered person as the case might be. And in these payments and receipts all the individual tribesmen within the kindred who had received their _da_ must take their share if needful.

[Sidenote: Payment and receipt by maternal as well as by paternal relations.]

The question who had to pay and who had to receive was moreover complicated further by the fact that it involved maternal relations as well as paternal relations. It has been very properly pointed out that, however it might be as regards money payments, it is difficult to conceive how the liability of maternal relations could be worked in the case of actual blood feud and fighting. A man might have to fight for his maternal relations against his paternal relations, or the reverse. In such a case what must he do? How should he act? He might be in an impossible position.

Light upon this point and others may be obtained, perhaps, when the evidence of ‘Beowulf’ is analysed. This evidence will show that a man may have good cause under tribal custom not to join in some feuds. And further it will remind us that feuds often arose in contravention of tribal usage, breaking the peace which in theory the link of marriage ought to have secured.

In the meantime it would seem possible that the custom of a tribe might, for anything we know, forbid marriage _within_ the near relationships of the gwely, and _beyond_ the limits of the wider kindred. In such a case, paternal and maternal relations might all be within the kindred, so that properly speaking a quarrel between them could not become the subject of a feud.

[Sidenote: Marriage a link between two gwelys. But as regards galanas the wife remained in her own kindred.]

In such matters it is obvious that a good deal must depend upon the view taken of marriage itself at the particular stage of evolution in which the society might be. And it may as well be said at once that we should be quite wrong were we to regard marriage from the Roman point of view, _i.e._ as a transfer of the woman out of the _potestas_ of her parents into the _potestas_ of the husband. The Cymric example, to begin with, was quite different. The marriage of sisters to tribesmen from whom their sons could inherit tribal rights was a duty cast upon the kinsmen of the gwely.[26] It was thus an arrangement between two gwelys--a link between them--but no transfer. If a wife were slain, her galanas or death fine did not go to the husband and his family; it went to her kindred.[27] If a wife should commit murder, it was the wife’s family and not the husband’s on which rested the payment of galanas for her crime.[28] If the husband were killed the wife took one third of the saraad or fine for insult and wounding, but she took no part of the galanas of her husband.[29]

These points are in a sense unexpected. They belong to a stage of social life as far removed from Roman rules, or modern ones, as they are from the stage in which a wife was either purchased outright or stolen. And yet we shall find them in principle more or less clearly repeated in the varying customs of some of the tribes whose laws we are about to examine.

IV. THE FISCAL UNIT FOR THE PURPOSE OF FOOD-RENTS TO THE CHIEFTAINS.

[Sidenote: The geographical unit for food rents.]

The structure of tribal society in Wales is one thing. The practical working of its rules is another. Until we can to some extent realise its methods and see how its results could be worked out in everyday life, it must remain to some extent vague and mysterious. The nearer we get to its core, the greater its value as an instrument in further research.

We cannot, therefore, afford to disregard any hints that the Codes and surveys may give us, attention to which would help us to realise its methods or ways of working.

[Sidenote: Districts called _villatæ_.]

The Denbigh Extent, as already said, enables us to realise that, on the English conquest, the lordship of Denbigh was divided into grazing districts which had become the units of tribal food-rents, and which were adopted for purposes of future taxation. These districts were called by the scribes _villatæ_, and were occupied by gwelys of tribesmen and sometimes also by gwelys of non-tribesmen. Their homesteads or huts were occupied in severalty. Their grazing rights were undivided common rights, and within each gwely the rights of families and individuals were also undivided common rights.

Further, the Denbigh Extent shows how easy it was to shift the whole body of tribesmen of this or that gwely, with its herds, from one district to another, according to convenience or the needs of population, without disturbing the complex rights within the gwely. The families and individuals carried their rights, _inter se_, with them wherever they and their herds might go, and were liable to pay the dues required from whatever villata for the time being might be occupied by them.

