Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law / Being an Essay Supplemental to (1) 'The English Village Community', (2) 'The Tribal System in Wales' - Frederic Seebohm

Let us take a hypothetical case in which the gwely of X is described by the surveyor as holding an undivided share of the rights of pasture, &c., in a particular villata or in several villatæ; and assume that, according to the record, the internal divisions of the gwely followed the family division of the descendants of X, as in the following table. Then, applying the rules of the clauses as to tir gwelyauc, let us see how it would work out in the hypothetical case stated.

Now let us suppose that X (the great-grandfather, from whom the gwely is called the gwely of X) is dead. While his sons A and B are alive they share equally in the grazing and other rights. When A is dead and so long as B is alive no change is made except that A’s two sons share equally their father’s right to which, in the phrase of the codes, they have ‘ascended.’ B at length dies. There are five grandsons, first cousins, who have a right to share in the rights of the gwely of X per capita. There is now therefore a rearrangement after which A’s sons share and hold jointly only 2-5ths, while B’s three sons hold jointly 3-5ths. Equality per capita among grandsons has now been effected. But the gwely goes on. It cannot be broken up because in another generation the great-grandsons may require a fresh division.

The process is a continuous one.

Next let us see what happens when all the grandsons are dead and the final division per capita takes place. There are nine great-grandsons. Is the gwely of X now to be divided into nine new gwelys? Certainly not. The grandsons of A are entitled to 3-9ths only, and this they divide per capita, being first cousins; one family takes 1-3rd and the other 2-3rds. The portion which has fallen to them of family rights in the gwely of X has become a separate gwely, called either the gwely of A or, as we sometimes find in the Denbigh Survey, the ‘gwely of the grandsons of A’—‘gwely weiryon A.’ The other portion has become either the gwely of B or the gwely of the grandsons of B—‘gwely weiryon B.’

The grandsons of B, being first cousins, have of course redivided their 6/9ths equally per capita, and the internal rights of the gwely of the grandsons of B are

Bᵃ’s two children have 2/6ths.	} of 6/9ths.
Bᵇ’s three children have 3/6ths.
Bᶜ’s one son has 1/6th.

They cannot break up the gwely of ‘the grandsons of B’ because they are not second cousins. But when all of them are dead, their children will be second cousins and may do so, and then three new gwelys will be formed in the same way as above, and so on for ever. The process is continuous and always within the same rules of ‘tir gwelyauc.’

This seems to be the state of things as regards succession within the gwely resulting from the rules laid down in the Codes and found at work by the surveyors of the Lordship of the Honour of Denbigh. But we must remember that, apart from these rights of succession, each tribesman on becoming a tribesman had been the recipient of his da, and so had had cattle of his own all along in the common herd.