# The Laws of Howel the Good/Glossary

GLOSSARY
agweddi, dowry. The word ' seems to mean all that the dyweddi (the betrothed woman) brings with her to the husband '. In the text, however, it is normally limited to a pecuniary sum, varying according to the status of the bride's father, which is handed over with the bride to the bridegroom on the occasion of the marriage. It remains, however, the wife's property, to be restored or forfeited, as the case may be, in certain events. The agweddi is paid in cattle in the case of a woman going away clandestinely, without consent of kindred, with a man who afterwards abandons her. The agweddi is also paid in case of rape.
alltud, foreigner. The word ' is equivalent to Anglo-Saxon el-theod' In the Latin texts of the laws, it is represented by exul, which may explain the treatment of Hengist and Horsa as exiles from Germany in the Welsh versions of the fable of the Saxon conquest. The status of every alltud in Cymru was fixed by law, as he had his own galanas and sarhad. He could give no evidence, however, against a Cymro, and some lord had to be in some way responsible for him, which lord might be a king, breyr, or a taeog. His galanas and sarhad were according to the status of this lord. It appears from the text that his descendants could be incorporated into the Cymric kindreds (p. 62).
amobr, a maiden fee, payable to her lord, when she married or had connexion with a man. Normally the amobr was paid by her father, who, however, had no need to pay should the daughter go away clandestinely without consent of kindred. See gobr merch.
arddelw, a vouchee of various kinds in defence. The term is only used in one passage in the present text.
arglwydd, lord. This word appears to be used as a general term for a superior of any kind, from arglwydd Dinevwr, the Lord of Dinevwr, to arglwydd caeth, the lord of a bondman, and even arglwydd ci, the lord of a dog. In reading the earlier and more reliable texts of the laws, one must carefully avoid ​limiting its application to ' the superior chief of a district '. In such a phrase as bradwr arglwydd for example, the arglwydd would vary according to the status of the bradwr (traitor). Given that the latter was one of the officers of the Court of Dinevwr, the arglwydd no doubt would be the powerful territorial chief known in later history as King of Deheubarth. Were he on the other hand a monk or the serf of a breyr, his arglwydd would be the abbot or the breyr as the case might be.
Argoel, called Castell Arcoyl in the Latin Vespasian E XI, where its prepositus or maer is mentioned. Mr. Phillimore identifies it with a place called Caeth Argoel, between Derwydd and Golden Grove. There are two farms in the parish of Llanfihangel Aberbythych between Derwydd and Golden Grove, called Caeth-argoed uchaf and isaf. They are roughly about 2½ miles from Castell Dinevwr. Mr. Phillimore suggests with a query that Argoel is a by-form of Aergol, the Welsh modification of the Latin Agricola, and refers to the fifth-century Aergol ap Tryffun, King of Dyved.
argyvreu, ' id est, animalia que secum a parentibus adduxit,' the animals which the wife brings with her from her parentes on the occasion of her marriage. Such is the explanation given in the earliest MS. extant of the laws, the Peniarth MS. 28 in Latin. Aneurin Owen, however, explains it as meaning ' special ornaments', and translates it into Latin as 'paraphernalia', following herein apparently the late definition given in the so-called ' Triads of Dyvnwal Moelmud', which Thomas ab Ivan of Trev Bryn in Morgannwg transcribed (according to his own account) from the ' old books ' of Sir Edward Mansell of Margam in 1685. According to this late definition, argyureit, used here in connexion with a man, means his dress, arms, and the tools of a privileged art. Following Aneurin Owen, the authors of The Welsh People write that the marriage portion of a daughter ' usually included not only things of utility for a new household, but also argyvreu (special ornaments, paraphernalia)'.
arwaesav, warranty, guarantee ; ' the person, or authority, a defendant avouches to be the guarantee of the right to property with which he is charged to be unlawfully possessed.' Aneurin Owen. Not in present text. See pp. 302, 307, supra.
bangor, ' the top row of wattles in a wattled fence.' It is still in use in this sense ' under the form mangors (with the English ​plural termination) at Gwynfe in Carmarthenshire, and from it is derived a verb bangori.' Mr. Phillimore also states 'that there is no evidence known to us that Bangor was in genuine Welsh a generic term for a monastery of any sort. No use of the word in this sense can be found before the comparatively late class of documents of which so many are printed in the lolo MSS.' As a place-name Bangor ' occurs four times in Wales and sometimes, as on the Teifi and Rheidol, at places where no monasteries are known to have existed'. The ecclesiastical signification attributed to the word is due in part to the two North Welsh Bangors (not to mention the Irish instance) being celebrated religious centres ; and also perhaps to the confusion of bangor with bangeibr (meaning primarily ' high rafters ' and so ' church'). The latter word appears in Peniarth MS. 28 in the following passage : ' Mabh eyllt maynorauc a vo bengebyr ar e tyr eiusdem precii est et mayr.' In Vespasian E XI the same passage reads ' Mabeilt mainorauc, id est, qui mainaur habuerit in qua eclesia sit, tantum est ejus galanas quantum prepositi.'
Blegywryd, described in the present text as the most learned clerk in the convention at the White House on the Tav, who, with twelve laymen, was chosen to reform the laws of Cymru. It is a striking fact, however, that his name does not appear either in the North Welsh books or in the three early Latin texts published in the Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, Vol. II. 749-907. Blegywryd is associated with that particular class of South Welsh law books written in Welsh, to which Aneurin Owen gave the name 'Dimetian Code' in order to distinguish them from that other class which he misnamed ' Gwentian Code '. These two classes would be more correctly distinguished by the names ' Book of Blegywryd ' and ' Book of Cyvnerth ' respectively. In the present text, however, which belongs to the latter class, and also in its fellow W, Blegywryd's name appears to have been substituted for that of Cyvnerth under the influence of the ' Book of Blegywryd ' more properly so called. We therefore appear to have no reference in extant MSS. either to Blegywryd or Cyvnerth before the last quarter of the thirteenth century. At first he is merely described as the most learned clerk who was called yr athro Vlegywryt, the master Blegywryd, chosen to act as a kind of secretary with the twelve most learned laymen ; and it is only in the two very late ​texts, S and Z, that his legend is found in bloom. In these he is specially chosen with the laymen in order to guard against their doing anything in opposition to the law of the Church or that of the Emperor, for in both of these he is a doctor. He is also described as archdeacon of Llandaff, and made to accompany Howel to Rome. Certain lines are quoted as having been written by him in testimony of this event. The many inaccuracies and inconsistencies however contained in this account tend to show that it is based on the fancies of a time which knew little or nothing more of him than we do to-day. Even the preface to the earliest text extant of the Book of Blegywryd, when compared with that of the early Latin Peniarth MS. 28, is seen to be by no means free from suspicion of random theorizing.
bonheddig, literally, one having a pedigree. In the early Latin texts it is represented by nobilis. The population of old Wales was broadly divided into two classes, being a division based on lineage. Those who were held to possess lineage were the bonheddigs or boneddigion, i.e. gentlemen. The term, however, was naturally more applied to the generality of this class, the more noble having special names bestowed on them, such as gwyrda (Latin optimates), &c. The ordinary bonheddig, called bonheddig canhwynol or innate bonheddig, is defined as being a Cymro on both sides and quite free from the blood of a bondman or a stranger (alltud). The genuine Cymry therefore seem to have been a kind of national aristocracy, who in course of time imposed their name on the country and people of Wales, known previously in the Latinity of the ' Dark Age ' by the names Britannia and Brittones respectively.
