IV. LAND DIVISIONS UNDER THE WELSH CODES.

There were, then, these two kinds of holdings—those of the free tribesmen, of 'family land,' and those of the taeogs, of 'register land.' There remains to be considered the system on which the holdings were clustered together.

The holdings grouped for payment of the food-rent or tunc pound.

The principle of this it is not very easy at first to understand, and the difficulty is increased by a confusion of terms between the codes. But there is one fact, by keeping hold of which the system becomes intelligible, viz., that the grouping seems to have been based upon the collective amount of the food-rent. The homesteads, or tyddyns, each containing its four free erws, were scattered over the country side. But they were artificially grouped together for the purpose of the payment of the food-rent, or tunc pound in lieu of it. And by following the group which pays the [p200] 'tunc pound' as the unit of comparison, the at first conflicting evidence falls into its proper place.

In the Venedotian Code the maenol is this unit. In the Dimetian and Gwentian Codes this unit is the trev.

In North Wales the maenol the unit for food-rent.

According to the Venedotian Code of North Wales,[250]

The cymwd or half-hundred of twelve maenols.

The cymwd was thus a half-hundred, and each cymwd had its court, and so was the unit of legal jurisdiction. At its head was a maer and a canghellor, the two officers of the chief who had jurisdiction over it.

The twelve maenols in the cymwd were thus disposed:—

 1free maenol for the support of the office of maer.
 1free maenol for the support of the office of canghellor.
 6occupied by 'uchelwrs,' or tribesmen.
—
Making 8free maenols of 'family land,' from each of which a gwestva or tunc pound was paid.
The other 4maenols were 'register land' occupied by aillts or taeogs, paying 'dawn bwyds.'
—
12in the 'cymwd.' [251]

Now, it must be admitted that all this singular system, arranged according to strict arithmetical rules, looks very much like a merely theoretical arrangement, plausible on paper but impossible in practice.

It will be found, however, that there is more [p201] probability, as well as reason and meaning in it, than at first sight appears.

Threescore pence of the tunc pound to each trev.

In the first place, as regards the twelve maenols making up the cymwd, there is no difficulty; four of them were taeog maenols and eight were free maenols. But there is an obvious difficulty in the description of the contents of each maenol. Taken literally, the description in the Venedotian Code seems to imply that every maenol was composed of four trevs, each of which contained four gavaels composed of four randirs, each of which contained four tyddyns composed of four erws. But in this case the maenol would contain nothing but tyddyns—nothing but homesteads!—there would be no arable and no pasture. This cannot be the true reading. A clue to the real meaning is found in a clause which, after repeating that from each of the eight free maenols in the cymwd the chief has a gwestva yearly, 'that is a pound yearly from each of them,' goes on to say, 'Threescore pence is charged on each trev of the four that are in a maenol, and so subdivided into quarters in succession until each erw of the tyddyn be assessed.' [252]

Four gavaels or holdings in each trev.

Now, from this statement it may be assumed that there must be some correspondence between the number of pence in the tunc pound and the number of erws in the maenol, otherwise why speak of each erw being assessed? But, according to the foregoing figures, there would be 1,024 erws in the maenol.[253] [p202] Each trev, which thus contains 256 erws, is to pay threescore pence. How can 256 erws be divided into quarters till each erw is assessed? Dividing the trev by four we get the gavael of sixty-four erws, and threescore pence divided by four is sixty farthings. It is evident that sixty farthings cannot be divided between sixty-four erws. But if we suppose each trev to contain four homesteads or tyddyns, then the gavael[254] of sixty-four erws would be the single holding belonging to a tyddyn or homestead, and the four erws in the actual tyddyn (which are to be free erws) being deducted, then the sixty farthings exactly correspond with the remaining sixty erws forming the holding of land appendant to the tyddyn, and each erw would pay one farthing. We may take it then as possible that each Venedotian maenol contained four trevs, paying sixty pence each, and that each trev was a cluster of four holdings of sixty erws each, in respect of which the holders paid sixty farthings each to the gwestva, holding their actual tyddyns free.

