Cymry A Confederation of Tribes AD 577 Welsh Tribal law.

Cymry A Confederation of Tribes

Classes recognized in Wales.

  See  Cymry Confederation  for full definition.
 The Cymry and their Churches by D.D. Jones

The main classes recognized by the Welsh Laws may be stated to be :
(i) the royal class, consisting of the King or Kings or territorial lord, and their entourages ;
(ii) the ' boneddig ' or free-born class, the men of lineage, consisting of the ' uchelwyr ', the married freemen, and the unmarried freemen ;
(iii) the ' aillt ' or ' taeog ' class, whose freedom and rights were considerable, but not so wide as those of the freemen ;
(iv) the ' alltud ' class, men of foreign blood resident in the country ; and
(v) the ' caeth ' or bond-servant class, the slaves of other systems of law.

Classes recognized in other systems.

 In the Fragment on Ranks in the early Anglo-Saxon Laws (c. I) it is said, ' It was whilom, in the Laws of the English, that people and law went by ranks, and then were the Witan of worship worthy each according to his condition, eorl and ceorl, thegen and theoden '.

The classification varies from time to time, and the names employed differ in the Saxon and Danish districts.

For example, in the Dooms of Ine (A. D. 688-725),
we have the King, the ealdorman, the thane, the gesithcund, the ceorl ;
in the Laws of Aelfred, two centuries later, the King, the ealdorman, and three groups according to property, the twelve-, six-, and two-hynde-men ;
while in the Kentish Laws we find the King, the eorl, the ceorl, and the laet or freedman.

Notwithstanding the change of nomenclature the main divisions, however, in the Anglo-Saxon Laws are identical with those in Wales.

 In the Irish Laws there are infinite gradations of ' aire ' or chieftain status ; the free are divided into ' saerstock ' and ' daer-stock ' tenants, according to the terms of  their holding of cattle ; there is a ' fuidhir ' or foreigner class, besides the servile or slave class.
 In the Burgundian Law we find the King, the ' nobilis ', the ' persona in populo mediocris ', the ' minor persona ', the ' servus ' ; in the Lex Frisionum the ' Rex ',
the ' nobilis ', the ' liber ', and the ' litus ' ; while similar divisions existed also in the Lex Salica, the Lex Angliorum, and other Teutonic systems.

Distinction between Welsh Law and other systems.
I. There are, nevertheless, some differences.
In no system is the position of the ' foreigner ' class so clearly indicated as it is in the Welsh Law. Foreigners in blood appear in all systems, even in the Anglo-Saxon one ;
but, except on occasion, it is difficult to differentiate between the stranger in blood and race and the mere wandering stranger to a particular countryside. In Welsh Law, and in this it seems to be peculiar, no free Welshman could be a ' stranger ' in any part of Wales.= He was of the Cymry, the confederation, and was never regarded as of strange connexions.
2. Another distinction lies in the fact that, whereas all systems recognize the King or chief, the freeman, the unfree, the slave, the official, and the stranger, the Welsh Laws did not, as did some of the other systems, recognize a ' nobility ' class, separate from the freeman and possessed of higher or exclusive privileges not possessed by other freemen.  The ' uchelwr ', who in some particulars had a higher pecuniary ' worth ' than his fellows, but no other special privileges, was not in any sense a ' noble '. Whatever extra ' worth ' he had was due to no superiority of blood over other freemen.   There were, as we shall see, ' arglwyddi ' or lords in Welsh society, but the lord, as such, had no privilege not possessed by the ordinary freeman. He might have more power, but power gave him no extra status. In other words, rank and power formed no criteria of a man's status ; the criterion was birth, modified by processes of law, which conferred status by assuming birth, or which depreciated status by depriving a man of his privilege of birth.