bragod, a liquor, said to be made of the wort of ale and mead fermented together ; in English, bragget.
breyr, a noble, representing a higher grade of the bonheddig or gentle class. According to Aneurin Owen's Index, this word is never used in the North Welsh books, where its equivalent uchelwr (lit. a high man) is the term employed. In the early Latin texts it is represented by optimas as bonheddig is by nobilis. See gwrda.
briduw, a solemn asservation, apparently over the altar, in which God is taken as witness. The term seems to be simply bri Duw, dignity of God. ​Buallt, an ancient Welsh gwlad or patria, now represented by the Hundred of Builth in the county of Breconshire. Buallt, however, was quite distinct from Brycheiniog. Buallt and the adjoining patria of Gwrtheyrnion were ruled over by Pascent, son of Vortigern, in the fifth century, these two gwlads having been bestowed on him by Ambrosius Aurelianus. The line of Pascent continued to rule after him for centuries, its representative in the time of the author of his genealogy in the Historia Brittonum being Fernmail. It is a striking fact that Buallt and Gwrtheyrnion go together in the present text. See Cyrchell and Deheubarth.
camlwrw, a fine, sometimes doubled, of three kine for various offences, paid directly to the king. In certain cases, however, a portion of the camlwrw was a perquisite of others, whilst in the case of a llan, the whole of the camlwrw appears to have been divided between the abbot and lay proprietors. See dirwy.
canghellor [Lat. cancellarius], a royal officer, appointed over a district called his canghellorship, with special juris- diction among the king's taeogs. It is carefully stated that he is not to be a pencenedl or chief of kindred, by which is probably intended that his authority is directly from the king, and does not in any way lie in his own blood origin. He is to hold the pleas of the king, and together with the maer is to keep the king's waste. It is noteworthy that our earliest MS. of the laws, Peniarth MS. 28 in Latin, differs from all subsequent texts in calling him kymellaur from a Latin original compellarius.
cantrev [lit. a hundred trevs], a hundred, the largest division of a gwlad or patria. The cantrevs varied considerably in extent ; and it may be that originally they were one and all separate gwlads, as some of them certainly were. If, as is possible, trev once represented a personal entity (being an equation of the Latin tribus), cantrev at first may have stood for an organized group of kinsmen wandering over some ill-defined territory, which subsequently came to be strictly defined and to bear the name of cantrev in a territorial sense. This, however, in the case of Wales depends on the antiquity of the division, for it may be a comparatively late importation from England or the Continent. The cantrev was divided into cymwds, which were always strictly territorial divisions, marked off from one another by a well-defined boundary, such as a river or stream. The rigid definition of cantrev, comprising two cymwds, &c., as ​given in the Black Book of Chirk and its faithful transcript, was certainly never applicable to the whole of Wales.
ceiniog, a penny. There are two kinds of pence referred to, viz. keinhawc kyfreith, the legal penny, and keinhawc cotta, the curt penny. The latter was a third less than the former, for a dimei (dimidium) was half a curt penny and a third of the legal penny. If, as Dr. Seebohm thinks probable, the legal penny is the same as that current in England in the time of Howel Dda, viz. that of thirty-two wheat grains, the curt penny therefore being of twenty-four wheat grains, then 240 legal pence would equal the pound of the nova moneta of Charlemagne, and 240 curt pence would equal the older Roman pound, or half-mina-Italica. The mina Italica of twenty Roman ounces was twice the amount of an old Roman pound of 240 scripula of twenty- four wheat grains, which survived into Merovingian times. The keinhawc cotta therefore was the equivalent of the scripulum, which was so far a common unit in Gaul as to have earned for itself the name of denarius Gallicus.
ceinion [plur. of cain], defined both in Peniarth MS. 28 and the Black Book of Chirk as the first draught of liquor which comes to the hall at a banquet, being a perquisite of the smith of a court.
cowyll, a gift payable by the husband to the wife on the morning after the marriage. According to the present text it was a pecuniary sum, given apparently as a recognition of chastity, and was not to be alienated from the wife although her fault caused the husband to leave her, but should the wife fail to discuss the subject of the cowyll on the morning after her marriage it was to be the property of both and not of the wife alone. ' Cowyll is [possibly] of the same origin as the Welsh word cawell, " a basket or creel," and to be compared with the French term corbeille de mariage.'
cyvarwys, gift, perquisite. Such at least is the sense in which the word seems to be used in the present text. The phrase kyuarus neythaur is represented by munera nuptiarum in the Latin Peniarth MS. 28. Dr. Seebohm makes much of this word in his The Tribal System in Wales, but unfortunately his remarks are mainly based on the so-called Trioedd Dyvnwal Moelmttd, transcribed in 1685 from ' old books '. He is followed by the authors of The Welsh People (206, and especially the second note). ​Cymru, Cymro, Cymraes. These are the names by which Wales, a Welshman, and a Welshwoman respectively are called in Welsh to this day. Cymru is a modern spelling for the country of Wales as distinct from the people, viz. Cymry, the latter formerly representing both. The singular Cymro stands, according to Sir John Rhys, for an earlier Cumbrox or Combrox, a compatriot, as opposed to Allobrox, Welsh allfro, a foreigner. As the name seems to have been unknown among the Brittones of the Devonian peninsula or of Britanny, it could never have comprised the whole of the Brittones or Britanni of that western Britannia which was severed into two fragments by the famous Battle of Deorham in 577. Moreover, as the name Cymry is not found accepted by the whole of what is now Wales until about the twelfth century, it is certain that a long period had elapsed before such a common national name could have won its way to general acceptance. In other words, it must have been long extant in Wales before it was finally adopted as a national name in lieu of Britannia and Brittones. There was a northern ' Cymru ' north-east of the Irish Sea (whence the modern name Cumberland), and it was from this quarter that Cunedda and his Sons migrated over the water to North Wales sometime about the commencement of the fifth century A. D., who occupied at first the land between the river Dee and the river Teify, and then pushed through the modern Carmarthenshire till they reached the Severn Sea. These were the Picti transmarini of the 'Roman' author of the Excidium Britanniae, being undoubtedly the ancestors of the Cymry, properly so called. The advent of these Combroges to Wales under Cunedda about the time that the last Roman soldier quitted this island in 407 is the beginning of Welsh national history. It was these who in process of time imposed their name on the land, people, and language of Wales. From the definition of Cymro in the present text, and as pointed out by the authors of The Welsh People, the term Cymry only included the men of pedigree and not the classes or persons subject to them. At first it was ​the dominating class alone, the free men of privileged blood, who were known by this name, those of the stock of Cunedda and his companions. The portions of Wales not occupied by them, such as the south-east, Brycheiniog, Glywysing, Gwent, &c., must still have been held by Brittones or Britanni, Scotti, and even Romani, but by the twelfth century we find the general name of Cymry (Lat. Cambria) being accepted by all.
cymwd, a division of a cantrev. A cymwd as such was intended from the first to be a strictly territorial entity, and never, as possibly in the case of a cantrev, a personal one. The present text speaks of a river as a familiar boundary between cymwds (vide p. 55). In such a case as Gwrtheyrnion we have a cymwd which appears to have been originally a gwlad, viz. the patria of the celebrated Vortigern. Perhaps, however, the original patria is here limited in area, the name being retained for a territory of lesser extent.