A group of sixteen homesteads paid the tunc pound.

In other words, each of the eight free maenols contained sixteen homesteads, which sixteen homesteads were first classified in groups of four called trevs. Or, to put the case the other way, the eight free maenols, were divided into quarters or trevs, and these trevs again each contained four homesteads.

It is evidently a tribal arrangement, clustering the homesteads numerically for purposes of the payment of gwestva, and probably the discharge of other [p203] public duties, and not a natural territorial arrangement on the basis of the village or township.

In South Wales the trev is the unit for gwestva.

Turning now to the Dimetian and Gwentian Codes, according to which the free trev instead of the maenol is the gwestva-paying unit:[255] there is first the group of twelve trevs (instead of twelve maenols) under a single maer, and under the name of maenol instead of cymwd; but apparently all the trevs in the group of twelve[256] are free trevs. There are other groups of seven taeog-trevs making a taeog-maenol, and the maenol (instead of the cymwd) has its court, and becomes the unit of legal jurisdiction.[257]

Confining attention to the free maenol, the first thing to notice is that each of the twelve free trevs of which it was composed paid its gwestva, or tunc pound in lieu of it. The trev, therefore, was the gwestva-paying unit.

And as to the interior of the trev we read,—

'There are to be four randirs in the trev, from which the king's gwestva shall be paid.'

'312 erws are to be in the randir between clear and brake, wood and field, and wet and dry, except a supernumerary trev [the upland has in addition].' [258]

In this case the 'tunc pound' of 240d. was paid by each trev of 4 randirs, each randir containing 312 erws, and the trev 1,248 erws in all. The trev in South Wales is, therefore, slightly larger than the [p204] Venedotian maenol. Here we are bound by no law that the pence in the gwestva should exactly correspond with the number of erws. But in the other versions the 12 odd erws in the randir are stated to be for 'domicilia,' [259] or buildings, and 12 erws would allow of 3 tyddyns of the requisite 4 erws each.

This fixes for us the number of homesteads or tyddyns in the trev. There were 3 tyddyns to each randir, and 4 randirs to the trev, and so there were 12 tyddyns in each trev, and to each tyddyn there were appendant 100 erws in the arable, pasture, and waste.

The trev a cluster of twelve holdings, each paying an ounce or score of silver, so between them the tunc pound.

The trev which paid its tunc pound of 240d. was thus made up of 12 holdings, each paying a score pence. And as in the Latin version of the Dimetian Laws (p. 825) a score pence is translated uncia argenti, the connexion is at once made clear between the system of grouping the holdings so as to pay the tunc pound, and the monetary system which prevailed in Wales, viz., that according to which 20d. made an ounce, and 12 ounces one pound. The 12 holdings each paying a score of pence, or ounce of silver, made up between them the tunc pound of the trev.

The tribal households shifted among the holdings.

This curious geometrical arrangement or classification of tyddyns and trevs, with an equal area of land to each, is at first sight entirely inconsistent with the division of the family land among the heirs of the holder, inasmuch as the great grandchildren when they divided the original family holding must, one would suppose, have held smaller shares than their great [p205] grandfather. And there is only one answer to this. It would have been so if the tribe, and the families composing it, were permanently fixed and settled on the same land, and pursuing a regular agriculture, with an increasing population within certain boundaries. But the Welsh were still a pastoral people, and, as we shall see when we come to examine the Irish tribal system, while the homesteads and land divisions were fixed, the occupants were shifted about by the chiefs from time to time, each sept, or clan, or family receiving at each rearrangement a certain number of tyddyns or homesteads, according to certain tribal rules of blood relationship of a very intricate character.