THE KINGSHIP IN WELSH LAW
Recognition of the monarchical principle
 I. Kingship is not a necessary element in tribal law in its earliest phases.
In the most archaic survivals of the tribal organization in Europe the King does not exist. The King arose only when there was an amalgamation of tribal entities or clans
into a larger entity, and as the need of an executive arm grew. So long as society consisted of small clan entities, each one acting within its own limits executively, there was no room for a King.

How far the idea of kingship arose out of military necessities, how far it evolved out of priestly functions, what the exact relation was between kingship and tribal chieftain-ship, it would be outside the purpose of this volume to discuss. I t would also be outside that purpose to try and determine whether the executive arm of society was first expressed, as some sense of unity between clan and clan arose, in a council of chiefs or directly in kingship.
The immediate point to note is that kingship is a mark, not of a primitive society, but of a society long past the earliest stages of tribal organization, of a society seeking for
some centralized authority expressing a wider unity. The stage of development wherein the King was an essential part of society had been reached in Wales long before the laws were redacted.

2. The head of Welsh society, portrayed in the laws, was the King. There is nothing in those laws pointing to a time when the monarch was unknown. Throughout the whole of Cymric history,
 See  Cymry Confederation  for full definition.
so far as it is known to us, the King was there, the head of society, and in the ancient legends and tales of the race it is round the King that interest very largely centres. Gildas, when he tells us that there were kings among the Britons of his time, merely brings into prominence that

I. early Welsh thought could not conceive of a society without a King.
Throughout the laws there is constant emphasis on the kingly office, its importance, dignity, and necessity.
2. The constitutional aspect of Welsh kingship.

The idea of the unity of Ynys Prydain has throughout Welsh history been a living factor, and the sovereignty of Britain, with its seat in London, has always been regarded as one and indivisible. The Welsh Laws make it clear that the King of Wales
was subordinate in theory to the King at London at all times. Wales was not subordinate to England ; that was not the conception.

The conception was that Ynys Prydain was indivisible, and the ' king ' of Wales was under London, be he Brython or Saxon or Norman, who, however many sub-kings there might be in Britain, however ineffective his paramountcy might be in practice, centred in himself the indivisible unity of Britain.
To the King at London the King of Wales owed tribute of £63 per annum ; that was the concrete recognition of the unity of the island, whether the tribute was ever paid
or not.'
5 3. Likewise the laws recognized the unity of Wales, the unity of one part of many parts of the whole of Britain, Unfortunately perhaps for Wales, the conception of the
unity of Wales was not a conception of absolute unity ; that, perhaps, could only have grown up if there had been a conception of independent unity; it was a conception
of unity by federation with an acknowledged supremacy, effective or not at different times, resident in Gwynedd.

There were three different parts of Wales-Gwynedd, Powys, and Dinefwr, with their capitals at Aberffraw, Mathrafal, and Dinefwr respectively. Sometimes we get
mention of Gwent with the kingly seat at Caerleon ; but Gwent was becoming debatable territory when the laws were codified and commented on. Sometimes, too-we may almost say generally Dinefwr or Deheubarth was split up into many minor principalities ; perhaps it would be even more accurate to say Deheubarth was a geographical expression, within whose boundaries there were constantly
varying principalities ; and Powys, in later days, was divided into Powys Fadog and Powys Gwenwynwyn, but the main conceptional division was into Gwynedd, Powys,
and Dinefwr.
The boundaries of these divisions constantly changed.
One part was frequently at war with another, but at all  times there was a recognition of the ideal that, just as Cymru and Lloegr were one with a paramountcy in London, so too, though the territories were separate, yet the three were one and indivisible under a supreme sovereign with his seat at Aberffraw in Gwynedd.
The laws themselves account for the supremacy of Gwynedd by tracing it back to Maelgwn Gwynedd.
' Maelgwn ', it is said, ' became supreme King with Aberffraw for his principal court, and the earls of Mathrafal, Dinefwr, and Caerlleon subject to him and his word para-
mount over all, and his law paramount, and he not bound to observe their law.'