Cyrchell, the name of a brook, now called Crychell, which flows into another brook, called on the One Inch Ordnance Survey Map Bachell Brook, which itself flows into the Clywedog Brook, a little below Abbey Cwm Hir in Radnorshire. The Clywedog is a tributary of the Ieithon. Trachyrchell means ' beyond the Cyrchell ', and inasmuch as Buallt, which is south of the Wye, is mentioned as distinct from Deheubarth, it is reasonable to suppose that the district immediately north-east of Buallt, between the Wye and the Ieithon, is also excluded. Moreover, as ' beyond the Cyrchell ' is mentioned before Buallt, it is clear that the writer is situated east or north-east of the Cyrchell, so that trachyrchell would mean the district west of the Cyrchell and between it and Buallt, that is to say, the district of Gwrtheyrnion. See Deheubarth and Buallt.
dadannudd [lit. re-uncovering] of the parental hearth. A term for a peculiar suit at law for the recovery of patrimony held formerly by an ancestor of the claimant. There was a custom of covering the fire with ashes previous to retiring to rest, by which a smouldering fire was kept up ; in the morning it was uncovered. In this particular suit, the suitor metaphorically claims to re-uncover the fire of his ancestor's hearth.
daered appears to be the money paid with or in lieu of the dawnbwyds or food-rents, due to the king from his taeogs. Where the Latin text Brit. Mus. Cott. Vesp. E XI, written about 1250, has 'Judex curie debet habere partem viri de nummis dayret ' the Peniarth MS. 28 reads ' . . . de nummis qui ​redduntur cum cena regis.' The latter again, under the heading De daunbwyt, includes the following section, 'Si denarii redduntur X$^{cem}$ VIII$^{to}$ denarii pro unoquoque dono ; et unus denarius ministris, id est, yr daeredwyr ae kynnwllo,' which means ' to the daered-men who shall collect it'.
dawnbwyd [dawn, gift, bwyd, food] food-gifts of taeogs. According to the present text, two food-gifts were due to the king from the taeogs every year, one in winter and the other in summer. The dawnbwyd is to be distinguished from the gwestva, which last was due from free men.
Deheubarth [dehau, right, south ; parth, part], the south part of Wales, South Wales. It is the dexteralis pars, the right side looking east, as opposed to the sinistralis pars, the left side, that is, the north. Cunedda, who was one of the leaders of the Men of the North, Gwyr y Gogledd, who invaded the North Welsh coast from Cumberland and Southern Scotland about the beginning of the fifth century, and drove out the Scotti, is said in the Historia Brittonum to have come de parte sinistrali, that is, from the north. The term Deheubarth at no time stood for the whole of modern South Wales as signifying a definite patria under one king, like Gwynedd, Buallt, or Morgannwg. Deheubarth was used as a general term for that group of South Welsh patrias whose inhabitants might be described as Deheubarthwyr or Britonnes dexterales or simply Dextrales, in contradistinction to those of Gwynedd and Powys. The Deheubarth was never a gwlad, but only a district which comprised many gwlads. It is true that both in this present text and also in the Latin Peniarth MS. 28, this general term Deheubarth is used as though for a definite patria, but (as shown under gwlad) the reason is probably this, that at the time when these recensions of the laws of Howel were written the majority of the South Welsh patrias had already fallen into Anglo-Norman hands, which may have induced the writer to use the vague or general term Deheubarth in lieu of more specific ones. It appears ​indeed to have been used for that remnant of independent or semi-independent territory which was still left in the hands of the princely house of Dinevwr, but Deheubarth was never rightly the name of a definite patria or gwlad. The only other reference to Deheubarth in our present text is in the opening preface, where it is attended with considerable difficulties, for mention is made of its sixty-four cantrevs, an obviously impossible number. Indeed, the whole of this passage, wherein Howel's dominions are enumerated, is full of difficulties. The passage, which it will be convenient to quote here, is virtually the same in all the texts, with the exception of Z (Peniarth MS. 2596 of the sixteenth century). It is as follows:— ' petwar cantref a thrugein Deheubarth, a deunaw cantref Gwyned, a thrugein tref tra Chyrchell, a thrugeint tref Buellt.' According to Aneurin Owen, the MSS. U, Y, and Z place yn before Deheubarth, whilst Z changes the first a thrugein into arhugain, thus reducing the sixty-four cantrevs of Deheubarth into twenty-four, a facile alteration made by a late writer, which hardly diminishes the difficulty. We may therefore safely treat the passage as meaning 'sixty-four cantrevs of [or in] Deheubarth, and eighteen cantrevs of Gwynedd, and sixty trevs beyond the Cyrchell, and sixty trevs of Buallt '. The first point to notice is that Powys proper is clearly omitted and also the patria of Rhwng Gwy a Havren with the exception of tra Chyrchell, i.e. Gwrtheyrnion, which here, as since the days of Pasgen ab Gwrtheyrn in the fifth century, went with Buallt. Let us note further that tra Chyrchell, beyond the Cyrchell, as referring to Gwrtheyrnion, must have been used by a person speaking and writing east or north-east of the brook Cyrchell, that is to say, by a person living in the patria of Rhwng Gwy a Havren or possibly in Powys proper ; at any rate within that part of Wales which the writer carefully excludes as belonging to Howel's dominions. The fact that Buallt is mentioned after 'tra Chyrchell ' strengthens the argument. Our present author therefore (possibly Cyvnerth ab Morgeneu) appears to be outside the Deheubarthwyr or Dextrales, and it may be that he is one of the Powyssi. The next point is the number of cantrevs given to Deheubarth and to Gwynedd, sixty-four to the former and eighteen to the latter. As there were never sixty-four cantrevs in the whole of Wales, and as the highest number given to Gwynedd in the old lists is eleven, it is clear that there must be some error in the text. If we assume for a moment that the original of this passage in our preface was in Latin, the word ​cantref would have appeared as pagus, as in the preface of Peniarth MS. 28. Indeed, further on in this Latin text we find pagus, id est, cantref. But pagus is also made to stand for cymwd, as in the early Latin text, Harleian MS. 1796, e.g. fines pagi, i. chemut. Consequently it is possible that our cantrevs may be a mistranslation of pagi, meaning cymwds, and that what is meant to be said is that Howel's dominions included sixty-four cymwds of [or in] Deheubarth and eighteen cymwds of Gwynedd [plus Gwrtheyrnion and Buallt or parts thereof]. Now in the three old lists of the cantrevs and cymwds of Wales, there are variations in those of Gwynedd, chiefly because certain of these divisions were debatable ground between Gwynedd and Powys, and partly also owing to the errors of scribes who misread some cymwds under wrong cantrevs because of the proximity of one name to another. There can be no doubt, however, that the following were universally acknowledged to be intrinsic parts of Gwynedd, namely, the six cymwds of Anglesey and the eleven cymwds of Arllechwedd, Dunoding, Meirionydd, Lleyn, and Arvon. Penllyn with its three cymwds also appears in each of the three old lists, but it is a striking fact that Penllyn with its two cymwds proper, Uwch Meloch and Is Meloch, were and are in the Diocese of St. Asaph, whilst the third cymwd, Nanconwy, was and is in that of Bangor. We may therefore fairly conclude from what evidence we have that Gwynedd comprised eighteen undisputed cymwds, viz. the seventeen enumerated above plus the cymwd of Nanconwy. And it seems as though it were to this undisputed Gwynedd that the text alludes. With regard to the sixty-four cymwds of [or in] the Deheubarth, the special reference to ' trachyrchell ' makes it amply clear that the patria of Rhwng Gwy a Havren