The land of a taeog-trev was, as already said called 'register land' [242]—tir cyfrif. [p198]
There were other incidents marking off the taeog from the free Welshman. He might not bear arms;[243] he might not, without his lord's consent, become a scholar, a smith, or a bard, nor sell his swine, honey, or horse.[244] Even if he were to marry a free Welsh woman, his descendants till the fourth, and in some cases the ninth degree, remained taeogs. But the fourth or ninth descendant of the free Welsh woman, as the case might be, might at last claim his five free strips, and become the head of a new kindred.[245]
Incidents to their tenures.
Even the taeog was, however, under these laws, hardly a serf. With the exception of his duty to assist the lord in the erection of buildings, and to submit to kylch, i.e. to the lord's followers, being quartered upon him when making a 'progress,' and to dovraith, or maintenance of the chief's dogs and servants, there seems to have been no exaction of menial personal services.[246]
Food-rents.
The taeogs' dues, like those of free Welshmen, consisted of fixed summer and winter contributions of food for the chief's table. In Gwent they had to provide in winter a sow, a salted flitch, threescore loaves of wheat bread, a tub of ale, twenty sheaves of oats, and pence for the servants. In summer, a tub of butter and twelve cheeses and bread.[247]
These tributes of food were called 'dawnbwyds,' gifts of food, or 'board-gifts,' and from these the taeog or register land is in one place in the Welsh laws called tir bwrdd, or 'board-land' (terra mensalia, [p199] or 'mensal land' [248]), a term which we shall find again when we come to examine the Irish tribal system.
The caeth or slave.
Lastly, it must not be forgotten that beneath the taeogs, as beneath the Saxon geneat and gebur, were the 'caeths,' or bondmen, the property of their owners,[249] without tyddyn and without land, unless such were assigned to them by their lord. These caeths were, therefore, not settled in separate trevs, but scattered about as household slaves in the tyddyns of their masters.