Even the homesteads of the tribesmen seem to have been temporary, in the light of the description given by Giraldus Cambrensis. They could carry their hearth-stones with them wherever they went, so that the result seems to be that the groups of kindreds could always have been easily shifted about, as they were in fact after the English conquest, from one district or ‘villata’ to another. The geographical divisions thus became the permanent fiscal units in tribal arrangements. Both in the surveys and in the Codes we find the villata or district, and not the family group, the fixed unit for tribal food-rents to the chieftain, and for taxation after the English conquest.

[Sidenote: The ‘tref’ or ‘maenol’ paying the ‘tunc pound.’]

The surveys so far agree with the Codes. The _villata_ of the surveys was the taxable unit, and in some cases still paid the tunc pound (or 20_s._) in lieu of the chieftain’s food-rents. In other cases escheats and other causes had varied the amount. In the Codes of South Wales the unit for the tunc pound was the _tref_, and in the Venedotian Code of North Wales the _maenol_ of four trefs.

Now, as in the surveys the family groups or gwelys were located so as to occupy sometimes several villatæ, and sometimes undivided shares in villatæ along with others, so, if we may take the villata of the surveys as equivalent to the tref or maenol of the Codes, we must expect to find that the kindreds of tribesmen at the period of the Codes were scattered in the same way over the trefs and maenols. And, as the maenol was a group of trefs, the _tref_ is the unit of tribal occupation as to which a clear understanding is most necessary. In this, however, we may be, after all, only partly successful.

The word _tref_, though generally used for a homestead or hamlet, seems from its other meanings to involve the idea of a _group_.

[Sidenote: The tref and its ‘randirs.’]

There were cases in which a disputed matter of fact had to be established upon the evidence of men of the _gorvotref_, _i.e._ by men of the groups outside the tref in which the question in dispute arose.[30] And this _gorvotref_ was not merely the next adjoining tref or trefs, but it consisted of those _randirs_ or divisions of neighbouring trefs of uchelwrs, or tribesmen, whose boundaries touched the tref in which the disputed facts arose. Neighbouring randirs of taeog trefs, _i.e._ the trefs of non-tribesmen, were excluded, presumably because the testimony of taeogs in matters relating to tribesmen was not relied on. But this compound of the word tref implies that its general sense was a group of homesteads. That, in general, trefs had defined boundaries, is clear from the fact that it was an offence to break them, and this applied also to the randirs or divisions of the tref.[31]

[Sidenote: The trefgordd of one herd and one plough.]

Speaking, then, of the group generally known as a tref, we must regard it, not only as a taxable area, but also as the natural group known everywhere as a _trefgordd_, _i.e._ the natural group of the homesteads of relatives or neighbours acting together as a single community as regards their cattle and their ploughing.

The typical lawful _trefgordd_ is thus described:--

This is the complement of a lawful _trefgordd_: nine houses and one plough and one oven (odyn) and one churn (_gordd_) and one cat and one cock and one bull and one herdsman.[32]

There is another passage which mentions the nine buildings in the tref.

These persons do not forfeit life.…

The necessitous for the theft of food after he has traversed three trevs, and nine houses in each trev, without obtaining a gift though asked for.[33]

So, in case of fire from negligence in a tref, the holder of the house in which it arose was to pay for the damage to the next houses on each side if they took fire.[34] And again no indemnity was to be paid to the owners in a trefgordd for damages from the fire of a smithy if covered with shingles or tiles or sods, nor from the fire of a bath, provided always that the smithy and the bath were at least seven fathoms from the other houses in the trefgordd.[35]

[Sidenote: Not always of one gwely only.]

The description above quoted of the normal trefgordd suggests that the herd under the one herdsman did not belong to one person or homestead, but to many; and so far it seems to be consistent with the surveys which represent the villatæ as occupied by the cattle of several family groups who had grazing rights therein.

And this, too, accords with what the Denbigh Extent tells us of the individual tribesmen, viz. that only some of them had homesteads. So-and-so ‘habet domum’ or ‘non habet domum.’[36] The young tribesman with his _da_ thus may have joined in a common homestead with some one else--probably with his parents or near relatives.

Distinguishing, then, the tref as a taxable area from the trefgordd, and still confining attention to the trefgordd as a cluster of homesteads united for the practical purpose of occupation, let us recur to the things which bound the trefgordd into one group, viz. the one plough, the one oven, the one churn, the one bull, and the one herdsman.