is not in our author's mind to be included in that designation. There remain therefore (excluding Buallt mentioned separately) the gwlads or patrias of Ceredigion, Dyved, Ystrad Tywi, Brycheiniog, and Morgannwg with Gwent. The first four comprise fifty-two cymwds, and the last about twenty-five, exclusive of Cantrev Coch between the Wye and Gloucester. ​That there was some aggression on the part of Howel against Morgannwg with Gwent is clear from the dispute between him and King Morgan mentioned in the Book of Llandav (247-9), a Welsh translation of which precedes the Cwta Cyfarwydd list of the cymwds and cantrevs of Wales. The dispute was settled by King Edgar years after Howel's death, and was concerned at that time only with the two cymwds of Ewyas and Ystrad Yw, which were regarded as parts of Gwent. It may be therefore that Howel laid claim to the whole of Gwent, and that our author includes it within that Deheubarth over which Howel's rule extended. It is very noticeable in this connexion that Howel's grandson, Einion, is described in the Brut y Tywysogion as having Brycheiniog and all his territory ravaged by the Saxons, and as having afterwards being murdered through the treachery of the nobles of Gwent, which certainly suggests his authority in the far south-east. This seems to show that the House of Howel Dda claimed some jurisdiction over Gwent. Morgannwg minus Gwent, of course, or at least some portion of it, is, in the light of the entry in the Book of Llandav clearly exempt, so that it appears hopeful that a minute research may still reveal what exactly were the sixty-four 'pagi' of the Deheubarth which acknowledged Howel Dda as their supreme lord. It is noticeable, as already shown by Mr. Phillimore, that it is only the law books of our present class, the Book of Cyvnerth, which carefully avoid describing Howel Dda as King of all Wales (kymry oll). Our author indeed appears anxious to exclude Howel's jurisdiction from Powys, and not only from Powys proper but also from the patria of Rhwng Gwy a Havren, and the Perveddwlad or ' middle country ' ​between the river Conway and the river Dee, which Gwynedd afterwards claimed. This apparent anxiety would certainly indicate that he was a Powysian, who, although anxious to preserve the integrity of Powys itself, yet fully recognizes Howel's work for ' Kymry benbaladyr' in inviting six men from every cymwd in Cymru to the Ty Gwyn to assist in reforming Welsh law and custom.
dilysdod, certainty, assurance, acquittance. In our present text it is a term for a portion of the compensation to be made to a woman by her ravisher. In the early Latin texts we have dylesruyt, the modern dilysrwydd, and ius suum and ius suum plenarie, after which last Brit. Mus. Vespasian E XI in one passage adds, id est, y diweirdep, that is, her chastity. It appears as though it were a payment which guaranteed to the woman the retention of her status as a virgin or chaste woman in the sight of the law. See gwaddol.
Dinevwr, near Llandeilo fawr, in the valley of the Tywi in Carmarthenshire, where, its ruins still crown the summit of a hill overshadowing the town, a distance of twelve miles from Carmarthen. ' The form Dynevor (with the accent on the first syllable) is of course a mere English barbarism ; and the application of the name ' Dynevor Castle ' to the residence now so called is a modernism, that mansion having been till recently called Newton in English, and Drenewydd (still in common use in the neighbourhood) in Welsh.' In all the earlier South Welsh law books Dinevwr appears as a leading royal court in the Deheubarth. In the Book of Blegywryd, Dinevwr is an eistedua arbennyc, a principal seat or throne, under the King of Deheubarth, as Aberffraw under the King of Gwynedd. It is also mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis in the last quarter of the twelfth century as formerly one of three principal courts in Wales, the others being Aberffraw and Shrewsbury. He tells us elsewhere that the principal court of South Wales was at Caerlleon at first, before it was removed to Dinevwr, but in both places he speaks as though Dinevwr was no longer a principalis curia. As he says the same, however, of Aberffraw, he is obviously thinking of that one Wales of his imagination united under Rhodri Mawr, which that king (such was the notion) ​disintegrated by dividing it among his three sons who had their principals curiae at Aberffraw, Dinevwr, and Shrewsbury respectively. This we may dismiss at once as being the very reverse of the course of Welsh history. Every patria or gwlad must once have had its own curia principalis, and it is only after the fall of every gwlad in South Wales except Ceredigion and Ystrad Tywi prior to circa iioo that Dinevwr comes into prominence. It is first mentioned in the boundaries of Llandeilo Fawr in the Book of Llandav (78), where it is called gueith tineuwr, the 'work' of Dinevwr in the probable sense of fortifications. No reference is made to it in the Mabinogion collection of tales and romances, whilst in the Brut y Tywysogion its name appears for the first time not until the year 1161, where, however, it is clearly mentioned as a well-known stronghold. Every king in the Deheubarth having fallen, with the exception of the King of Ystrad Tywi and Ceredigion, it is only natural that his curia principalis should assume a unique position in Welsh eyes. Dinevwr does not become historic until it stands alone as the stronghold of the last great native princes of South Wales.
dirwy, a fine, sometimes doubled, of twelve kine paid directly to the king. A triad in the Latin text written about 1250 reads ' De tribus fit dirwy, scilicet, de pugna, furto, treiss ', according to which dirwy is due for fighting, theft, and rape.
diwyneb [lit. faceless], having no face in the sense of ' power to blush '. It is used in some parts of Wales to-day for one who is without a sense of honour. In the triad in our present text, the effect intended appears to be somewhat as follows. There are three shameless ones in every patria, shameless, impudent, unabashed—and yet we cannot do without them : a lord, a priest, and law.
ebediw, a heriot. A relief payable to a superior lord for investiture of land on the occasion of a death. If the investiture fee had been paid during the lifetime of the holder of land, no ebediw was to be exacted. The sum varied according to the status of the persons concerned.
edling [A.S. aetheling], the king's successor, the 'crown prince ' so to speak, who was to be a brother, son, or nephew ​(brother's son) to the king. It is noticeable that in this way succession through the mother such as prevailed among the Picts in Bede's time was carefully guarded against. Traces of this Pictish mode of succession, as in use in old Wales, are found in the Mabinogion and elsewhere. In Peniarth MS. 28 the edling is called givrthrych; in the present text the royal issue are termed gwrthrychiaid, the word edling being confined to the particular gwrthrych who was to succeed the king.
enllyn, what is to be eaten with bread. In the Latin texts printed by Aneurin Owen it is sometimes left untranslated and at other times represented by such Latin equivalents as pulmentum. In Vespasian E XI we have ' Precium regalis cene est libra : dimidium libre de pane ; et LX denarii pro potu ; et LX pro dapibus aliis, id est, enlyn.'
erw [lit. what has been tilled], a measurement applicable to arable land. It seems to have varied in extent. According to the present text,
According to the Latin Peniarth MS. 28,
galanas, murder and murder-fine. It varied in amount according to the status of the individual murdered. The murderer was assisted in paying by his kindred to the fifth cousin, whose liabilities were fixed by law. The fine undoubtedly originated as a means of obviating the feud to which our present text refers under the term dial, vengeance. As galanas implied insult, disgrace, injury (sarhad), sarhad was always to be paid with the galanas. See sarhad.
gobr, a reward, fee. Latin, merces.
