Distinguishing, then, the tref as a taxable area from the trefgordd, and still confining attention to the trefgordd as a cluster of homesteads united for the practical purpose of occupation, let us recur to the things which bound the trefgordd into one group, viz. the one plough, the one oven, the one churn, the one bull, and the one herdsman.
Here are the two elements combined of pastoral and agricultural co-operation, and the trefgordd is the local and physical unit of this co-operation.
The unit of co-operative dairy farming. The common herdsman and his dog.
Taking first the pastoral element, the trefgordd was a working unit of co-operative dairy-farming. The cattle of several households or individuals were put together in a common herd with a common bull and under the care of a common herdsman (bugeil) and his dog. It may be regarded as a group of the homesteads of the persons in charge of such a herd, and the tribesmen of a gwely may have cattle in the herds of more than one trefgordd.
Three things were ‘ornamental’ to a trefgordd, ‘a book, a teacher versed in song, and a smith (gov) in his smithy;’ but a trefgordd herdsman was an ‘indispensable’ of the hendrev,[37] and, when engaged with his herd in summer on the mountain, his ‘three indispensables’ were ‘a bothy, his herdsman’s dog, and a knife;’ and the three indispensables of his bothy were a roof-tree, roof-supporting forks, and wattling, and he was at liberty to cut them in any wild wood he pleased.[38]
So far, then, as the pastoral element was concerned, the trefgordd was occupied by a little group of tribesmen engaged in dairy-farming having charge of cattle in a common herd, with a common bull, and under the care of a common herdsman and his dog.
The herd of 24 kine.
Custom, grown out of traditional experience of what a single herdsman and his dog could manage, had determined, it seems, the size of the normal herd. Thus in the Gwentian Code[39] we are told that ‘a legal herd of cattle is 24 kine.’ And custom tenaciously adhered to tribal rules in such matters.
Thus in the Denbigh Extent it is mentioned that the whole villata of Arquedelok was in manu domini by reason of escheats and exchanges, and that a portion of it was let ad firmam to nine firmarii, each of whom held for a term of years 31 acres, with one bull and 24 cows, paying per annum 73s. 4d., and rendering to the lord at the end of his term the said bull and cows or their price, together with the land and a house built thereon.[40] Here, even in a case in which Henry de Lacy was introducing into Wales holdings and herds in severalty, and very possibly introducing English tenants, he adhered to the Welsh tribal rule of the one bull and 24 cows to the herd. So also in the survey of St. David’s, under the head Glaston in Breconshire, the number 24 of grossa animalia is spoken of as the usual number ab antiqua consuetudine, and in the arrangement of common pasture one great animal is said to count as equal to twelve sheep.
The normal herd of the trefgordd was then 24 cows, or their equivalent in bullocks and sheep.