Here are the two elements combined of pastoral and agricultural co-operation, and the trefgordd is the local and physical unit of this co-operation.

[Sidenote: The unit of co-operative dairy farming. The common herdsman and his dog.]

Taking first the pastoral element, the trefgordd was a working unit of co-operative dairy-farming. The cattle of several households or individuals were put together in a common herd with a common bull and under the care of a common herdsman (bugeil) and his dog. It may be regarded as a group of the homesteads of the persons in charge of such a herd, and the tribesmen of a gwely may have cattle in the herds of more than one trefgordd.

Three things were ‘ornamental’ to a trefgordd, ‘a book, a teacher versed in song, and a smith (gov) in his smithy;’ but a trefgordd herdsman was an ‘indispensable’ of the _hendrev_,[37] and, when engaged with his herd in summer on the mountain, _his_ ‘three indispensables’ were ‘a bothy, his herdsman’s dog, and a knife;’ and the three indispensables of his bothy were a roof-tree, roof-supporting forks, and wattling, and he was at liberty to cut them in any wild wood he pleased.[38]

So far, then, as the pastoral element was concerned, the trefgordd was occupied by a little group of tribesmen engaged in dairy-farming having charge of cattle in a common herd, with a common bull, and under the care of a common herdsman and his dog.

[Sidenote: The herd of 24 kine.]

Custom, grown out of traditional experience of what a single herdsman and his dog could manage, had determined, it seems, the size of the normal herd. Thus in the Gwentian Code[39] we are told that ‘a legal herd of cattle is 24 kine.’ And custom tenaciously adhered to tribal rules in such matters.

Thus in the Denbigh Extent it is mentioned that the whole villata of Arquedelok was _in manu domini_ by reason of escheats and exchanges, and that a portion of it was let _ad firmam_ to nine firmarii, each of whom held for a term of years 31 acres, with one bull and 24 cows, paying per annum 73_s._ 4_d._, and rendering to the lord at the end of his term the said bull and cows or their price, together with the land and a house built thereon.[40] Here, even in a case in which Henry de Lacy was introducing into Wales holdings and herds in severalty, and very possibly introducing English tenants, he adhered to the Welsh tribal rule of the one bull and 24 cows to the herd. So also in the survey of St. David’s, under the head _Glaston_ in Breconshire, the number 24 of _grossa animalia_ is spoken of as the usual number _ab antiqua consuetudine_, and in the arrangement of common pasture one great animal is said to count as equal to twelve sheep.

The normal herd of the trefgordd was then 24 cows, or their equivalent in bullocks and sheep.

During the summer months the herdsman living out on the mountains was responsible with his dog for the cattle of the trefgordd. And his dog was worth as much as a cow or an ox, if it was one that ‘will go _before_ the herd in the morning and _behind_ them in the evening, and make three turns _round_ them in the night.’[41]

Having no cattle of his own in the herd, the herdsman’s testimony as to whose cattle were injured, and as to whose cattle had done the injury, was held, when such cases arose, to be sufficient to make the owner responsible, while as regards injuries done by the cattle of one trefgordd to those of another there was joint responsibility.[42] There is common sense in such rules to begin with, and then, having grown into custom, they become perpetuated when custom is codified.

[Sidenote: The common churn.]

The trefgordd possessed further a common churn. This implies that the milk of the cows was thrown altogether into this one churn as in Swiss mountain communes now. One of the dues from a taeog trev, _i.e._ a group of _non_-tribesmen, was a cheese made from a day’s milking of all the cows in the herd. So that we note in passing that the taeog-tref, _i.e._ of non-tribesmen, also had its herd and was in fact a trefgordd.[43]

In winter the cattle came down into the lowlands and grazed on the pastures near the tyddyns or homesteads of the tref, and as each of these had its corn and cattle-yard,[44] we may conclude that each owner penned in his own cattle at night during the winter months or joined with some other tribesmen who had a homestead in doing so. The rules as to the divisions of the tyddyns probably referred to these winter homesteads so held in quasi-severalty.