gobr estyn, investiture fee. In Peniarth MS. 28 in the passage corresponding to that in which this expression occurs in our present text, gobr estyn is represented by kynhasset, left untranslated. In the late fifteenth-century text of the Book of Blegywryd, denominated S, the same passage appears as follows. ​'Y neb atalho kynnassed o tir ny thai ebediw pan vo marw. Sef yw kyghassed gobyr estyn.' (Whoever shall pay kynnassed for land is not to pay ebediw when he shall die ; kyghassed is gobr estyn.)
gobr gwarchadw, fee for custody. A fee of 120 pence paid by a returned exile for the custody of his hereditary land-property which is now granted him by his kindred to whom the gobr gwarchadw is paid.
gobr merch, maiden fee. See amobr.
gorvodog. ' A surety for any person accused of crime ; as " mach " signified a surety for debt or compact.' Aneurin Owen.
gorvodtrev appears twice only in the present text, where it is defined as the thirteenth of the thirteen free trevs of a free maenor. It appears also to be said that there is some difference between it and the normal trev with regard to its rhandirs. MS. U makes this difference to consist in the addition of the gwrthtir, by which gwrthtir is probably meant the adjoining land. Moreover MS. U, which makes no reference to the maenor of thirteen trevs, defines the gorvodtrev as the third of every trev of the [bond] maenol, and adds that it is unlawful that there should be other than three taeogs in each of the two other trevs. As this last is reminiscent of the three rhandirs of a taeogtrev, one of which is to be pasture ground for the other two, and as the whole of this passage in U appears to be slovenly done (the form maenawl disclosing the influence of North Welsh books which differ considerably as to these areas), the evidence of this MS. may not unnaturally be regarded with suspicion. Aneurin Owen quotes a gloss in the margin of MS. M (Peniarth MS. 33 of the early fifteenth century), which reads 'Sef yw goruotref, tref uchelwyr heb swydoc arnei heb swydoc o hony ' (A gorvodtrev is a trev of breyrs without an officer over it, without an officer from it) ; which definition somewhat confirms the idea suggested by our present text that the gorvodtrev pertained to the free maenor alone and not to that of the taeogtrevs. Another definition is found in Peniarth MS. 278 (based on an early fifteenth-century text) as printed by Aneurin Owen, in ​a passage which runs thus : ' Rheit hagen yr gwarcheitwat cayl aminiogeu tir a gwyr gorfotref. i. aminyogeu y tir yn y gylch, y gadw y tir ganthaw.' (The conservator however must have land borderers and men of a gorvodtrev, that is, borderers from the land around him, to keep for him his land.) A still later definition reads : ' Sef yw gorvotref, randyred a gvnvller o drevi vchelwyr agyfvarvo ev tervynev a thervyn y dref y bo y datlev yndy. Ac o ray hynny y kayr amynyogav tyr.' (A gorvodtrev means the rhandirs which shall be brought together from the breyr-trevs whose boundaries touch the boundary of the trev wherein the disputes may be. And it is from those that land borderers are procured.) Dr. Seebohm accepts this statement as representing the true meaning of the word.
gwaddol, marriage portion. ' Gwaddol = gwo-dawl (Irish fo-dail; Latin divisio) is a portion or dowry as a division of something.' The word is very rare in the law books, and only occurs once in our present text. It is not easy to say what exactly was meant by gwaddol, but it appears as though it comprised at least the agweddi and the argyvreu. In MS. X, however, it appears to be identified with the argyvreu alone (p. 305 supra). According to our present text, a man who failed to rebut a charge of rape on a woman walking alone, was to pay the woman her gwaddol, which in the corresponding passage in Latin is given as ius suum and ius suum plenarie, id est, y diweirdep in Peniarth MS. 28 and Vespasian E XI respectively. From the last it seems as though the gwaddol was paid as a mark of the woman's diweirdeb or chastity. See dilysdod.
gwarthal, something to boot. The passages in the text seem to mean that there is no 'boot ' where one has had his choice of shares, or, in other words, supposing that your share was assigned you without your having a free choice, you might then, and then only, ask for something to boot (see p. 203, note I supra).
gwelygordd, the stock of a family, some of whom might be living in another gwlad, retaining their rights in the original bit of land from which they sprang. The term is not used in our present text, but only in an addition found in U (p. 316 supra).
gwirawt yr ebestyl, liquor of the apostles. ' Liquor distributed on feast days of the apostles,' so says Aneurin Owen.
gwestai, guest ; in Latin Peniarth MS. 28 hospes. In addition ​to the twenty-four officers there were twelve gwestais in the king's retinue. These thirty-six rode on horseback. The authors of The Welsh People (204) think it probable that the twelve gwestais were the persons who brought in the gwestva or entertainment dues.
gwestva, a king's entertainment dues from his free men, being analogous to the dawnbwyd or food-gifts due to him from his taeogs or villeins. The gwestva was paid twice yearly, once in winter and again in summer. From the present text one might suppose that the payment was the same on both occasions, save that in summer silver and horse provender were not provided. The money equivalent of the food supplied from every trev from which the king's gwestva was due was one pound, viz. 120 pence for the bread, 60 pence for its enllyn, and 60 pence for the liquor. If the food were not supplied at the proper time, this money equivalent was to be paid. As this proper time is definitely stated to be winter, it would appear as though it were not unusual to supply money instead of food in this season ; perhaps not so in summer. The 24 pence paid with the winter gwestva is the gwestva silver, aryant y givestttaeu in which sundry officers participated. Gwestva is represented in the Latin Peniarth MS. 28 by cena, from which comes the civynnossawc of our text through cvvyn + nos, evening meal, supper. See twnc.
gwlad, a patria. Gwlad might be translated ' country ' and even ' state ', but the former is too indefinite and the latter too modern for the purposes of our present text. Gwlad implies both the definite territory which is held by a ' people ' and also the ' people ' itself organized into a polity. Pre-Norman Wales (or Britannia as it was called) was not itself a gwlad, but a group of gwlads, somewhat like Germany before 1870. Dyved, Gwynedd, Powys, Morgannwg, &c. (which now make up the single gwlad or patria of Wales), would be as distinct from one another as Wessex, Kent, Mercia, and the rest of the gwlads or patrias which formerly made up what is now the single gwlad or patria of England. By the time that the earliest of the Welsh law books, now extant, were written, the Anglo-Normans had filched a number of these patrias, especially in South Wales. Morgannwg with Gwent, Brycheiniog, and Dyved were gone. Ceredigion was left, and also the interior of the old patria of Ystrad Tywi, that is, the land around Dinevwr. This probably is the reason why our texts adopt the vague term Deheubarth, dextralis pars (speaking of it as a gwlad), in lieu of the well-known and well-marked names of the South Welsh patrias. It may be that by the gwlad, Deheubarth, our text means no more than the remnant ​of Ystrad Tywi around Dinevwr, plus Ceredigion. Deheubarth, Gwynedd, Powys, and Lloegr (England) are mentioned as four distinct gwlads in the present work. The Latin Peniarth MS. 28 of the late twelfth century quotes the same passage, viz. ' Homo de Powyss ab homine de Gwynet, similiter de Deheubarth, et de Anglico, in suo sayrhaed non habet nisi tres uaccas et III$^{es}$ untias argenti.' In the preface also of the same early and important text are mentioned the Gwynedoti, the Powyssi, and the Dextrales. Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth are also distinguished in the North Welsh books of the MS. A type. This seems to fix the earliest recensions which we possess of the Laws of Howel Dda to a period subsequent to the fall of the majority of the South Welsh gwlads, that is, roughly speaking, subsequent to the end of the eleventh century.
gwrda, a noble ; in the Latin texts optimas. See breyr.
gwyl [Lat. vigilia], a festival. G. Giric, June 16 ; G. Ieuan y Moch (St. John of the Swine), August 29 ; G. Badric, March 17 ; G. Vihagel (St. Michael), September 29; G. yr Holl Seint (All Saints), November 1 ( = Calan Gaeaf, the Calends of Winter).