THE BONHEDDIGION
The officers of the ' cenedl '

In Mr. Aneurin Owen's compilation, including the Triads of Dyfnwal Moelmud, we have mention of the ' pencenedl ', the ' teispantyle ', the seven elders of kindred, the ' dialwr ' or avenger, and the ' arddelwr ' or avoucher.
Partly on the strength of these references it has been  maintained that Welsh society consisted of organized political units of persons related to one another by descent
from a common ninth ancestor.
A critical examination of these references will show, however, that there is no justification for the assertion that any of these persons, other than the ' pencenedl ', had any existence in fact.
 The  cenedl' was a tribe or clan unlimited by specified degrees of affinity.
In the Gwentian Triad there are three indispensables of a ' cenedl ', a ' teispantyle ', an avenger, and an avoucher. The ' pencenedl ' is not mentioned in this Triad, and, wherever we get the ' indispensables of kindred' mentioned elsewhere, the avoucher is conspicuous by his absence.
No mention is made in any part of the Venedotian or Dimetian Codes of the avoucher ; nor do the Anomalous Laws mention him. No indication of any sort is given as
to his duties, but it has been assumed, simply on the strength of this one Triad, which gives a different list of ' indispensables ' to other Triads, that every ' cenedl ' had an
officer responsible for avouching for a man's position and property.
2. When we come to deal with procedure we shall see there are elaborate provisions as to who could establish an ' arddelw ' or avouchment in defence, cognate in every respect to the ' vouching to warranty ' of the Anglo-Saxon Laws.
To avouch a man's innocence or to avouch for property which he claimed as his was a duty imposed on men of kin to him cognizant of the facts, provided they possessed a
certain defined status. A man who avouched for another was, in fact, a guarantor of such man, a witness of a definite social status, entitled by virtue of such status to give
testimony, and he was not in any sense of the word an official.
There were some cases in which a person avouching need not be of kin to the person whom he was supporting, but he must be cognizant of the facts to which he deposed or of the reliability of the person, the truth of whose assertion he supported.
2. A neighbour, a host might avouch in certain cases, but it is clear that there was no such person as an ' official ' avoucher.  it says that an ' avoucher ' is one
of the ' indispensables ' of kindred, all it means is that among kinsmen the duty of avouching for each other is an indispensable one.
3. The ' dialwr ' or avenger.
The word is mentioned three times, twice in the Triads of Dyfnwal Moelmud, and once in the Gwentian Triads.
In the former the avenger is mentioned as one of the indispensables of kindred along with the ' pencenedl ' and the ' teispantyle ', and his duties are said to be ' to lead the
kindred to battle and war as there may be occasion, to pursue evil-doers, bring them before the Court, and to punish them according to the sentence of the Court and
judgement of the country '. Elsewhere in these Triads it is said that the avenger is
bound to proclaim a man who kills a fellow-kinsman, a thief, and a swindler
l. In the Gwentian Triad (p. 784) he is mentioned as one of the three indispensables along with the ' teispantyle ' and ' avoucher '.  an organized kin-group is credited
with an officer who led in battle, and acted as general policeman and executioner.

3. The Gwentian Triad appears to mean simply that it was an indispensable duty of kinsmen to avenge wrongs ; and, subject to the ousting of the right of vengeance by
the jurisdiction of the King in crime, the Triad merely enunciates in common Triadic form an undoubted sentiment; but in no way can it be said that, apart from the
spurious Triads of Dyfnwal Moelmud, is there any authority for maintaining that there was an official, charged with leadership in war and the exacting of punishment and retribution, attached to a defined kin-group.
4. The Seven Elders.
5  They are referred to therein under different names, ' rhiaint ' (ancestors), and ' saith henadur ' (seven elders).
The whole of the functions ascribed to them by  the Triads of Carmotes XI and 14, and the Triads of the Social State 162, 170, 224.
Nowhere else in the laws is there any mention of the seven elders of kindred forming a body of officials assisting the ' pencenedl ', acting as legislators, or as maintaining records of kindred.  
2 . Elders of the country i.e. elders or men of standing in the neighbourhood, are
frequently mentioned in the laws as impartial men of position who attend Court with the King or lord, having certain functions in land cases, the principal one being that
of making a preliminary investigation into and report upon a claim to land, where the plaintiff sued on the basis of being entitled by ' kin and descent '.'
Men exercising these functions are never called ' elders of kindred ' in the laws, but ' elders of the country-side '. It seems that, starting from the functions of the elders
or men of position in the country-side, acting as it were as a jury of presentment, the composer of the Triads developed an official body of advisers attached to a kin-group.
3.  p. 150, ' elders of the cymwd ' are referred to as persons who were to make certain investigations and reports in boundary disputes.