We need not dwell upon the common _oven_. Every hamlet in Brittany possesses its common oven to this day, often in the middle of the village green. Nor need we more than mention the common plough, to the team of which the tribesmen contributed oxen for the _cyvar_ or common ploughing of the portion of the waste agreed upon for each year’s corn crop.

[Sidenote: The trefgordd the unit for food rents. The tribesmen could be shifted about.]

The attempt to realise what this practical unit--the trefgordd--was, will not be thrown away if it should help us to understand how easily it lent itself to the arrangement of the chieftain’s food-rents or tribute in after-times of taxation. Granted that some such system of trefgordds or clusters of trefgordds pretty generally prevailed, having grown up as a matter of convenience in a grazing community, it is obvious how easily it might become the unit of tribute or taxation. Just as in the Domesday Survey the number of ploughs affords such a unit, so in a tribal community a district might easily be fiscally estimated at so many herds, or so many churns, or so many ploughs. All these would mean so many trefgordds. And whatever the relations of the trefgordd to the villata of the surveys might be, and however much or often the actual residents, with their herds, might be shifted from one district to another, the district, as in the Denbigh Extent, would remain the permanent unit for payments.

[Sidenote: The _firma unius noctis_. Afterwards commuted into money payments.]

In the early stages of tribal life, when the chieftain of the tribe moved from one district to another and received his food-rents in the actual form of ‘the night’s entertainment,’ each customary place of encampment in his annual progress would become the centre at which the food-rents would be paid and services rendered for as many nights’ entertainment as his accustomed stay in the place. In later stages, when the chieftain’s dues were commuted into money, the ‘tunc pound’ in lieu of food-rents easily became, as we find it in the surveys, a charge on the district rather than on the shifting tribesmen and their herds.

And when the power of the chieftain had grown with time, and instead of ‘nights’ entertainments’ obtained in the primitive way by the actual movement of himself and his retinue from place to place, the food-rents or the tunc pounds in lieu of them were delivered at his palace, he would become the recipient of a regular revenue. And out of this revenue it would become easy for him to reward a follower or endow a church by the transfer of so many food-rents or tunc pounds in lieu of them, or the revenue from such and such a district, or of so many of its trefgordds, without disturbing the internal working of the system or the daily life of the tribesmen and their herds. When Beowulf returns to his chieftain after his exploit and is rewarded by the gift of a palace and so many ‘thousands,’ we naturally ask of what, and how it could be done. We may not be able to say off-hand what the unit was, but we get from the Welsh example some rough idea of what tribal tribute and income were, and how these could be readily gathered and transferred.

V. THE METHOD OF PAYMENT OF GALANAS BETWEEN KINDREDS.

Postponing for a while the consideration of the position of the various classes of non-tribesmen, but still keeping in view the fact that in considerable numbers they were practically sharers with the tribesmen in the rights of grazing and occupation of land, we are now in the position to realise to some extent what happened when a murder had taken place.

[Sidenote: No galanas for murder within the kindred.]

If it was of some one within the kindred, there was, as we have said, no slaying of the murderer. Whether it were a parricide or a fratricide, or the murder of a near kinsman, under Cymric custom there was no galanas, nothing but execration and ignominious exile.

[Sidenote: The blood feud and therefore blood fine between kindreds.]

But if a tribesman of one kindred were killed by a tribesman of another kindred, then it was a serious matter of blood feud between the kindreds, or of the payment of the blood fine. The tribal conscience demanded vengeance or composition.

[Sidenote: The slayer flees to a church with his cattle.]

It sometimes happened that the murderer had fled to a church for safety, taking his cattle with him. For the clergy or monks at the place of refuge had a herd of cattle of their own, and with them the murderer’s cattle were allowed to wander and graze so long as they returned nightly to the refuge.[45]

[Sidenote: Six cows for the saraad or insult.]

There he remained presumably till the kindred of the murdered tribesman, through negotiation and arrangement of the chiefs of the kindreds, had agreed to accept the payment of the galanas, if it were the case of an uchelwr or full tribesman, of 126 cows. Six cows, as we shall see hereafter, were _saraad_ for the insult, and 120 cows galanas for the murder. The saraad was paid first--six cows or other cattle to the same value belonging to the murderer were driven from the herd in payment.