Gwynedd, roughly equivalent to North West Wales inclusive of the three counties of Anglesey, Carnarvon, and Merioneth. See Deheubarth.
gwyr nod, nod-men. ' The term gwr nod (literally, man of mark) is very ambiguous. Sometimes it looks as if it meant a taeog or aillt' Not in present text. See p. 312 supra (U 27 b).
llan. In the early Breton Vita Pauli Aureliani we gather that the old meaning of llan was monastery, e.g. Lanna Pauli id est monasterium Pauli. In the Vita Gildae, c. 27, we have also coetlann interpreted as monasterium nemoris, which, whether it be right or no, shows that llan to the writer meant monastery. The numerous llans of old Welsh place-names, therefore, signify the monasteries of those whose names generally follow them, e.g. Llangolman, the monastery of Colman, and so on. The llan would naturally include under its name the lands and rights which pertained to it. Llan in process of time came also to mean a church, but as a rule in the present text eglwys (ecclesia) is used for a church. On p. 114 llan and eglwys appear to be in some sense contrasted, for the llan has an abbot and the eglwys has lay proprietors, whose duty is to protect it.
land maer. See maer biswail.
Llyfr Cynog, the Book of Cynog, referred to both in the ​Latin Vespasian E XI and in the Book of Blegywryd in connexion with the same passage as in the present text. Consequently it must have been a work current as early at least as the middle or first half of the thirteenth century. The first seventy-six folios of Peniarth MS. 35 (called G) of the last quarter of the thirteenth century profess to contain the Book of Cynog, or at least part of it, for they close with the words ' Ac yuelly y teruyna Llyuyr Kynawc ' (And so ends the Book of Cynog). According to Dr. Gwenogfryn Evans, Aneurin Owen made no use of the greater part of this text.
mab aillt [lit. a shaven fellow], a villein. Not in present text. See p. 307 above (X 217 a 16-20), 313 (U 36 b). See taeog.
maenor. This word should be carefully distinguished from the English manor, to which it is often assimilated ; maenor appears to come from maen, a stone. ' Originally it probably meant a particular spot in its district, which was distinguished by stone buildings or some sort of stone walls.' ' Maenor occurs in one of the documents in the Book of St. Chad . . . written in the Mercian hand of the time of King Offa. . . . Even our English historians will hardly be prepared to sustain the hypothesis that the Welsh borrowed a Norman-French word prior to A. D. 800.' Two kinds of maenor are distinguished in the present text, the maenor of the free trevs and the maenor of the taeogtrevs. In the Book of Blegywryd (as the so-called 'Dimetian Code' may perhaps more correctly be called), the two kinds of maenor are referred to thus : ' Seithtref a vyd ym maenawr vro ; teir tref ardec a vyd ym maenawr vrthtir.' (Seven trevs are to be in a maenor vro ; thirteen trevs are to be in a maenor wrthdir.) If the maenor vro and the maenor wrthdir are the same as the bond and free maenor respectively, then it would seem as though the maenor of the lowlands were occupied by taeogs and that of the uplands by free men. On the basis of the present text, the following tables may be drawn up :—
3 rhandirs = 1 taeogtrev
4 rhandirs = 1 free trev 13 free trevs = 1 free maenor
7 taeogtrevs = 1 maenor of taeogtrevs. The maenor of thirteen trevs is not referred to in MS. U, and the form maenawl appears in lieu of maenawr; which shows the influence of North Welsh books on this particular text. ​maer [Lat. maior], a royal officer, appointed over a district called his maership, with special jurisdiction over the king's taeogs. Deriving his authority wholly from the king, he is probably for this reason never to be pencenedl or chief of kindred, whose authority comes from the kindred, being based primarily on blood origin. He is to demand all the king's dues within his maership, and is also with the canghellor to keep the king's waste. In Peniarth MS. 28 he is described in one place as ' propositus regis, id est, mayr castell '.
maertrev. This term only occurs once in our present text in connexion with the maer biswail or land maer, so that it appears to be the trev with which this officer was specially connected. The passage, however, appears as follows in Peniarth MS. 28 : ' Debet quoque mercedem de filiabus uillanorum de uillis curie adiacentibus,' where our gwyr y vaertref are equated with the villani de villis curiae adiacenttbus. In MS. U they are called tayogeu y llys, the taeogs of the court ; and in the Book of Blegywryd they are described as 'y bilaeineit afwynt y mywn maer trefi y llys ' (the villeins who are within the maertrevs of the court). The maertrev, therefore, appears to have been a trev of a king's taeogs, situated near his court.
maer-ty or maerhouse. This word is mentioned four times in the present text, always in connexion with cattle gwartheg y maerdy, the cattle of the maerhouse. In one case the maer-ty is not that of a king but of a breyr. The maer referred to is the maer biswail [lit. cow-dung maer] or land maer.
maer biswail or land maer. The literal meaning of the Welsh term is 'cow-dung maer', a term used to distinguish him from the maer proper, who was of higher status. The galanas of the latter was 189 kine, with three augmentations; that of the land maer was only 126 kine with three augmentations. He appears to have superintended the maertrev with special regard to the king's cattle.
marwdy, the house with its appurtenances of a person who dies intestate, which on this account escheats to the lord.
nod-men. See gwyr nod.
pennaeth, chief, king. This word is represented by rex in the corresponding passages in the Latin Peniarth MS. 28.
prid, price, value, equivalent, payable in certain circumstances for land. ​rhaith. ' Originally it seems to have been used to signify the notion conveyed by the juridical terms, ius, droit, recht. It is cognate with German recht and English right ', and is represented in Irish by the neuter recht, which is as if we had in Latin, besides rectus, -a, -um, a neuter rectu, genitive rectus.' Rhaith might be translated compurgation, for if a person were put to his rhaith, he was required to bring forward so many men to swear on his behalf. ' Oath was the primary mode of proof, an oath going not to the truth of a specific fact, but to the justice of the claim or defence as a whole. The number of persons required to swear varied according to the nature of the case and the rank of the persons concerned.'
rhandir [rhan, share ; tir, land], a division of land containing 312 such erws as are described in the text (see Erw). The complete rhandir was to comprise clear and brake, wood and field, wet and dry, except (if the text be thus interpreted correctly) in the case of the gorvodtrev. There were to be four rhandirs in the free trev, and three in the taeogtrev, one rhandir in both cases being pasturage for the remainder. Should a dispute arise between two trevs as to a boundary, the area which could be legally appropriated was always to be less than a rhandir.
sarhad, insult and insult-fine. If the person who committed sarhad was unable to pay, his kindred were legally bound to pay along with him, but only till the third degree of kinship, and not to the fifth cousin as in the case of galanas. See galanas.
