The English Village Community / Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)

by Frederic Seebohm

Thus in the twelfth century there were in Wales distinct survivals of a tribal economy. Instead of a system like the Saxons, of village communities and townships, the Welsh system was evidently a tribal system in the later stages of gradual disintegration, tenaciously preserving within it arrangements and customs pointing back to a period when its rules had been in full force.

But the Welsh codes must be further examined before the significance of the Domesday entries can be fully appreciated.

III. THE WELSH LAND SYSTEM ACCORDING TO THE WELSH LAWS.

Laws of Howel in the tenth century.

The Welsh version of the ancient laws of Wales contains three several codes: The Venedotian of North Wales, the Dimetian and Gwentian of South Wales. They profess to date substantially from Howel dda, who codified the local customs about the middle of the tenth century. They contain, however, later [p190] additions, and the MSS. are not earlier than the end of the thirteenth century. There is a Latin version of the Dimetian code in MS. of the early part of the thirteenth century, which is especially valuable as giving the received Latin equivalent of the Welsh terms used in the laws. And there are also, apart from these codes, triads of doubtful date, but professing to preserve traditional customs and laws of the Welsh nation before the time of the Saxon conquest of Britain.[221]

For the present purpose the actual date of a law or custom is not so important as its own intrinsic character. We seek to gain a true notion of the tribal system, and an economically early trait may well be preserved in a document of later date.

Saxon and Welsh systems contemporary.

There is no reason why we should be even tempted to exaggerate the antiquity of the evidence. The later the survival of the system the more valuable for our purpose. The Saxon and Welsh systems were contemporary systems, and it is best to compare them as such.

It would appear that under this tribal system a district was occupied by a tribe (cenedl) under a petty king (brenhin) or chief.

Free tribesmen of tribal blood.