The murderer’s life was then safe, and presumably he might return with his cattle to his place.

Within a fortnight, the tribesmen of the murderer’s kindred met to apportion the payment of the rest. They came from trefgordds far and near, from the territories sometimes of various higher territorial chieftains within whose districts they had grazing rights.

[Sidenote: 120 cows by fortnightly instalments for galanas.]

The collected tribesmen having apportioned the payment, fortnight after fortnight instalments must be paid till the whole number in value of 120 cows was completed.[46]

But by whom was the payment to be made?[47]

[Sidenote: The slayer’s near family pay 40 cows.]

Forty cows must first be found by the _murderer_, his _father_, _mother_, _brothers_, and _sisters_ with him. They doubtless helped one another, but theoretically, in one or other of the common herds, there must have been cattle belonging to the murderer, his father, mother, brothers, and sisters, or how could they have paid their shares? There was nothing unreal in this liability of each to pay a share, for had the murderer been slain each one of them would have received, instead of having to pay, a share in 40 cows.

The murderer himself had to pay a third of the 40 cows if he had them. His father and mother between them paid the next third, and the brothers and sisters the remaining third, the sisters paying half what the brothers did.[48] The herds of many a trefgordd must be thinned before this could be done.

[Sidenote: The other 80 fall on the kindred.]

The remainder of the galanas, viz. 80 cows, fell on the kindred, to the seventh degree or fifth cousins. The paternal relations had to find two thirds of it and the maternal one third, and these kindreds embraced the descendants from the great-grandparents of the great-grandparents on both sides.

In the first fortnight the kindred on the father’s side had to find half what was due from them. In the second fortnight they had to find the other half, and in the third fortnight the maternal kindred had to find their share, till so at last the full tale of the 120 cows was paid. The oath of peace from the kindreds of the murdered man could then be given, and the murderer and his kinsmen, be at peace.[49]

[Sidenote: The slayer’s right of ‘spear penny.’]

But what happened if the murderer could not find the cattle for his third of the 40 cows which he and his immediate family had to find? He had yet a right, as a member of the greater kindred, to claim in aid a ‘spear penny’ from all those male kinsmen descended from a common ancestor on his father’s side two steps further back, _i.e._ still more distantly related to him than those included in the kindred to the seventh degree who had already paid their share. Even if the slayer were a woman, she had the same right of spear penny from the men of her kindred to help her to make her payment.[50]

[Sidenote: The solidarity of the kindred and individual liability within it.]

So this attempt to realise what was involved in the payment of an ordinary case of galanas brings us back to the recognition of the double aspect of the kindred in the structure of tribal society--its solidarity and joint responsibility, on the one hand, as against outsiders, the whole kindred being responsible in the last resort; on the other hand the individual responsibility of its members, graduated according to nearness of relationship, for the crimes of their relative.

[Sidenote: Each had his _da_ or cattle for maintenance and so could contribute to the payment.]

In Cymric tribal society this was made possible by the broad fact that both males and females in the group of kindred, on both paternal and maternal sides, liable to pay, had cattle of their own in the common herd, each having received his or her _da_ for maintenance by right of kin and descent from the common ancestor or chieftain of the kindred. The two things surely hang together. And therefore, if we find in the laws of other tribes somewhat similar rules regarding the payment of wergelds, it probably will be worth while to inquire further whether the corresponding structure of tribal society, or something more or less equivalent to it, may not be present also.

VI. THE AMOUNT OF THE CYMRIC GALANAS.

[Sidenote: The galanas and the saraad distinct things.]

In all the Welsh Codes the galanas, as already mentioned, is described in a peculiar form. It is a combination of two items, viz. the saraad, or payment for insult, and the galanas proper.

Thus the galanas of the innate boneddig, or young tribesman, accepted by the kindred as a tribesman of nine descents of Cymric blood, is described as ‘three kine and three score kine,’ that of the _uchelwr_ or _breyr_ as ‘six kine and six score kine.’