taeog, a villein. The word is of the same origin as ty (house). The inhabitants of old Wales were divided into two main divisions, those of pedigree (boneddigion) and those of no pedigree. The taeogs were the most privileged in the latter division, preceding in status both the alltuds and the caethion (slaves). The word taeog is of very rare occurrence in the books of the Black Book of Chirk type, the designation of the villein in this text being commonly what would now be spelt mab aillt, a word of still rarer occurrence in the other law books. In the Latin Peniarth MS. 28 taeog is represented by villanus. There were two ranks of taeogs, those of a king and those of a breyr. The galanas and sarhad ​of the latter were half those of the former. The taeogs had special trevs set apart for them called taeogtrevydd, seven of which constituted a [bond] maenor. They paid two dawnbwyds or food-gifts yearly to the king, and were subject to sundry other services. A taeog became a free man if a church were built with the king's consent on his taeogtrev, or if the king raised him to be one of his twenty-four officers, or if he became a tonsured clerk. See mab aillt.
taeogtrev, a trev of taeogs, as distinguished from a trev ryd or free trev. It comprised three rhandirs only, one of which was pasturage for the other two. Seven taeogtrevs made a bond maenor. The word taeogtrev does not seem to be found in the Book of Gwynedd, of which the Black Book of Chirk is the exemplar. In the Latin Harleian MS. 1796, however, of the first part of the thirteenth century, a text which seems to reflect the laws and customs of Gwynedd, rusticana uilla is equated with taiauctret for taiauctref.
teithi, qualities or properties ; the properties which pertain to anything in the sense in which the law requires that thing to be understood. For instance, when the law mentions a cat whose legal worth is four legal pence, it is to be understood that the cat is to be perfect of claw, perfect of sight, &c., which are its teithi.
trev, the Welsh equivalent of the Old English -ton and -ham, the Danish -by, represented in the Latin Peniarth MS. 28 as commonly in the Latin of medieval times, by the word -villa. The trev according to the present text consisted of rhandirs of 312 erws each ; the Peniarth MS. 28 adds that the twelve erws of this number were for buildings. The free trev contained four rhandirs, and the taeogtrev contained three. In both cases one rhandir was to be pasturage for the rest, which last were to be inhabited. Each of the two inhabited rhandirs of a taeogtrev was to contain three taeogs. It appears that the number of houses (tei) in a trev varied, but in the passage where a thief is to escape punishment, if able to show that he has traversed three trevs in a day, with nine houses in every trev, without obtaining relief, it looks as though a trev of nine houses was normal. It is also incidentally suggested in the present text that the houses were built close together, for the owner of a house which was burnt through negligence was to pay for the first two houses ​destroyed by that fire, which probably refers to the two houses one on each side. Trev-names meet us frequently in Wales, as names ending in -ton or -ham do in England. Trev in modern Welsh is used for town, the modern trev being to the medieval trev what the modern town is to old -ton.
trevtad, patrimony, represented in the Latin Peniarth MS. 28 by hereditas. It is the trev which descends to the sons through the father, the word trev in this case not bearing the rigid sense of an area of four rhandirs, &c., but rather that of a definite plot of habitable ground on which the sons might continue to live. This idea seems to be conveyed by the interesting use of the word in the triad of the free huntings, where the pursuit of a roebuck, fox, and otter, is free to all in every gwlad or patria, the reason being that these three creatures have no trevtad, which word is represented in the early Latin text by certa mansio. May it not therefore be that the exact meaning of trevtad is the certa mansio which is the son's due through his father after the latter's decease ?
trevgordd is represented in the Latin Peniarth MS. 28 and Vespasian E XI by the expression communis villa. In the latter our bugeil trefgord appears as pastor communis ville, id est, trefgord. In a later text, we find the following statement, ' Llyma fessur trefgordd cyfreithiawl : naw tei, ac un aradyr, ac un odyn, ac un gordd, ac un gath, ac un ceilyawc, ac un tarw, ac un bugeil.' (This is the complement of a legal trevgordd : nine houses, and one plough, and one kiln, and one churn, and one cat, and one cock, and one bull, and one shepherd.) This statement, however, is not found earlier than the beginning of the fifteenth century. In the present text the trevgordd is associated with cattle ; and in one passage in particular, where reference is made to damaged corn bordering on a trevgordd (yn emyl trefgord), it would appear as though trevgordd were a special kind of trev in which cattle belonging to various individuals pastured in common, with a common herdsman and a common bull. We have also a reference to the bath of a trevgordd, and the smithy, which last was to be nine paces from the trevgordd itself. ​twnc, the money equivalent of the king's gwestva from every free trev. It amounted to one pound. See gwestva.
Ty gwyn ar Dav [Alba Domus, the White House on the Tav], 'identified by far-reaching tradition with Whitland in Carmarthenshire.' One would suppose from the religious character of the convention, as described in the early prefaces, that it was a monastery, the word gwyn bearing some such meaning as holy or blessed, and one would be inclined to compare it with Bede's Ad Candidam Casam (Whitern in Galloway), notwithstanding his different explanation of candida. According to Blegywryd's preface, however, it was a hunting lodge constructed of white rods, for which reason it was called white ; whilst the late texts S and Z state that the Ty gwyn was so called because it was one Gwyn, the maer, who owned the house in which the law was made, hence Gwyn's house ! This Gwyn is converted into one of the twelve laics set apart to make the law, their secretary being Blegywryd, or Bledrws, here described as Archdeacon of Llandaff !
Vnbeinyaeth Prydein, the monarchy of ' Britain ', the name of the song which the bard of the household had to sing before the host in the day of battle and fighting. It must not be supposed, however, that unbennaeth Prydain refers to the island of Britain, although Ynys Prydain is the common Welsh name for the whole island, being equivalent in meaning to insula Britannia. Prydain and Britannia are in no way etymologically related, and their confusion has been the source of endless misconceptions relative to the origins of Welsh and indeed of British history. Ynys Prydain means Picts' Island, and was equated with insula Britannia, with the natural result that Prydain was equated with Britannia. This last word again, Britannia, had various meanings. To a geographer, it would mean the island of Britain ; to a Roman official, the Roman province of Britain, south of the walls ; and lastly (what is not so well known), it meant Wales plus the Devonian peninsula, and afterwards Wales alone. Before about the twelfth century Wales bore the common name of Britannia, ​and its inhabitants that of Brittones. In the genuine Epistola Gildae, the Historia Brittonum, Asser's Alfred, the Vitae of the Saints, and the Book of Llandav, this use of the term Britannia is amply attested ; and the earliest text extant of the Laws of Howel Dda, viz. the Latin Peniarth MS. 28, which Aneurin Owen entitles Leges Wallice, is entitled in the text itself Leges Brittanie. The song ' Vnbeinyaeth Prydein ' therefore means Monarchia Brittaniae, i.e. the monarchy of Wales, and must be taken as reflecting that aspiration after Welsh political unity which was increasing throughout the centuries amid the numerous patrias of the Welsh kin.
wynebwerth [wyneb, face; werth, worth] face-worth, a fine payable to a woman when insulted by her husband, as when he had connexion with another woman.
* ↑ The Welsh People, 211, note 3.
* ↑ Ibid., 191, note i.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 878.
* ↑ Owen's Pembrokeshire II. 421.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 795.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 475, 493, 567.
* ↑ p. 209.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. i no.
* ↑ Y Cymmrodor XI. 83, note 3.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 769, 879; and p. 307 supra (X 217 a 16-20). See also Silvan Evans's Geiriadur Cymraeg.
* ↑ S = Brit. Mus. Addl. MS. 22,356, of the late fifteenth century. Z = Peniarth MS. 259B, of the first half of the sixteenth century.
