VI. THE AMOUNT OF THE CYMRIC GALANAS.
The galanas and the saraad distinct things.
In all the Welsh Codes the galanas, as already mentioned, is described in a peculiar form. It is a combination of two items, viz. the saraad, or payment for insult, and the galanas proper.
Thus the galanas of the innate boneddig, or young tribesman, accepted by the kindred as a tribesman of nine descents of Cymric blood, is described as ‘three kine and three score kine,’ that of the uchelwr or breyr as ‘six kine and six score kine.’
The explanation of this is obtained from the following passage:—
What is the galanas of the breyr without office? Six kine and six score kine. The six score kine is the galanas and the six kine is for saraad of the corpse.[51]
So also in the Gwentian Code:—
When a married man shall be murdered his saraad is first paid and then his galanas, for the wife has the third of the saraad, and she has no part of the galanas.[52]
So also in the Venedotian Code:—
No one is killed without being first subjected to saraad. If a man be married, let a third of the man’s saraad be given to his wife and let the two shares be placed with the galanas, and after that let the galanas be divided into three shares and let the third share go to the lord as exacting third.[53]
The wife shared in the saraad of her husband, not in the galanas.
The reason why the wife has a share in the saraad and not in the galanas has already been explained. She suffers from the personal affront or insult to her slain husband and shares in the saraad. But she has no blood relationship with her husband, and only the husband’s kindred are therefore entitled to share in the galanas, as her husband’s kindred alone would have been concerned in the feud.
The saraad and the galanas were therefore separate things and subject to separate rules, though both payable on the murder of a tribesman. The galanas proper is what must be regarded in any comparison with Continental wergelds.
That of the ‘uchelwr’ 120 cows; of the young tribesman 60 cows.
The real galanas of the uchelwr or breyr, apart from the saraad, was 120 cows, and that of the young innate boneddig who had received his da but had no family was 60 cows. In one of the Codes his galanas when married is said to be 80 cows.
Now in what currency was the galanas paid? Formerly, according to the Codes, all payments were made in cattle, and the galanas proper was reckoned in scores of cows.
But of what cow? How was the normal cow for practical purposes to be defined? It is a question worth answering, because we may probably take the Cymric method, of valuing the cow as a unit of currency in cattle, as at any rate suggestive of the methods generally adopted by other tribes.
Description of the normal cow.
According to the Venedotian Code the cow was of full normal value when in full milk and until her fifth calf.
And if there be any dispute concerning her milk, she is to be taken on the 9th day of May to a luxuriant place wherein no animal has been before her, and the owner is to milk her without leaving any for the calf, and put the milk in the measure vessel, and if it be full twice a day that is sufficient; and if it be not, the deficiency is to be compensated by oatmeal until the feast of St. Curic, thence until the feast of St. Michael by barley meal, and from thence until the calendar of winter by rye meal.
Others say that the worth of the milk deficient in the measure is to be returned to the possessor of the cow; if half the milk be deficient, half the worth; if a third of the milk, a third of the worth; and that is the best mode.[54]
Then the milk measure is described thus:—
The measure for her milk is, three thumbs at the bottom, six in the middle of the vessel, and nine at the top, and nine in its height diagonally (enyhyd en amrescoeu), and the thumb whereby the vessel is to be measured (in case of dispute) is the breadth of the judge’s thumb.
In the Dimetian Code substantially the same rules are given, except that the measure of the cow’s milking is smaller.
The measure of a vessel for a cow’s milk is nine thumbs at its edge, and three at the bottom, and seven diagonally from the off-side groove to the near-side edge in height.[55]
The only difference is between the seven and the nine thumbs of diagonal measurement. Possibly there may be some error in the figures, and the measure may have been the same in both Codes.
Returning to the galanas; although it was reckoned in the Codes in scores of cows, a fixed equation had already been made between cows and silver.
The cow reckoned as three ‘scores’ or ounces of silver.
The normal cow was equated in the Codes with ‘three scores of silver.’ And in the Latin version of the Dimetian Code the ‘score of silver’ is translated by ‘uncia argenti.’ The score of silver at the date of the Code was therefore an ounce of silver. So that the reckoning is the Frankish or Anglo-Saxon one of twenty pence to the ounce.
The score of pence of 32 wheat-grains would make the ounce of 640 wheat-grains: that is, the ounce of the pound of 240d., or 7680 wheat-grains—the pound in use in England after the time of Kings Offa and Alfred, and at the date of the Codes.
The galanas of the ‘uchelwr’ 30 lbs. of silver. At a ratio of 1:12 equal to the gold mina of 200 solidi.
The galanas of the uchelwr or breyr being 120 cows, and the cow being reckoned at three scores or ounces of silver, the galanas would equal 360 scores or ounces, or thirty pounds of silver.
The ratio of gold to silver after the temporary disturbance under Charlemagne had, as we have seen, settled down again to the Imperial ratio of 1:12.
Now thirty pounds of 7680 wheat-grains equal 230,400 wheat-grains, and this number of silver wheat-grains divided by twelve equalled exactly 19,200 wheat-grains of gold. So that this Celtic galanas of the Cymric uchelwr or breyr of 120 cows, like so many Continental wergelds, was apparently exactly equal to 200 gold solidi of ninety-six wheat-grains, i.e. the heavy gold mina of Imperial standard.