The explanation of this is obtained from the following passage:--

What is the galanas of the breyr without office? Six kine and six score kine. The six score kine is the galanas and the six kine is for saraad of the corpse.[51]

So also in the Gwentian Code:--

When a married man shall be murdered his saraad is first paid and then his galanas, for the wife has the third of the saraad, and she has no part of the galanas.[52]

So also in the Venedotian Code:--

No one is killed without being first subjected to saraad. If a man be married, let a third of the man’s saraad be given to his wife and let the two shares be placed with the galanas, and after that let the galanas be divided into three shares and let the third share go to the lord as exacting third.[53]

[Sidenote: The wife shared in the saraad of her husband, not in the galanas.]

The reason why the wife has a share in the saraad and not in the galanas has already been explained. She suffers from the personal affront or insult to her slain husband and shares in the saraad. But she has no blood relationship with her husband, and only the husband’s kindred are therefore entitled to share in the galanas, as her husband’s kindred alone would have been concerned in the feud.

The saraad and the galanas were therefore separate things and subject to separate rules, though both payable on the murder of a tribesman. The galanas proper is what must be regarded in any comparison with Continental wergelds.

[Sidenote: That of the ‘uchelwr’ 120 cows; of the young tribesman 60 cows.]

The real galanas of the uchelwr or breyr, apart from the saraad, was 120 cows, and that of the young innate boneddig who had received his _da_ but had no family was 60 cows. In one of the Codes his galanas when _married_ is said to be 80 cows.

Now in what currency was the galanas paid? Formerly, according to the Codes, all payments were made in cattle, and the galanas proper was reckoned in scores of cows.

But of what cow? How was the normal cow for practical purposes to be defined? It is a question worth answering, because we may probably take the Cymric method, of valuing the cow as a unit of currency in cattle, as at any rate suggestive of the methods generally adopted by other tribes.

[Sidenote: Description of the normal cow.]

According to the Venedotian Code the cow was of full normal value when in full milk and until her fifth calf.

And if there be any dispute concerning her milk, she is to be taken on the 9th day of May to a luxuriant place wherein no animal has been before her, and the owner is to milk her without leaving any for the calf, and put the milk in the measure vessel, and if it be full twice a day that is sufficient; and if it be not, the deficiency is to be compensated by oatmeal until the feast of St. Curic, thence until the feast of St. Michael by barley meal, and from thence until the calendar of winter by rye meal.

Others say that the worth of the milk deficient in the measure is to be returned to the possessor of the cow; if half the milk be deficient, half the worth; if a third of the milk, a third of the worth; and that is the best mode.[54]

Then the _milk measure_ is described thus:--

The measure for her milk is, three thumbs at the bottom, six in the middle of the vessel, and nine at the top, and nine in its height diagonally (_enyhyd en amrescoeu_), and the thumb whereby the vessel is to be measured (in case of dispute) is the breadth of the judge’s thumb.

In the Dimetian Code substantially the same rules are given, except that the measure of the cow’s milking is smaller.

The measure of a vessel for a cow’s milk is nine thumbs at its edge, and three at the bottom, and seven diagonally from the off-side groove to the near-side edge in height.[55]

The only difference is between the seven and the nine thumbs of diagonal measurement. Possibly there may be some error in the figures, and the measure may have been the same in both Codes.

Returning to the galanas; although it was reckoned in the Codes in scores of cows, a fixed equation had already been made between cows and silver.

[Sidenote: The cow reckoned as three ‘scores’ or ounces of silver.]

The normal cow was equated in the Codes with ‘three scores of silver.’ And in the Latin version of the Dimetian Code the ‘score of silver’ is translated by ‘uncia argenti.’ The score of silver at the date of the Code was therefore an ounce of silver. So that the reckoning is the Frankish or Anglo-Saxon one of twenty pence to the ounce.

The score of pence of 32 wheat-grains would make the ounce of 640 wheat-grains: that is, the ounce of the pound of 240_d._, or 7680 wheat-grains--the pound in use in England after the time of Kings Offa and Alfred, and at the date of the Codes.

[Sidenote: The galanas of the ‘uchelwr’ 30 lbs. of silver. At a ratio of 1:12 equal to the gold mina of 200 solidi.]