This permanence of the geographical divisions and homesteads, and shifting of the tribal households whenever occasion required it, was only possible with a pastoral and scanty population. Long before the fourteenth century the households were settled in their homesteads, geometrical regularity had ceased, and the land was divided and subdivided into irregular fractions. This is the state of things disclosed in the Record of Carnarvon. But in the tenth century, according to the Welsh laws, the old tribal rules were apparently still in force.

The clustering of households the distinctive mark of the tribal system.

Without pretending to have mastered all the details of these obscure tribal arrangements, the point to be noted is that the scattering of the tyddyns all over the country side, and the clustering of them by fours and sixteens, or twelves, into the group which was the unit paying the gwestva or tunc pound, and again into clusters of twelve or thirteen[260] under a [p206] maer, as the unit of civil jurisdiction, were obviously distinctive features arising from the tribal holding of land, and that the system was adopted apparently to facilitate the division of the land among the families in the tribe somewhat in the same way as in the open field system the division of the arable land by turf balks into actual erws facilitated the division of the ploughed land among the contributors to the plough team.

Bearing this in mind we may now turn back to the Domesday Survey, and compare its description of the land system of Gwent and Archenfield with the results obtained from the Welsh laws.

In order, however, to make this comparison the Welsh terms must be translated into Latin, otherwise it will be difficult to recognise the trev, and maer, and maenol, and gwestva in the Domesday description.

Latin equivalent of tribal words in the Domesday Survey.

The before-mentioned Latin version of the Dimetian Code, the MS. of which dates from the early thirteenth century, will do this for us.[261]

It translates trev, the unit of the tunc pound, by villa. It takes the Welsh word 'maenol' as equivalent to manor, and indeed it did resemble the Saxon and Norman manor in this, that it was the unit of the jurisdiction of each single steward or villicus of the chief. This officer was called in Welsh the maer, which was translated into the Latin præpositus. He did to some extent resemble the English præpositus, but he differed in this—that instead of being set over the 'trev' or 'villata' of a single manor, [p207] the Welsh maer was, as we have seen, set over a number of 'villas' or trevs—thirteen free trevs or seven taeog-trevs, in Gwent—each free trev of which rendered its 'tunc pound' or 'gwestva,' and each taeog or villein-trev its 'dawn-bwyd' of food.

Now, this is precisely what is described in the Domesday Survey of Gwent.

The clusters of villas under a præpositus paying food-rent.

There are four groups of thirteen or fourteen 'villas' or trevs, each group under a 'præpositus' or maer; and these four groups, which were in fact Gwentian 'maenols,' rendered as gwestva a food-rent amounting to 47 sextars of honey, 40 pigs, 41 cows, and 28 shillings for hawks.

In the district of Archenfield the clusters of trevs do not appear, but the food-rents were similar—honey being a marked item throughout.

Honey rents.

In the Welsh gwestva, also, honey was an important element. It is mentioned as such in the Welsh codes, and it is conspicuous also in the Domesday Survey both of Gwent and Archenfield.

Importance of honey.

Its importance is shown by the fact that in the Gwentian Code a separate section was devoted to 'The Law of Bees.' It begins as follows:—'The origin of bees is from Paradise, and on account of the sin of man they came from thence, and they were blessed by God, and, therefore, the mass cannot be without the wax.' [262]

The price of a swarm of bees in August was equal to the price of an ox ready for the yoke, i.e. ten or fifteen times its present value, in proportion to the ox.

Honey had, in fact, two uses, besides its being the [p208] substitute for the modern sugar—one for the making of mead, which was three times the price of beer; the other for the wax for candles used in the chief's household, and on the altar of the mass.[263] The lord of a taeog had the right of buying up all his honey;[264] and in North Wales, according to the Venedotian Code, all the honey of the king's aillts or taeogs was reserved for the court.[265] The mead brewer was also an important royal officer in all the three divisions of Wales.

It is not surprising, then, that the tribute of honey, which formed so important a part of the Welsh gwestva, should be retained as an item in the tribute of the trevs of Gwent after their conquest by Harold.