* ↑ MS. E, however, a faithful copy of A, the earliest MS. extant of the laws in Welsh, quotes a specific case where the law of Howel is contrary to that of the Church. Anc. Laws I. 178.
* ↑ Mommsen's Chronica Minora III. 192.
* ↑ V 36 b 2i-3 on p. 88.
* ↑ Seebohm's Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law, 14, 15.
* ↑ Anc. Laws I. 72; II. 764.
* ↑ The Welsh People, 212, note.
* ↑ The Welsh People, 26.
* ↑ Only in the twelfth century it begins to be adopted as a national name in the Brut y Tywysogion, s. a. 1134 (Oxford Brut, 309).
* ↑ p. 350, note 1; Y Cymmrodor IX. 182, 183 ; Mommsen's Chronica Minora III. 33, 156. The Picti transmarini of the pseudo-Gildas were not necessarily the supposed ' non-Aryans ' to which the term is more strictly applied, but simply invaders or immigrants from beyond the Wall.
* ↑ 117, note 1.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 11135 Seebohm's Tribal System in Wales, 82.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 758, 785, 821. Cf. also I. 534.
* ↑ Mommsen's Chronica Minora III. 205. Mr. Anscombe regards Cunedag in this passage as standing for Cuneda g[uletic]. Sir John Rhys, however, informs me that Cuneda certainly did not originally end in a.
* ↑ Preface to Peniarth MS. 28. Anc. Laws II. 749 ; Annales Cambriae in Y Cymmrodor IX. 160, 162.
* ↑ As for example in MS. D, viz. Peniarth MS. 32 of about A. D. 1380, where reference is made to Rieinwc ( = Dyved), Morgannwg, and Seisyllwc ( = Ceredigion plus Ystrad Tywi). Anc. Laws II. 50 ; cf. also 584.
* ↑ Anc. Laws I. 620.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 749 ; and p. 1 in Introduction.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 750.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 895.
* ↑ Brit. Mus. Doraitian A VIII. (Leland's Itinerary in Wales, ed. L. T. Smith, 1906, pp. 1-5); Cwta Cyfarwydd (Y Cymmrodor IX. 325-33) ; Oxford Brut II. 407-12.
* ↑ St. Asaph of course is the diocese of Powys, and Bangor that of Gwynedd. Penllyn, outside the three old lists, is generally regarded as a cymwd. Egerton Phillimore in Owen's Pembrokeshire 1. 2 15, III. 215, &c.
* ↑ Adding Y Garn to the Brut list and Elved to that of Domitian A VIII, and omitting Trevdraeth and Pebidiog (cymwd) from that of the Cwta.
* ↑ Y Cymmrodor IX. 325-6.
* ↑ ' y diffeithwyt Brecheinawc a holl gyfoeth Einawn uab Owein y gan y Saeson '; ' y lias Einawn uab Owein drwy dwyll gan uchelwyr Gwent.' Oxford Brut) pp. 262-3. In the fragmentary list of cantrevs from the Liber Abbatis de Feversham (Hall's Red Book of the Exchequer II. 1896) there appears the following curious notice :— ' Homines autem de Lydeneye interfecerunt dominum suum scilicet Ris filium Oeni filii Howelda.' As Lydney is in the Cantrev Coch (Forest of Dean), the presence of the House of Howel there goes to confirm the above argument.
* ↑ Gwent and Gwynllwg, according to the Cwta list, contained twelve cymwds which would complete the sixty-four required. Gwynllwg lay between the lower courses of the Usk and Rhymni.
* ↑ Owen's Pembrokeshire III. 220.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 794, 847, 850.
* ↑ Egerton Phillimore in Y Cymmrodor IX. 45.
* ↑ Anc. Laws I. 346.
* ↑ Gerald's Itinerary through Wales I. ch. 10 ' Fuerant enim antiquitus tres principals in Wallia curiae,' &c.
* ↑ Gerald's Description of Wales I. ch. 4.
* ↑ Oxford Brut, 323, 'Ac yna y cymerth Rys ab Gruffud y Kantref Mawr a Chastell Dinefwr.' On the derivation of Dinevwr see Y Cymmrodor IX. 44-6.
* ↑ Brit. Mus. Cott. Vespasian E XL See Anc. Laws II. 842.
* ↑ Rhys's Celtic Folklore, 634.
* ↑ The Welsh People, 36 et seq. See also my introduction to the ' Brychan Documents' in Y Cymmrodor XIX.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 765, 783, 827.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 784.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 781.
* ↑ viz. Brit. Mus. Addl. MS. 22356.
* ↑ Anc. Laws I. 546, whence the above is taken with the changes directed by the notes.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 1116.
* ↑ Ibid. I. 768 ' eithyr goruotref ageiff y gwrthtir yn ragor' (but the gorvodtrev has the gwrthdir besides).
* ↑ See Appendix, p. 319 ; also Anc. Laws I. 768, note 28
* ↑ Anc. Laws I. 769, note b ; Report on MSS. in Welsh I. 366.
* ↑ This is R. Vaughan's transcript of Peniarth MS. 164 of the early fifteenth century. Report on MSS. in Welsh I. 1098.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 283, from Peniarth MS. 175 of the late fifteenth century.
* ↑ Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law, 35.
* ↑ The Welsh People, 211, note 3.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 794, 850.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 1118.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 789.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 749.
* ↑ The Welsh People, 236, note 4. Cf. Anc. Laws II. 1118.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 889.
* ↑ Ibid. I. 484.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 210.
* ↑ Report on MSS. in Welsh I. 367-8.
* ↑ The Welsh People, 218, note 2.
* ↑ Mr. Egerton Phillimore in Y Cymmrodor XI. 57.
* ↑ Anc. Laws I. 538.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 769.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 767.
* ↑ Ibid. I. 684.
* ↑ Ibid. I. 392.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 750, 764.
* ↑ The Welsh People, 205, note 1.
* ↑ Pollock and Maitland, English Law (2nd ed. 1898) I. 39.
* ↑ Cf. V 22 a 6-7 with Anc. Laws II. 814 (last section of Peniarth MS. 28).
* ↑ The Welsh People, 191, note 1.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 893-907. See especially p. 894 concerning the kings in Wales who ' debent accipere terram illorum a rege Aberfrau'.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 901.
* ↑ Ibid. 11.784.
* ↑ Vide W 65 b 7-14 on p. 64 supra.
* ↑ pp. 131, 133, 275 supra.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II, 774.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 771, 841.
* ↑ Ibid. II. 692, being Vaughan's transcript of an early fifteenth-century text. (See note to gorvodtrev, p. 340).
* ↑ V 34 b 19-24 (pp. 84, 230 supra).
* ↑ V 44 b 24. After gefeil, W and X insert trefgord. Anc. Laws I. 780.
* ↑ An interesting passage on the trevgordd will be found by Dr. Seebohm in his Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law, 34-40. but in the
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 893.
* ↑ The Welsh People, 155. That the Tav is the river of that name in Dyved is stated in the preface to the Book of Blegywryd.
* ↑ Bede's Ecclesiastical History III.
* ↑ Anc. Laws I. 339, 342.
* ↑ The Welsh People, 76.
* ↑ The Epistola Gildae is to be carefully distinguished from the Excidium Britanniae of the pseudo-Gildas, i.e. the first twenty-six chapters which were originally written towards the end of the seventh century. Celtic Review (Edinburgh) for 1905.
* ↑ Anc. Laws II. 749, where Brittannie is for Brittanie.
Footnotes