The galanas of the uchelwr or breyr being 120 cows, and the cow being reckoned at three scores or ounces of silver, the galanas would equal 360 scores or ounces, or thirty pounds of silver.

The ratio of gold to silver after the temporary disturbance under Charlemagne had, as we have seen, settled down again to the Imperial ratio of 1:12.

Now thirty pounds of 7680 wheat-grains equal 230,400 wheat-grains, and this number of silver wheat-grains divided by twelve equalled exactly 19,200 wheat-grains of gold. So that this Celtic galanas of the Cymric uchelwr or breyr of 120 cows, like so many Continental wergelds, was apparently exactly equal to 200 _gold solidi_ of ninety-six wheat-grains, _i.e._ the heavy gold mina of Imperial standard.

VII. THE METHODS OF TREATMENT OF STRANGERS OR NON-TRIBESMEN.

[Sidenote: Strangers in blood how treated.]

Another point upon which special inquiry is made in this volume regards tribal methods of treating strangers in blood and slaves.

There is no subject requiring more careful investigation than the combination of circumstances out of which arose what is roughly called serfdom, _i.e._ the attachment of tenants to the land rendering services to a lord. I shall not be suspected of suggesting that tribal customs and methods were the _sole_ factors which produced serfdom and of ignoring the influences which came from Roman methods of managing landed estates, and from Roman law modified by ecclesiastical usage.

Indeed, I have insisted from the first that while, in the ‘Germania’ of Tacitus, the germs may be found of an ‘embryo manor,’ both Roman and German elements probably combined in producing the later manorial system and serfdom which grew up in what were once the Roman provinces of Gaul and the two Germanies, and even also in Britain.[56] But I think that in Cymric tribal custom we may find a fresh clue worth following in the attempt to gather from Continental evidence the methods likely to be used by conquering German or Anglo-Saxon tribes in the treatment of strangers in blood.[57]

[Sidenote: After four generations on the land they become _adscripti glebæ_ and obtain recognition of kindred.]

In Welsh tribal custom _alltuds_ or strangers and their descendants (not necessarily otherwise unfree persons) having some special circumstances in their favour, being allowed to settle within the district of a greater or lesser chieftain upon land which, in a sense, may have been his demesne land, were free to remove and settle under another chieftain, unless and until they had remained on the same land or under the same lordship for four generations. But thereafter the great-grandchildren of the original settlers became _adscripti glebæ_. And this fixture to the land, or rather to the lordship, was apparently not looked upon as in any way a degradation in rank, but on the contrary a step in advance towards the recognition of tribal rights. The great-grandson of the stranger did not indeed become a Cymric tribesman, but he gained the recognition of his status as the founder of a kindred of his own, the members of which in after-generations would, as kinsmen, be able to swear for and defend one another.

This being so in the case of free strangers coming into the country, the next question is what was the position of the semi-servile class, the _aillts_ and _taeogs_ of the Codes, who and whose ancestors for many generations had been born upon the land in a semi-servile condition?

[Sidenote: Their rights increase with growth of kindred.]

The fixture to the land of the aillt or taeog was not the special mark so much of a semi-servile condition as of his _want of recognised kindred_, and under the local custom of South Wales it seems that he too, like the alltud, could sometimes arrive at the recognition of kindred, without indeed becoming a Cymric tribesman, at the end of four generations of residence under the chieftain of the land; and even to further recognition of it, involving a still better position as to rights, at the ninth generation. The ninth man in South Wales seems according to local custom in some districts to have, at last, climbed the highest rung of the ladder, and to have attained the right to claim the status of a Cymric tribesman.

This curious rise under Cymric custom, by steps of four generations, up the ladder towards the recognition of tribal rights, seems to have a suggestive correspondence with the reverse process under manorial usage of proving the serfdom of a _nativus_ by showing that the great-grandfather was a _nativus_ on the lord’s land, the manorial rule being that settlement on servile land for four generations made the posterity of an original settler into _nativi_.[58]

[Sidenote: Want of kindred the key to their position.]

Once more let us try to realise what this meant, and what was the position of these Cymric non-tribesmen in regard to their settlement on land.