  In the Venedotian Code, p. 232, it is said that, when a blood-fine is to be shared, the ' hynafgwyr e kenedloedd ', that is the senior men of the two kins, paternal and maternal, of the murdered man, are to distribute the blood-fine among those entitled to it up to the seventh degree. Here again these seniors of the ' galanaskin ' to the murdered man have nothing to do with the fictitious ' saith henadur ' who legislated, elected ' pencenedls ', and chose ' teispantyles '.
 4. We should note here too that, in the law of affiliation,  there was a rule that, when a man died and after his death the paternity of a child was sworn by the mother upon him, the child could be admitted as a kinsman by the ' pencenedl '
and seven men of kin to the father or by twenty-one or fifty men. These men are not called ' elders ', and they formed in fact a kind of jury to determine the question of
the alleged paternity. It would seem as if the author of the Triads had taken his figure ' seven ', found in the ' saith henadur ', from this fact.

$ I. Turning now to the ' teispantyle ' we have some
mention of him outside the Triads of Dyfnwal Moelmud ; but everything that is said about him appears in Triadic form.
The Triads of Dyfnwal Moelmud give a very elaborate account of the ' teispantyle ', and the whole account of his supposed functions.  which merely says that any one who kills his ' teispantyle ' was to forfeit his ancestral land, without describing who he was or what his functions were ; and the Gwentian Code, also in the later Triads attached thereto, mentions him only as an indispensable of kindred and as common to kindred,
5 I. Turning to the ' pencenedl', there is no doubt that
there was such a person, but the accounts given of him are
based very largely on the description found in the Triads.
Triads 88, 131, 162, 166, 167, 169, 171, 197. G. C. 784, 790 ; X. 326.

THE ' PENCENEDL
The Triadic account, which there is no object in reproducing, is to be found in Triads 52, 62, 67, 74, 85, 88, 162, 165, 169, 186, and 215.
It is in the Triads alone that the story appears that, after a family or clan had been resident in Wales for nine generations, and not until then, it acquired Welsh citizenship that, on such acquisition, one man-it is not clear which-in the ninth
descent from the original settler became ' pencenedl ' over all descendants of the same original settler ; and that those descendants, then and there, became a ' cenedl ', enduring as such for that generation only ; at the expiry of which it split up into new ' cenedls ', tracing descent from the sons of the original settler.
That is the key-note of the institution of the ' pencenedl ' according to the Triads, and it is largely on this description that it has been asserted that early Welsh society consisted of an aggregate of self-contained exclusive groups of men related to one another in nine degrees, altering in composition every generation.
A sort of parliamentary institution-wherein the ' pencenedl ' was spokesman ; there was equally no such thing as an ' aillt of kindred ', in the sense applied to that term
in the Triads, the author of which was ignorant of the difference between an ' aillt ' and an ' alltud '. It would, however, be superfluous to do so here, and we must leave
this fanciful description alone, simply because it is only the product of a seventeenth-century imagination, unsupported in essentials by any other authority.
To arrive at a finding as to who the ' pencenedl ' was, and what the ' cenedl ' was over which he mas head, we must  look elsewhere. Nowhere else shall we find the ' pencenedl ' regarded as the head of a body of men tracing descent in nine generations from a common ancestor.