If under the guidance of the Codes we turn to the extents and surveys, we find them living, in some cases, not mixed up with the tribesmen, but in separate groups, or trefs, or trefgordds. There may be here and there exceptional alltuds or strangers of a higher class growing up, by the gradual process of intermarriage for four generations with tribeswomen, into the status of tribesmen. But the mass of the stranger class were aillts and taeogs living in separate _taeog trefs_, though, according to the surveys, sharing, often in common, certain rights of grazing over certain districts with gwelys of tribesmen. Now these groups of taeogs and aillts were, according to the Codes, as we have seen, of two classes, and we recognise the same two classes when we find in the surveys not only groups of taeogs in taeog-trefs but also gwelys of non-tribesmen.

The normal group of the taeog-tref differed from the free tref in the fact that in it no family rights were recognised. All the members of it shared in its rights and payments equally _per capita_, and not _per stirpes_. They were all liable as a body, few or many, for the whole amount of the dues to the chieftains. During their fathers’ lifetime sons shared _pari passu_ and equally with their parents, and other members of the group, in the pasture and common ploughing, except youngest sons, who remained with their fathers.

In the gwelys, on the other hand, as in the gwelys of tribesmen, there was recognition of family or blood relationships, and a patriarchal element.

There were thus under Cymric tribal custom various subordinate grades or classes. Beginning at the bottom of the ladder were:--

(1) The slaves who could be bought and sold, and who were reckoned as worth one pound of silver.

(2) The taeogs and aillts or permanent _nativi_, born non-tribesmen, without recognised family rights.

(3) Non-tribesmen growing or having grown in four generations into gwelys of non-tribesmen with recognised family rights.

(4) Strangers of exceptional position who, having married into the tribe, had become tribesmen in the fourth generation by repeated intermarriage.

And once more the fact should never be lost sight of, that the gradual growth into tribal or quasi-tribal rights was not a growth into exactly what in a modern sense would be called individual freedom. It was accompanied by the growth of ties which bound the family to the chieftain, till at the moment that at the fourth generation the recognition of rights of kindred was attained, the family found itself, as we have seen, so closely tied to the chieftain and the land that the newly recognised gwely had become _adscriptus glebæ_.

Finally, the tribal logic of the case was probably something like this:--

[Sidenote: The stranger a kinless man who has no protection but from his lord till a kindred has grown up around him.]

The free tribesman is the man who belongs to a kindred who can protect him by oath and by sword. Until a stranger has kinsmen who can do this he is an odd or kinless man, protected only by his lord. If he be killed his galanas goes to his lord; he has no recognised kin to receive it. If, on the other hand, he is charged with slaying another, he has no kin to swear to his innocence, the oath of a non-tribesman not being held good as against a tribesman. If guilty, he has no kin bound to fight in the feud for him, or to help him to pay a galanas for his crime. So that even when at the fourth generation the descendant of the alltud becomes the founder of a gwely he has gained only half the status of a tribesman. It is not till the fourth generation of descendants in the gwely, _i.e._ the seventh generation from the original settler, that a complete kindred has grown up. It is not till then that the descendant of the original alltud is surrounded by a full group of relatives, born in his great-grandfather’s gwely, whose oaths can be taken and who can protect him by oath and sword or in payment of galanas. All this time the alltud family have been more or less dependent on the protection of the chieftain, and rights and obligations are apt to be correlative.

The object of this essay is to inquire how far, in the case of other tribes, evidence may be found of the working of somewhat similar tribal instincts, resulting in customary rules more or less like those of the Cymry, so that at last, turning attention to the Anglo-Saxon laws, we may be able all the more fully to recognise and appreciate in them the traits of tribal custom, which among other factors went to the making of Anglo-Saxon England.

In the meantime, for future reference, the following list of the galanas of various classes will be found convenient:--

The chief of kindred 180 cows In Gwent and Dimetia 540, The uchelwr 120 ” and his family 180 Man with family without office 80 ” The innate boneddig unmarried 60 ” The alltud of the brenhin or chief 60 ” The alltud of uchelwrs 30 ” Bondman 1lb. of silver or 4 ” Bondman from beyond sea 6 ”